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The Four Seasons - Winter
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Browse piano sheets by Antonio Vivaldi on Zen Virtual Piano. Antonio Vivaldi was born in Venice on March 4, 1678, and died in Vienna on July 28, 1741, an Italian composer and violinist who left a decisive mark on the form of the concerto and the style of late Baroque instrumental music. Antonio, the eldest child, trained for the priesthood and was ordained in 1703, the year he was appointed violin master at the Ospedale della Pietà, a home for foundlings. A violinist’s son who trained for the priesthood and became violin master in the year of his ordination seems to have had two callings from the start. The Pietà trained its female wards in music, and those with aptitude were assigned to its choir and orchestra, whose much-praised performances assisted the institution’s quest for donations. Performances praised enough to help raise donations make the Pietà’s orchestra look like both a school and a public showcase. His first and most influential set of concertos, Opus 3, L’estro armonico, was published in Amsterdam in 1711. The four solo violin concertos of The Four Seasons (Le quattro stagioni) are musical depictions of sounds and experiences associated with spring, summer, winter and fall, one concerto for each. Vivaldi added to the programmatic titles what he called “sonnet dimostrativo” (“illustrative sonnets”), with specific lines cued to corresponding musical passages in each movement. Because the lines of verse are keyed to passages in each movement rather than to the movement as a whole, the listener can follow the poem passage by passage. The set is an example of what later became known as program music: purely instrumental compositions intended to depict specific objects and ideas. In Winter, the first movement, “Allegro non molto,” depicts the body’s response to cold, with opening bars in a chilly minor punctuated by quick, nattering string passages meant to represent shivering caused by cold temperatures and icy snows. Each fast movement has its own pool of melodies and rhythmic patterns that are introduced at the beginning and return, in part or in full, as the movement progresses, in what is called ritornello form. Shivering strings set against a returning refrain suggest that a fixed form and a vivid image can share one movement. The Four Seasons are the first four items of Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione, Op. 8, a partbook collection of twelve violin concertos published in 1725 in Amsterdam by Le Cène and dedicated to the Bohemian count Wenzel von Morzin. They were certainly completed much earlier: sometime during the 1710s Vivaldi sent them to Morzin in fulfillment of a commission, which created a problem when he later decided to offer them for sale. A work that belonged to its patron by commission could not simply be resold, a reminder that who owned music was a practical question as well as an artistic one.
Browse piano sheets by Antonio Vivaldi on Zen Virtual Piano.
Antonio Vivaldi was born in Venice on March 4, 1678, and died in Vienna on July 28, 1741, an Italian composer and violinist who left a decisive mark on the form of the concerto and the style of late Baroque instrumental music. Antonio, the eldest child, trained for the priesthood and was ordained in 1703, the year he was appointed violin master at the Ospedale della Pietà, a home for foundlings. A violinist’s son who trained for the priesthood and became violin master in the year of his ordination seems to have had two callings from the start. The Pietà trained its female wards in music, and those with aptitude were assigned to its choir and orchestra, whose much-praised performances assisted the institution’s quest for donations. Performances praised enough to help raise donations make the Pietà’s orchestra look like both a school and a public showcase.
His first and most influential set of concertos, Opus 3, L’estro armonico, was published in Amsterdam in 1711. The four solo violin concertos of The Four Seasons (Le quattro stagioni) are musical depictions of sounds and experiences associated with spring, summer, winter and fall, one concerto for each. Vivaldi added to the programmatic titles what he called “sonnet dimostrativo” (“illustrative sonnets”), with specific lines cued to corresponding musical passages in each movement. Because the lines of verse are keyed to passages in each movement rather than to the movement as a whole, the listener can follow the poem passage by passage. The set is an example of what later became known as program music: purely instrumental compositions intended to depict specific objects and ideas.
In Winter, the first movement, “Allegro non molto,” depicts the body’s response to cold, with opening bars in a chilly minor punctuated by quick, nattering string passages meant to represent shivering caused by cold temperatures and icy snows. Each fast movement has its own pool of melodies and rhythmic patterns that are introduced at the beginning and return, in part or in full, as the movement progresses, in what is called ritornello form. Shivering strings set against a returning refrain suggest that a fixed form and a vivid image can share one movement.
The Four Seasons are the first four items of Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione, Op. 8, a partbook collection of twelve violin concertos published in 1725 in Amsterdam by Le Cène and dedicated to the Bohemian count Wenzel von Morzin. They were certainly completed much earlier: sometime during the 1710s Vivaldi sent them to Morzin in fulfillment of a commission, which created a problem when he later decided to offer them for sale. A work that belonged to its patron by commission could not simply be resold, a reminder that who owned music was a practical question as well as an artistic one.
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He was an Italian composer and violinist who trained for the priesthood, was ordained in 1703 and was appointed violin master at the Ospedale della Pietà that year.
He added to the programmatic titles what he called “sonnet dimostrativo” (“illustrative sonnets”), with specific lines cued to corresponding musical passages in each movement.
It specialized in the musical training of its female wards; those with musical aptitude were assigned to its choir and orchestra, whose much-praised performances assisted its quest for donations.