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♫ Buy 'The Four Seasons' (MP3 album) on the Official Halidon Music Store: 🎧 Listen to our Vivaldi playlist on Spotify: http://spoti.fi. Candlelight: Featuring Vivaldi’s Four Seasons at The Pioneer (27) The Pioneer. Candlelight: Beethoven’s Best Works. Editor's choice. Stagioni) is a set of four violin concertos by Antonio Vivaldi. Composed in 1723, The Four Seasons is Vivaldi's best-known work, and is among the most popular pieces of Baroque music. The texture of each concerto is varied, each resembling its respective season.

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The Four Seasons, Italian Le quattro stagioni, group of four violinconcerti by Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, each of which gives a musical expression to a season of the year. They were written about 1720 and were published in 1725 (Amsterdam), together with eight additional violin concerti, as Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione (“The Contest Between Harmony and Invention”).

The Four Seasons is the best known of Vivaldi’s works. Unusually for the time, Vivaldi published the concerti with accompanying poems (possibly written by Vivaldi himself) that elucidated what it was about those seasons that his music was intended to evoke. It provides one of the earliest and most-detailed examples of what was later called program music—music with a narrative element.

Vivaldi took great pains to relate his music to the texts of the poems, translating the poetic lines themselves directly into the music on the page. In the middle section of the Springconcerto, where the goatherd sleeps, his barking dog can be marked in the viola section. Other natural occurrences are similarly evoked. Vivaldi separated each concerto into three movements, fast-slow-fast, and likewise each linked sonnet into three sections. His arrangement is as follows:

Spring (Concerto No. 1 in E Major)
Allegro
Spring has arrived with joy
Welcomed by the birds with happy songs,
And the brooks, amidst gentle breezes,
Murmur sweetly as they flow.
The sky is caped in black, and
Thunder and lightning herald a storm
When they fall silent, the birds
Take up again their delightful songs.
Largo e pianissimo sempre
And in the pleasant, blossom-filled meadow,
To the gentle murmur of leaves and plants,
The goatherd sleeps, his faithful dog beside him.
Allegro
To the merry sounds of a rustic bagpipe,
Nymphs and shepherds dance in their beloved spot
When Spring appears in splendour.

Summer (Concerto No. 2 in G Minor)
Allegro non molto
Under the merciless sun of the season
Languishes man and flock, the pine tree burns.
The cuckoo begins to sing and at once
Join in the turtledove and the goldfinch.
A gentle breeze blows, but Boreas
Is roused to combat suddenly with his neighbour,
And the shepherd weeps because overhead
Hangs the fearsome storm, and his destiny.
Adagio
His tired limbs are robbed of rest
By his fear of the lightning and the frightful thunder
And by the flies and hornets in furious swarms.
Presto
Alas, his fears come true:
There is thunder and lightning in the heavens
And the hail cuts down the tall ears of grain.

Autumn (Concerto No. 3 in F Major)
Allegro
The peasant celebrates with dancing and singing
The pleasure of the rich harvest,
And full of the liquor of Bacchus
They end their merrymaking with a sleep.
Adagio molto
All are made to leave off dancing and singing
By the air which, now mild, gives pleasure
And by the season, which invites many
To find their pleasure in a sweet sleep.
Allegro
The hunters set out at dawn, off to the hunt,
With horns and guns and dogs they venture out.
The beast flees and they are close on its trail.
Already terrified and wearied by the great noise
Of the guns and dogs, and wounded as well
It tries feebly to escape, but is bested and dies.

Winter (Concerto No. 4 in F Minor)
Allegro non molto
Frozen and shivering in the icy snow,
In the severe blasts of a terrible wind
To run stamping one’s feet each moment,
One’s teeth chattering through the cold.
Largo
To spend quiet and happy times by the fire
While outside the rain soaks everyone.
Allegro
To walk on the ice with tentative steps,
Going carefully for fear of falling.
To go in haste, slide, and fall down to the ground,
To go again on the ice and run,
In case the ice cracks and opens.
To hear leaving their iron-gated house Sirocco,
Boreas, and all the winds in battle—
This is winter, but it brings joy.

