The original score has the appropriate phrases printed in. The sonnets themselves are rather pedestrian, at least in translation, but Vivaldi enshrined them in the richest surroundings. The inspiration for The Four Seasons came from a set of four anonymous sonnets, from which Vivaldi took descriptive phrases to direct the development of musical ideas. Vivaldi combined the structure of the solo concerto with the musical depiction of events found in nature, with telling results. The Four Seasons were boldly experimental when they were published in 1725. Since then, enthusiasm has hardly wavered. At a time when music was comparatively ephemeral, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons outlived musical fashion to such an extent that Rousseau, some thirty-five years after Vivaldi’s death, produced a flute transcription for publication.
Vivaldi, producing in his career something over four hundred concertos, achieved in this set of four linked violin concertos a work of transcendent quality that completely overshadowed not only his own other efforts, but most of the concertos of his contemporaries. Yet The Four Seasons, after some sixty years of regular performance, appears to be as well-loved as ever. Generally, when a work is as resoundingly popular as The Four Seasons, there is a very great danger that it will become hackneyed sooner or later. Le quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons) (1723)
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