Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and the Impact of Climate Change

by Hermione Lai , Interlude

The Four Seasons, the fabulous collection of four violin concerti by Antonio Vivaldi have topped the Classical Music charts for decades on end. It has become part of modern culture, and the music is reshaped and arranged into different musical styles and adapted for solo instruments other than violin.

Portrait of Antonio Vivaldi

Vivaldi gave each concerto the title of a specific season, and his music imitates the sounds of barking dogs, warbling birds, the icy paths across frozen water, and even the blazing temperatures of summer. It’s a delightful and charming nature painting in music. The music was composed roughly 300 years ago, but times are changing, and so is the climate. 

Simone Candotto, the solo trombonist of the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, was born in a town near Venice, Vivaldi’s place of work. And we all know that Venice is gradually sinking into the sea because of the consequences of climate change. As such, Candotto decided to let people hear the consequences of climate change by re-composing The Four Seasons using climate data.

Simone Candotto

He engaged a team of software developers and music arrangers, and with the aid of a specific algorithm, he modified the source material to reflect the consequences of climate change. Much of that algorithm is based on 300 years of climate data, incorporating the increase in greenhouse gas carbon dioxide over the past centuries to the present day.

You can hear these changes very clearly in the music, as the summer motif already sneaks into the score in the spring. The seasons are clearly changing, and the rise of the global CO2 curve results in the notes becoming longer. Candotto explains, “It’s a big deal because I think it has an impact. But above all, there are the themes from the other seasons that come in so imperceptibly. That gives the impression that things are no longer the same as they used to be.” 

Since there are 15 percent fewer birds chirping in the trees than in the time of Vivaldi, the algorithm uses 15 percent less of the bird motifs to indicate the extinction of species. Extreme weather is sharply increasing, and Vivaldi arrives in the present.

You can hear the solo violin continuing to play part of the Vivaldi “Winter” concerto while the orchestra sinks into dissonant lethargy. It’s almost like a metaphor, with people continuing to live as before while nature sinks into chaos due to man-made climate change.

The idea of using climate data to recompose Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” has also been taken up by composer Hugh Crosthwaite and Monash University’s Climate Change Communication Research Hub. This creation looks to portray a future where the world has failed to act on global warming. 

This reworking also features AI algorithms based on climate predictions for the year 2050. It is a musical design system “that combines music theory with computer modelling to algorithmically generate countless local variations of the Vivaldi composition.” That is, it can model climate predictions for every location on the planet.

Looking at climate data, the algorithm alters the musical score to account for predicted changes in rainfall, biodiversity, sea-level rise, and extreme weather events for the location of performance. In some locations, storms will be more intense, the sea level will be dangerously rising, and wildlife will disappear.

There is no doubt that climate change is unravelling our seasons, and Spanish music director Hache Costa has adopted Vivaldi’s most famous work to reflect the grim reality of global warming. “If someone were to compose The Four Seasons from an absolutely realistic perspective,” the composer writes, “the music would be much more aggressive and grittier.” 

Costa projects the effects of global warming by adding prominence and drama to the summer concerto while shortening the other three. This re-composition is accompanied by projected images of wildfires and other effects of climate change, including drought. As Costa explained, “I would love the audience to feel really bothered at some point by becoming truly aware of what is happening.”

Max Richter

Award-winning composer and pianist Max Richter is not attempting to shock his audience, but he is actually advocating dialogue instead. Classically trained, Richter graduated in composition from the Royal Academy of Music and studied with the legendary Italian composer Luciano Berio. He loved the Vivaldi original as a child, but hearing the music abused for various reasons and causes, “it becomes an irritant.”

So, he decided to recompose the music, and his “New Four Seasons” weaves and loops the music to become a conversation between instruments and also a dialogue between the two composers. “There are sections where I’ve left Vivaldi alone,” he explains, “and other bits where there is basically only a homeopathic dose of Vivaldi in completely new music.” When it comes to climate change, we need a global dialogue with everybody pulling at the same string, and hopefully, Vivaldi can bring us all together.

