Four Seasons Op. 8 n°3 : Autumn

About this work

Autumn opens with a harvest celebration, complete with dancing, songs and a few drinks too many. Vivaldi writes the drunkenness into the music: the solo violin stumbles, recovers, becomes excited, then the movement dozes off. The scene is joyful, but its Baroque elegance has its laces slightly undone.

The second movement extends the revellers' sleep in a remarkably still atmosphere. On waking, the setting changes completely: horns evoked by the strings, dogs, gunshots and the animal's flight compose the hunt of the finale. The three movements therefore recount a whole day, from celebration to the chase at dawn.

The trap is to make all this ponderously descriptive. Keep a dance pulse in the first movement, even when the soloist pretends to lose balance. In the Adagio, let the silences and sustained notes live without hurrying the awakening. In the hunt, distinguish calls, pursuit and ensemble replies: the energy comes from their exchanges, not from permanently maximum volume.


What the document contains

One 33-page full score and one 7-page solo violin part.
The separate violin I, violin II, viola and cello parts.
Six collected PDFs and one separate MIDI file.

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