Various - The Best Of Antonio Vivaldi (LP, Compilation, Stereo)

Description

The Four Seasons (Italian: Le quattro stagioni) is a group of four violin concerti by Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, each of which gives musical expression to a season of the year. These were composed around 1718–1720, when Vivaldi was the court chapel master in Mantua. They were published in 1725 in Amsterdam, together with eight additional concerti, as Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione (The Contest Between Harmony and Invention). The Four Seasons is the best known of Vivaldi's works. Though three of the concerti are wholly original, the first, "Spring", borrows patterns from a sinfonia in the first act of Vivaldi's contemporaneous opera Il Giustino. The inspiration for the concertos is not the countryside around Mantua, as initially supposed, where Vivaldi was living at the time, since according to Karl Heller they could have been written as early as 1716–1717, while Vivaldi was engaged with the court of Mantua only in 1718. They were a revolution in musical conception: Vivaldi represented flowing creeks, singing birds (of different species, each specifically characterized), a shepherd and his barking dog, buzzing flies, storms, drunken dancers, hunting parties from both the hunters' and the prey's point of view, frozen landscapes, and warm winter fires. Unusually for the period, Vivaldi published the concerti with accompanying sonnets (possibly written by the composer himself) that elucidated what it was in the spirit of each season that his music was intended to evoke. The concerti therefore stand as one of the earliest and most detailed examples of what would come to be called program music—in other words, music with a narrative element. Vivaldi took great pains to relate his music to the texts of the poems, translating the poetic lines themselves directly into the music on the page. For example, in the middle section of "Spring", when the goatherd sleeps, his barking dog can be heard in the viola section. The music is elsewhere similarly evocative of other natural sounds. Vivaldi divided each concerto into three movements (fast–slow–fast), and, likewise, each linked sonnet into three sections.

Release Info

Artist: Various
Label: Warner Classics
Format: LP, Compilation, Stereo
Country: Germany
Label: Warner Classics
Released: 2024-03-22
Genre: Classical
Style: Baroque

Tracklist

A1 The Four Seasons: Violin concerto in E major “Spring” (“La primavera”), Op. 8 No. 1, RV 269: II.Largo e pianissimo sempre
A2 Flute concerto in D major “Il gardellino”, Op. 10 No. 3, RV 428: I. Allegro
A3 Gloria in D major, RV 589: I. Gloria in excelsis Deo
A4 Lute concerto in D major, RV 93: II. Largo
A5 L’estro armonico: Violin concerto in A minor, Op. 3 No. 6, RV 356
A6 Stabat Mater in F minor, RV 621: I. Stabat Mater dolorosa
A7 The Four Seasons: Violin concerto in F major “Autumn” (“L’autunno”), Op. 8 No. 3, RV 293: III.Allegro
B1 The Four Seasons: Violin concerto in G minor “Summer” (“L’estate”), Op. 8 No. 2, RV 315: III.Presto
B2 Concerto for two mandolins in G major, RV 532: II. Andante
B3 L’estro armonico: Concerto for four violins in B minor, Op. 3 No. 10, RV 580: I. Allegro
B4 L’estro armonico: Concerto for two violins in A minor “Per eco in lontano”, Op. 3 No. 8, RV 522:
B5 Flute Concerto in G minor “La notte”, Op. 10 No. 2, RV 439: VI. Allegro
B6 The Four Seasons: Violin concerto in F minor “Winter” (“L’inverno”), Op. 8 No. 4, RV 297: II. Largo
B7 Giustino, RV 717: “Vedo con mio diletto”(Anastasio)