The Invisible Force: Wind

by Maureen Buja, Interlude

The elements of nature frequently are represented in music: water, snow, and, of course, wind. We looked at a number of different works that might, literally, blow us away. We never see the wind but only the effect of the wind. Composers give us the added dimension of being able to hear the wind.

In Lully’s 1674 opera Alceste, which tells the story of the Queen of Thessaly, Alceste, who has been abducted by the King of Scyros, together with the help of a sea nymphs and Aeolus, the god of winds. The North Wind is summoned to create a violent storm to help the kidnapper get away by sea and arrives with a swoosh.

Following this, the god Éole intervenes to calm the storm by sending the gentle West Wind to disperse the violent North Wind.

Lully: Alceste: The gods, the mortals, and the winds, 1708 (score, Paris, 2nd edition)

One of the common ways to show the winds was to combine them with a storm – we hear this in Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and in Justin Heinrich Knecht’s orchestral work Le portrait musical de la nature (The Musical Portrait of Nature). Written in 1784–85 as a pastoral symphony, the symphony ends the second movement with a gathering of storm clouds and it is in the third movement that the storm breaks, with the wind whistling through the trees, and rain descending in torrents.

For Debussy, in his Préludes, Book 1, the West Wind is violent and savage. Moved from its piano original to the orchestra, the work seems to grow in stature. The title, Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest, makes us imagine just what is the West Wind bring with it: a storm and rain beat against a cliff. Nature is unleashed and all we can do is endure.

Storm

The French composer Tristan Murail picks up from Debussy’s vision of the west wind and gives us Dernières nouvelles du vent d’ouest (Latest News from the West Wind). The West Wind strikes France in Normandy and the news it carries from across the Atlantic isn’t always the best.

The Wind in Brittany

French composer Philippe Chamouard sought inspiration for the 1997 work Poème du vent (The Poem of the Wind) in a poem by Oshikhoshi Mitsume, which contrasts the scarlet leaves that are blowing in the wind with the image in the still water of the leaves still on the tree. The music makes the leaves fall downward to float away on the mirroring water.

Red leaves in water

Some composers don’t focus on one wind but invoke the wind from all directions. In his guitar work Si le jour parait… (If The Day Seems…), North African composer Maurice Ohana gives Jeu des quatre vents, the game of the four winds. He also pays tribute to Debussy’s piece to the west wind, by instructing the performer with these directions: Animé, tumultueux, commencez un peu au-dessous du mouvement (Animated, tumultuous, begin a little below the tempo), the same words used by Debussy in his score.

In the fifth of his Six Sonnets for violin and piano from 1922, Catalan composer Eduardo Toldrà invokes a sonnet by the poet Padre Antonio Navarro in his Dels quatre vents (Of the Four Winds). At the beginning of the score, Toldrà gives us the 14-line sonnet that inspired him (‘Dia fervent d’agost era aquell dia…’) invoking a hot day in August, under a serene blue sky, with cicadas singing and two white doves overhead.

The winds blow, sometimes violently and sometimes gently, but always invisibly. We can only see the effect of the wind, not the wind itself.

Four Seasons ~ Vivaldi - his life and his music

245,146,692 views Jan 31, 2011 Antonio Vivaldi - Four Seasons Budapest Strings Bela Banfalvi, Conductor You can get the exact album I have here on Amazon: http://amzn.to/1I2dNNu (affiliate). Here are the times for the specific movements: Spring 0:00 Summer 10:31 Autumn 20:59 Winter 32:48 I hope you love this recording! It is my favorite one I've heard yet. Happy Listening!

