About the Music

by Linda Mack

 

Antonio Vivaldi has been known as the red priest (because of his red hair), a teacher, a conductor, a renowned violin virtuoso, and an innovator in the development of many musical forms and styles, particularly the concerto. In Vivaldi’s time Venice boasted a lively musical scene, from the streets, opera houses, and homes of the nobility, to the churches, with the Basilica di San Marco pre-eminent. Antonio’s father was a violinist in the Basilica’s orchestra where the young man sometimes took his father’s place. Some of the great musical attractions for locals and visitors alike were the concerts put on by the Seminario musicale dell’ Pio Ospetale della Pietà. La Pietá was one of four Venetian institutions where foundling and otherwise orphaned young girls were cared for and educated by the state. Vivaldi spent some 35 years employed off and on by the Pietà in various capacities, such as master of the chorus and orchestra, director of concerts, violin master, and composer. With constant need of new material for performance and pedagogy, as well as its youthful, enthusiastic inhabitants, the music school of the Pietá provided Vivaldi with a veritable musical laboratory for which he wrote many of his works.

 

About half of Vivaldi’s 700 instrumental works featured solo violin, but he also provided concertos and sonatas for other instruments. His innovations in the concerto genre include: regular use of ritornello form (tutti theme alternating with solo episodes) in the fast outer movements, sensitive, passionate slow movements, virtuosic demands for soloists, and new and strong effects such as orchestral unison. Published in 1725 as part of a larger set (Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione, Op. 8), Vivaldi's most popular work, The Four Seasons paint a picture of the passing of a year in Italy's Venetto (not so unlike the changing seasons of Southwest Michigan) with four concertos for solo violin, strings, and basso continuo. The published version was accompanied by sonnets (portions quoted below) that were apparently written by Vivaldi, and are repeated in the score where the description applies.

 

La Primavera (Spring)

 

I. Allegro

 

"Spring has come and joyfully the birds greet it with joyous song." The opening tutti in E Major announces the joy of spring, the theme returning between each subsequent picture; soloist and orchestral violins toss various bird trills back and forth. "And the brooks, caressed by Zephyr's breath, flow meanwhile with sweet murmurings:" The soft running notes of the violins depict the streams of melting snow. "The sky is covered with dark clouds, announced by lightning and thunder." Repeated 16th notes (dark clouds and thunder), scales rushing upwards (stormy wind), rapid triplets on the solo violin (lightning). "But when they die away, the little birds return to fill the air with their sweet song."

 

II. Largo e pianissimo sempre

 

"Then on the pleasant flower-strewn meadow the goat-herd dozes, guarded by his faithful dog." The solo portrays the sleeping goat-herd, the violins the flowers of the meadow, and the violas provide the gentle woof-woof of the dog.

 

III. Allegro: Danza pastorale

 

"To the rustic bagpipes sound, nymphs and shepherds dance beneath the fair spring sky in all its glory." The 12/8 meter, typical for rustic dances, provides a framework for brilliant solos.

 

L'Estate (Summer)

 

I. Allegro non molto

 

"Under the sultry heat of burning sun, man languishes, his herd wilts, even the pine is scorched." In the breathless heat of August, each measure of the soft tutti gasps without a downbeat. "The cuckoo raises its voice, and soon after the turtle-dove, the goldfinch join the song." The soloists takes off in a blaze of heat, the cuckoo is heard in the bass, the tutti joins the brilliance of the solo; after a return to the stifling heat, the solo sings the turtle-dove and goldfinch. "Sweet zephyrs blow but then the fierce north-wind appears suddenly:" The wind first comes gently with triplet pattern, but grows into a violent storm of 32nd  notes. "The shepherd sobs, anxious for his fate from the wild squall and its effects:" The stifling weather returns briefly and the soloist, accompanied with basso continuo alone, sobs with the shepherd. His fears are realized, and the tutti brings back the storm with all its fury.

 

II. Adagio

 

"He rouses his weary limbs from rest for fear of lightning and wild thunder and the nuisance of angry swarms of gnats and flies." The soloist represents the exhausted shepherd, while the tutti brings the gnats and flies to bother him.

 

III. Presto. Tempo impetuoso d'Estate

 

"Alas, his fears are justified, thunder and lightning split the heavens, and hail-stones flatten the trees and crops." Tutti and solo bring back the north wind to wreck destruction over the landscape.

 

L'Autunno (Autumn)

 

I. Allegro

 

"With dance and song, the country-folk celebrate the joy of gathering a bountiful harvest." A harvest festival is in full swing with the violin solo fiddling the dance. "With Bacchus's liquor, quaffed liberally, many end their enjoyment in slumber." As more and more wine is consumed, the lurching, hiccupping drunks, some trying to continue their dance, others falling into slumber, is graphically portrayed musically. Those still standing finish their dance in the final statement of the opening theme.

 

II. Adagio

 

"Song and dance are done; the mild air is pleasant and the season invites one and all to the delights of sweetest slumber." The drowsy scene is set by muted strings and Il cembalo arpeggia' (lazy broken chords on the harpsichord).

