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Home , Antonio Vivaldi, Basso continuo, Mordent, Nigel Kennedy, Ritornello, Solo concerto

Student 3: Low Merit

Programme notes: Spring (of the Four Seasons) by (1675 – 1741) Vivaldi was a who wrote many . He was in charge of in a girl’s school in and composed more than 400 concertos, of both the Grosso and the , for his pupils to play. Vivaldi started off as a priest in St. Mark’s cathedral in Venice, however because he left the alter while celebrating Mass he was barred from saying Mass and soon left the church to become the Director at the Ospedale della Pieta, which was a girls orphanage with an excellent , where he composed most of his concertos. (2) The Four Seasons, composed in 1723, are four solo concertos for a solo , and an orchestra made up of two groups of , a group of and a continuo, which is made up of , double basses and a . These concertos are programmatic or descriptive concertos, which mean that each one begins with a poem, that Vivaldi himself wrote, which describe that particular season of the year. Each poem is broken up into sections, labelled by letters with each section corresponding to a particular part of each concerto. Vivaldi wrote The Four Seasons because he loved to create music with brilliant effects, like wide leaps from one register to another. He also wanted to attempt to describe natural phenomena such as storms, wind, rain and the sound of bird calls. The Four Seasons were inspired by four paintings of the seasons by the artist Marco Ricci. So the Four Seasons is a combination of the arts of music, painting and poetry. (1)

The first concerto of the Four Seasons is Spring, describing its freshness and beauty. Spring is a solo concerto with 3 movements: quick, slow, quick. The first movement includes birdsong and a spring storm; the second a shepherd who sleeps with his faithful dog by his side and the third is a lively spring dance. The quick movements are written in form, which literally means “returning”. In this form a main theme is played by the orchestra at the beginning of the piece and then is kept returning to after each solo section. In Spring the were marked in the music by the word “tutti” which means everyone.

There are many different techniques used in Spring. The opening movement starts off with a cheerful and joyful theme which consists of an opening phrase and an answering phrase; this is played by the whole orchestra, and goes to the words of the poem: Spring has arrived. Then the first solo is played, which imitates the sound of bird song and uses many techniques to do this, including mordent, , layered entries, trill and imitation. After this the answering phrase is repeated again, which is the basis for the Ritornello form, which gives the piece a feeling of continuity. The second solo is then performed which represents the flowing of streams and the blowing of the wind. To do this Vivaldi uses slurs to slur every two notes together, this is a flowing felling representing the flowing of stream, and it also creates a feeling of movement which represents the blowing of the wind. The third solo is describing a spring storm, with the sky turning black and thunder and lightning. Vivaldi creates this effect by having all of the instruments play in unison in a low pitch so that the music sounds heavy and ominous, he also uses contrast; contrasting between a heavy fast rubbing sound using the “” techniques and a quick ascending pitch run played by the solo violin to create the effect of uncertainty. After this the bird song solo reoccurs and after going back to the ritornello a few times the movement finishes. One thing that differs from today is that in the Baroque period the string instruments did not use , which they do use today. (3)

The first time I listened to Spring I thought that it was so beautiful: the way that the Ritornello kept reoccurring after each solo, and the fluidity of this piece made it very enjoyable to listen to. After doing an analysis on it I was even more surprised to find out how technical and perfect some of the techniques used in this piece were. I was fascinated how each section of the concerto actually sounded like the part of the poem that it corresponded to; it was very surprising that a lot of different moods and themes could be portrayed by the violins by using a range of technical devices and performance practices. Spring is an amazing piece of music and it has opened my eyes up to the wonder that can have. I hope that as you listen to it you enjoy it as much as I do. (4)

Publicity: Newspaper article At 7 o’clock, on Sunday the 19th October the Johnathon Luiten Orchestra, featuring various soloists from around the world including the famous and the fabulous Lara Hall, will perform a concert of Baroque music at Forum North in Whangarei, free of charge, sponsored by Jonathon Luiten himself. I highly recommend you go along. I’m sure some of you fabulous readers want to know more about this concert.