Antonio Vivaldi was born 1678 in Venice (the exact date is unknown) and passed away on July 28, 1741 in Vienna/Austria. He was an Italian composer and violinist and became a violinist pupil of the great Giovanni Legrenzi (1626-1690). In 1703, Vivaldi was ordained as priest and has been nick-named as the "red haired priest" (Il prete rosso). 1716, he became principal of the music school for girls in Venice. He loved to travel extensively and became one of the first composers of his time. He was one of the first composers, using clarinets and composed fantastic chamber music, secular cantatas, church music, oratorio, and operas. Despite tremendous output, he was by no means a conventional composer, and much of instrumental works show a lively and fertile imagination. As with Bach, Vivaldi's music was unfashionable and unpopular or many years; however, since the 1950s, there has been enormous revival of interest in Vivaldi's music especially in Europe, and later followed also in the USA. Especially his cincerts, among which four works for violin, collectively known as "The Four Seasons", have become particularly popular. Appreciating Vivaldi's originality and diversity is to get beyond the form, and to listen to his fresh and melodic writings. Vivaldi invented a a structure for his conciertos that served him very we. No two pieces are exactly the same, and the combination of structural discipline and melody freedom is the hallmark of musical greatness from any period. Vivaldi composed 49 operas, 22 pieces only for the town of Venice. Johann Sebastian Bach admired Vivaldi so much, that he rearranged some compositions of Vivaldi and felt very much inspired for more wonderful compositions. Vivaldi died in Vienna in totally poverty.

Antonio Vivaldi - Seine Musik und sein Leben Vivaldi wurde 1678 in Venedig geboren. Sein Vater war Barbier und spielte im Orchester der Kathedrale von San Marco Violine. Sein Leben lang hatte Vivaldi gesundheitliche Probleme. Er litt an einer chronischen Krankheit, wahrscheinlich Herzschwäche oder einer Form von Asthma. Sein musikalisches Talent trat früh hervor. Schon als Kind sprang er gelegentlich im Orchester von San Marco für seinen Vater ein. Hier geriet er auch in den Zauberbann venezianischer Musik, die ihn später bei seinen eigenen Kompositionen so sehr beeinflussen sollte. Im Alter von 14 Jahren trat Vivaldi in die Priesterlaufbahn ein, für die ihn der Vater bestimmt hatte. Mit 25 wurde er zum Priester geweiht. Zu seinen Hauptpflichten gehörte das Zelebrieren der Messe, wobei er jedesmal fast eine Stunde lang singen musste. Wegen seiner Erkrankung gab er diese Tätigkeit nach einem Jahr wieder auf. Von weitaus größerem Interesse war für ihn seine Tätigkeit als Violin-Lehrer am Ospedale della Pietà in Venedig, in dem verwaiste und unehelich geborene Mädchen erzogen wurden. Vivaldi brachte ihnen das Geigenspiel bei. Er komponierte auch neue Stücke, die die Mädchen einmal die Woche bei ihren Konzerten vortrugen. Wahrscheinlich sicherte ihm seine Priesterwürde diese Tätigkeit, da man von einem Priester erwartete, dass er die Grenzen der Schicklichkeit wahrte. Vivaldi verbrachte 12 glückliche Jahre am Ospedale. Den jungen Mädchen gefiel seine galante, charmante Art, und da von Natur aus extrovertiert, genoss Vivaldi seinerseits die Aufmerksamkeit, die ihm entgegengebracht wurde. Der Spitzname "Roter Priester" passte nicht nur zu seiner Haarfarbe, sondern auch zu seinem sprühenden Temperament. Die Konzerte, bei denen er seine Kompositionen dirigierte, waren musikalische Höhepunkte im venezianischen Kulturleben. Kaum ein Besucher der Stadt ließ sich ein Vivaldi-Konzert entgehen. Während dieser Zeit wurde Vivaldi sich seines steigenden Ansehens bewusst und beschloss, daraus Kapital zu schlagen. Als erstes suchte er sich einen Verleger in Amsterdam, der über bessere Druckmöglichkeiten von Noten verfügte als die Venezianer. Das bedeutete: Er konnte seine Werke besser verkaufen und mehr Geld verdienen. Außerdem begann er, Opern zu schreiben. Seine erste Oper "Ottone in Villa" führte er 1713 auf. Schon bald komponierte er Opern für Theater-Direktoren im ganzen Nordosten Italiens. Die langen Abwesenheiten verärgerten seine Arbeitgeber am Ospedale. 1723 wurde ein Abkommen getroffen: Es gab Vivaldi die Freiheit, an Opern zu arbeiten, vorausgesetzt, er liefere in Venedig zwei Konzerte im Monat ab und überwache ihre Aufführungen. Vivaldi arbeitete schnell. Für ein Concerto brauchte er einen Tag, eine Oper schaffte er in einer Woche. Er verdiente viel Geld und gab viel aus. Deshalb sah er sich nach weiteren Verdienstquellen um und beschloss, dass es lukrativer sei, Abschriften der Noten direkt zu verkaufen, als über seinen Verleger. Als Preis berechnete er eine Guinee pro Concerto, umgerechnet etwa 150 Euro. Den Kirchenvätern wurde die allzu weltliche Einstellung Vivaldis bald suspekt. Als Priester wurde von ihm erwartet, in einem reinen Männerhaushalt zu leben. Seine Krankheit bot ihm den idealen Vorwand, eine Schwester zu seiner Pflege einzustellen. Außerdem machte er Anna Giraud, eine bekannte Sopranistin, und ihre Schwester zu seinen Begleiterinnen. Es gab Gerüchte, aber ein Verhältnis konnte ihm nicht nachgewiesen werden. 1737, im Zuge einer Kampagne gegen den Sittenverfall im Klerus, verbot ihm der Erzbischof von Ferrara, die Stadt zu betreten. Hier sollte er die musikalische Leitung während der Opernsaison innehaben. Als Gründe wurden Vivaldis Weigerung, die Messe zu zelebrieren, und seine Beziehung zu Anna Giraud angeführt. Der 59jährige bestritt jegliches unziemliche Verhalten und brachte zur Verteidigung seine Krankheit vor, ohne Erfolg. Von nun an nahm sein Ansehen rasch ab. Bis 1740 hatte sich der venezianische Geschmack geändert. Vivaldis Musik war aus der Mode gekommen. Er ging nach Wien in der Hoffnung, den österreichischen Kaiser für neue Aufträge zu gewinnen, erhielt aber kaum Beachtung. Alt und krank starb er am 28. Juli 1741 in Wien. Er hatte zuletzt in sehr ärmlichen Verhältnissen gelebt und wurde mit einem Armenbegräbnis beigesetzt. Trotz der überragenden Qualität seines Werkes - das über 450 Concerti und 45 Opern umfasst - und Vivaldis Bestrebungen, es zu verbreiten, wurde nur ein Bruchteil zu seinen Lebzeiten veröffentlicht. Die meisten Kompositionen wurden nach seinem Tod entdeckt, viele erst in den zwanziger Jahren dieses Jahrhunderts bekannt. Seine neue Herangehensweise an die Musik des Barock hat Vivaldi in einer Reihe glanzvoller Kompositionen bewiesen. Die heitere Lebhaftigkeit seiner Musik lässt das prächtige und schillernde Venedig des 18. Jahrhunderts wieder aufleben.