 

III. Allegro: La caccia

 

"At first light the hunters set out with horns, guns and dogs." Set in the key of F, the natural key of the horn, the orchestra, and later, the solo violin signal the hunt. "The beasts flee, their trail is followed." The animals try to escape (triplets in the solo violin), dogs bay with wildly repeated thirds. "Terrified and exhausted from the noise of guns and dogs, wounded and afraid, they try to flee, they are caught, and die." Interspersed between tutti statements of the hunt theme, the solo depicts the exhausted animals, the fleeing, the fear, death.

 

L'Inverno (Winter)

 

I. Allegro non molto

 

"To shiver, frozen amid the icy snows." Entering one part at a time, the strings paint a picture of the frozen landscape. Trembling is heard with trills on the violins. "We run, our breathing hampered by horrid winds; we stamp our feet continuously, our teeth chatter with the frightful cold." Running passages in the solo bring in the biting winds; repeated notes, the feet stamping, and the soloist’s double stops, the teeth chattering.

 

II. Largo

 

"While the rain outside pours in torrents, we are settled contentedly by the fireside." The most beautiful of movements, the violin melody represents a cozy scene in front of the fire, while the rain is heard in the pizzicato strings.

 

III. Allegro

 

"Now we walk on the ice, with cautious steps, in fear of falling." The solo slithers with no supporting harmonies; the tutti enters tentatively, afraid of falling. "If we move quickly, we slip and fall, getting up again and walking heavily on the ice until the ice cracks and breaks." Solo and tutti precariously try to stay upright, but keep falling with descending passages. "We hear Boreas and all the winds at war - Such is winter, but it also brings joy." A brief lento finds us again cozily by the fire, and even as we hear the north winds roaring outside, we are joyful in the comforts of hearth and home. 

 

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Illustrious composer, conductor, educator, and writer on music, Carlos Chávez, came of age at the time of the establishment of his native Mexico’s independence in 1921. His career spanned more than 50 years in which he composed more than 200 works, established and conducted national orchestras, guest conducted and lectured in Europe, the United States, and throughout Latin America. Much of his nationalist music combined pre-Conquest and modern elements, often utilizing native instruments and music of indigenous Indian cultures. In 1928 Chávez helped establish Mexico’s first permanent orchestra, Orquesta sinfónica de México and was its principal conductor for the next 21 years. During his tenure the group performed 487 works including 82 premières of Mexican works. In 1937 Chávez looked to the Baroque for inspiration and arranged and orchestrated the Chaconne, BuxWV 160, and organ work by the great North German composer and leading organist, Dietrich Buxtehude. He made two arrangements of this transcription, one for chamber orchestra and the one we hear tonight for full orchestra–full complements of strings, winds, and timpani. Chávez conducted the first performed on September 14, 1937 in the Theater of Fine Arts in Mexico City.

  

The Chaconne is a slow ostinato variation form with roots in the dance of Spanish popular culture. Throughout the thirty-one variations, Chávez is faithful to the stately rich structure that Buxtehude has laid out. The resourceful use of the instruments of the orchestra is reminiscent of the varied colors and infinitely varied tonal combinations and contrasts of the glorious North German organs and the magnificent acoustical environments in which they live.

 

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Considered by many to be one of the composer's greatest and most beloved orchestral works, Tchaikovsky's first masterpiece, Romeo and Juliet: Overture-Fantasy after Shakespeare, did not settle easily or quickly into the form we hear tonight. In 1869, fellow Russian composer Balakirev suggested to the young Tchaikovsky the idea of creating a concert piece based on Shakespeare’s tragedy. Beyond suggestions, Balakirev went so far as to give Tchaikovsky a possible theme, keys he should use, and many other details–in essence attempting to dictate the shaping of the work. When Tchaikovsky sent him the first drafts of the piece, was not happy with them. Indeed, by the time the piece received its first performance in 1870, the composer wasn't satisfied either and withdrew it for major revisions, publishing it the following summer. Ten years later Tchaikovsky revised it again and finally published the piece in the version we know today.

Rather than a programmatic tone-poem attempting to outline the plot of Romeo and Juliet, the Overture-Fantasy is a dramatic whole in sonata form, highlighting three easy-to-follow themes of the Shakespeare play. The various moods are at times impetuous, melancholy, eloquent, fierce, and infinitely tender. The introduction, employing a chorale-like tune on the clarinets and bassoons, gives an impression of Friar Lawrence and his key role in the tragedy. The first main theme, replete with scurrying scales, brass and percussion, brings the deadly feud of the Montagues and Capulets to the musical stage. The lovers’ passionate theme enters, followed by another bout of feuding between the families. The love theme returns with heightened intensity, at which point the coda is presented as a funeral march marked by the timpani, along with Friar Lawrence’s theme representing the character whose attempts to help have turned into disaster. What Shakespeare achieves in the play, Tchaikovsky accomplishes in the music: balance between the violent feuding of the clans and the passion of the young lovers, giving us some of the most beautiful love music ever written.

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Linda Mack is the Music Librarian for the James White Library, Andrews University