The concert will last just under two hours and includes The Four Seasons, by Vivaldi; two of the , by Bach; a Fantasy by Purcell; a Canon by Pachelbel; a Concerto by Telemann; and a by Handel. The Four Seasons, which will be performed first, consist of four different concertos: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, which describes the season to which it corresponds. Each was written about a painting of that season and so each piece describes the painting, also each piece has a poem that goes along with it that describes that season, and all the different things that happen in that season that are portrayed by the music. The Four Seasons is played by a solo instrument, the violin, played by Nigel Kennedy, and accompanied by an orchestra which plays in contrast to the soloist. The orchestra is made up of twelve violins split into two groups, four violas, and a part which is played by three cellos a and a harpsichord. (5)

Pachelbel’s Canon is another piece written in the Baroque period, which has been made very famous today and has been transcribed to many different instruments. In this concert it will be performed the way it was in the Baroque period, with three solo violinists (Nigel Kennedy, Laura Hill and Johnathan Carney) which make up the , which is a small group of soloists that play in contrast to the main orchestra. (6) The main orchestra will be made up of ten violins, four violas, and the Basso Continuo, made up of three cellos and double bass and a harpsichord. Another movement that will be played is Telemann’s in G major. This was one of the very first concertos composed for a solo viola, and since then the idea has caught, with many other viola concertos having been composed since then. The instruments involved in this piece will be the solo viola (played by Lawrence Power) and an accompanying orchestra made up of twelve violins, four violas, three cellos, a double bass and a harpsichord.

All of the pieces to be performed were composed in the heart of the Baroque era of music. Although many of these pieces have been edited to be played as if they were modern compositions, in this concert they will all be played like they originally would have been back in the Baroque era. One of the main things that make this concert authentically Baroque is the size of the orchestra. In the Baroque time were quite small, consisting of not much more than twenty instruments compared to the classical and romantic periods, where orchestra size is very large. This concert is effectively Baroque because the orchestra consists of only twelve violins, four violas, three cellos, and double bass and a harpsichord. This brings me to the second reason why this concert is authentically Baroque: the choice of instruments.

As I said earlier, all of these pieces are played on the instrument they were designed for; in the Baroque period there weren’t as many instruments as we have today. Mainly strings were played, for this reason most of the pieces are for string soloists (except for the harpsichord piece) and for a , including violins, violas, cellos and double basses. Another common instrument of the time was the harpsichord, which is the predecessor to the . Bach’s fifth Brandenburg Concerto is a harpsichord solo concerto which will be played at this concert. As well as this the harpsichord plays in the orchestra of most songs as well, teaming up with the cellos and the double bass to play the Basso Continuo, which is a very special part of the Baroque period, as it is signature to this period. The Basso Continuo is a bass line that repeats itself often, it is usually written in the form of which is another signature of the Baroque period, as it is where only the of each chord appears with a number (or numbers) written underneath it to represent whether the note is in position, inverted or a 7th. This is what will be played at this concert. Another thing that makes this concert close to an authentic Baroque concert is that the performance practices used in this concert will be as they were in the Baroque era, such as none of the string instruments will use vibrato, although this is a relatively common practice today, it was not used in the Baroque era. (7)

The final thing that this concert is going to do to make the feeling as authentically Baroque as possible is, where possible, instruments made in the Baroque period with be used by the musicians. These instruments sound different to the ones made today because they were all hand-made, used special wood and the finger board was shorter. Violins and violas did not have chin-rests. Nigel Kennedy will be bringing his very special Stradivari violin made in the year that the Four Seasons were composed. (8)

This concert is going to be absolutely fantastic, if you want to see a once in a lifetime, world-class performance of authentic Baroque music, this is not to be missed. I know that I am going, and I hope to see everyone else that reads this article turn out for this spectacle that is happening in our city.