The Story Behind Vivaldi's Four Seasons

Antonio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741)  was a prolific, 18th-century Baroque composer who wrote more than 500 concertos. About 230 of those concertos were written for the violin. The most famous of all of Vivaldi’s works is "The Four Seasons” (“Le quattro stagioni”) violin concerto.

Vivaldi’s "Four Seasons": a radical violin concerto

Young people in the 21st-century can have a difficult time envisioning any piece of music as “radical.” In the world of contemporary pop culture, “radical” music means the inclusion of profanity, pejoratives, or rebellious language and sentiments. 

During the Baroque period, the idea of radical music was anything that veered from the traditional way of doing things. Other “radical” classical composers of their time periods include Mozart and Stravinsky. Unlike those composers, however, historians cannot claim that Vivialid’s “The Four Seasons” caused any riots. That said, the first performances in Italy, France, and throughout the European continent had frequent concert-attendees and music theorists up in arms about what to make of his newfangled musical notions.

Vivaldi’s inventive music program

One of the reasons Vivaldi’s Four Seasons was so unique is that it was one of the first classical compositions to implement and follow a dynamic music program. You’re probably familiar with the concept of a “music program,” where the music aligns with a specific text. In fact, that style of performance wasn’t made popular until the Romantic era. 

“The Four Seasons” movements are actually part of a larger body of 12 total concertos, including "The Four Seasons." The larger work is called, “Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione,” or, “The Contest Between Harmony and Invention.”

Speaking of invention and innovation...

While the program format was one “radical” innovation implemented by Vivaldi, so were some of the techniques required by Vivaldi to play the piece. While he was a lover of opera, the brilliant mind of Vivaldi was captivated by the idea of being able to describe landscapes or scenes in ways that correlated with human behavior and emotions, but without setting the music to specific words.

So, while "The Four Seasons" were composed to honor the themes put forth in the previously-linked sonnets, Vivaldi composed the music in such a way that the technical playing and interpretations of the string musicians told the story - sans narration. 

He also included unique dynamic instructions that remain intact in the scores today. The musicians get to use their imaginations, and the imagination of the conductor, to interpret what Vivaldi imagined in his head when he wrote notes to the musicians. For example, asking violinists to play “like a sleeping goatherd” or the viola players to imagine “a barking dog.”

Also worth noting is that the concerto format as we know it didn’t really exist at this time. It was actually Vivaldi, and pieces like "The Four Seasons" setting solo instruments apart (frequently the violin) supported by a chamber ensemble, that gave rise to the concerto form we’re familiar with today.

Part of an early feminist movement

Besides Vivaldi’s musical genius and passion for opera, his appreciation for women and what they could set Vivaldi apart from many of his contemporaries. Vivaldi composed "The Four Seasons" between 1720 and 1723 while employed at “El Pio Ospedale della Pieta,” which was a girls school dedicated to orphaned girls. He worked as the Maestro de Violino (violin teacher) there and wrote some of his most famous works during that period of time. 

While we can’t say that he was truly a feminist, we can’t help but appreciate that Antonio Vivaldi spent a significant portion of his working life (1703 - 1733) mentoring talented young female musicians. And, with talent and fame such as his, he certainly had a choice in the matter. 

In honor of that, we recommend giving yourself the 48 minute and 54 second gift of the very talented female violinist, Janine Jansen as she plays Antonio Vivaldi’s “"The Four Seasons"” at Internationaal Kamermuziek Festival 2014. Enjoy listening to a narrative that Vivaldi’s musical genius brings to life in the mind’s eye.

Published by StringOvation Team on April 07, 2021

Vivaldi’s ‘infuriating’ Four Seasons

... dropped as hold music by Government hotline

Vivaldi 'Spring' is no longer DWP's hold music. Picture: Getty

By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM London

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Callers waiting to speak to the Department of Work and Pensions will no longer hear music from the Baroque masterpiece, after saying they couldn’t deal... ‘Viv-al-di’ repetition.

Vivaldi’s Four Seasons has been dropped by the Department of Work and Pensions as its on-hold music, after callers said the repetitive clip was making them feel anxious. Callers waiting to speak to an adviser about a benefits problem have heard a 30-second loop of ‘Spring’, the first concerto in the great Italian composer’s masterpiece, for nearly 15 years.

But with millions of callers on hold for up to an hour, many people were hearing the clip up to 120 times in a row. One user called the DWP’s choice of music a “cruel and unusual punishment”.

“We had some feedback that the Vivaldi clip caused anxiety for claimants and in particular had an impact on autistic callers,” a DWP spokesperson said.

The Department has said ‘Spring’ will be replaced by a ‘calming’ 20-minute mix of eight unnamed musical tracks that aims to reduce callers’ anxiety by creating “a steady and neutral pace and reducing the issue of repetition”.

“We tested it with claimants in job centres and they overwhelmingly preferred it,” a DWP spokesperson said. “It was seen as more calming and peaceful and light. One person said, ‘I loved The Four Seasons, it’s a lovely piece of music’, but most preferred the new music.”

The DWP has used ‘Spring’ as its on-hold music since 2006. They called it a ‘cost-effective solution’, explaining that while the music would usually be funded by taxpayer money, they were licensed to play the Vivaldi for free.

But while the average helpline on-hold time is eight minutes, waiting times can go up to an hour. The repetitive music appears to have caused unnecessary anxiety for those calling about an often stressful matter.

“Queue times can be long, longer than the whole symphony on occasion, and callers are required to listen to the same sample, interspersed with the same recorded message, for infuriating periods of time,” it said.

“The false jollity of the piece in question, combined with the repetition involved in the short sample length, is largely at odds with the motives of people ringing the line, usually because of a problem with receipt of benefits.”