The Four Seasons
Directed by	Alan Alda
Produced by	Martin Bregman
Written by	Alan Alda
Starring	Alan Alda Carol Burnett Len Cariou Sandy Dennis Rita Moreno Jack Weston Bess Armstrong
Cinematography	Victor J. Kemper
Edited by	Michael Economou
Production company
Release date	April 30, 1981 (Denver premiere) May 22, 1981 (United States)
107 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$6.5 million[1]
Box office	$50.4 million [2]

The Four Seasons is a 1981 American romantic comedy film written and directed by and starring Alan Alda, which co-stars Carol Burnett, Len Cariou, Sandy Dennis, Rita Moreno, Jack Weston, and Bess Armstrong.^[3] It draws its title from the four concerti composed by Antonio Vivaldi. They, along with other Vivaldi compositions,^[which?] comprise the musical score.

The film spawned a short-lived CBS series in 1984 produced by Alda.

Plot summary[edit]

The story revolves around three upper middle-class married couples living in New York City who take vacations together during each of the seasons. After this pattern has been established, Nick leaves his wife of 21 years, Anne, during the Spring trip to the cabin, for a much younger woman, Ginny. He then proceeds to bring Ginny on the Summer, Fall, and Winter vacation trips. This causes the other two couples to be uncomfortable, feeling as if they have betrayed their good friend Anne.

Characters[edit]

• Jack Burroughs (Alan Alda). Jack is a lawyer and happily married to Kate. He enjoys asking deep and probing questions and then volunteering an answer. Jack is moralistic, expressing disapproval of Nick for leaving his wife. He competes with the more athletic Nick in dirtbike racing, soccer, and skiing. His friends and wife consider him too judgmental at times. Instead of keeping true feelings to themselves, Jack thinks it's better for everyone to clear the air, when some feelings could be better off hidden.
• Kate Burroughs (Carol Burnett). Kate works as an editor for Fortune magazine. She suspects that her husband has fantasies of being worshipped by an attractive, younger woman the way Nick has. Since she comes across as well-organized and even perfect, Kate can feel invisible and neglected.
• Nick Callan (Len Cariou). Nick is an insurance salesman and estate planner. He is bored with his wife Anne and divorces her. He admits to Jack that he wants a woman who can excite him. Ginny, a younger woman, begins joining him on seasonal vacations with the Burroughses and Zimmers. Although his four friends disapprove, Nick is happy. Ginny marries him and becomes pregnant with his child.
• Danny Zimmer (Jack Weston). Danny is a dentist and married to Claudia. He shares with his male friends a passion for cooking and exotic dishes. He is oldest of the group and fears that he is approaching death. This has prompted diet changes and even irrational fears, like pressing strange elevator buttons. Danny can be quite cheap when it comes to money and often displays symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder.
• Claudia Zimmer (Rita Moreno). Claudia is an accomplished painter. She can be quite outspoken, even to the point of being insensitive to others. Whenever her candor is criticized, Claudia refuses to apologize and cites her heritage ('I'm Italian!'). She expresses the desire to feel in love the way Nick does with Ginny. After witnessing Nick and Ginny swim naked, Claudia and Danny try it themselves.
• Anne Callan (Sandy Dennis). Anne is a housewife, mother, and aspiring photographer. She takes pleasure in taking photos of vegetables, much to Nick's chagrin. After being left for a younger woman, Anne falls into depression. She believes that both Kate and Claudia deserted her following her divorce. To break out of her rut, Anne attempts to try new (but unusual) things such as buying a snake and planning a vacation to Czechoslovakia. Eventually she is able to support herself as a magazine photographer (taking 'pictures of people, not kumquats,' as Nick observes).
• Ginny Newley (Bess Armstrong). Ginny begins a relationship with Nick after meeting him on a flight. She is attractive, bubbly, and a bit naive. She is in awe of the older Nick, whom she regards as quite accomplished. Although the Burroughses and Zimmers resent her as 'the other woman,' they eventually accept her as a friend. Ginny defends Danny when the group mocks him for his irrational fears. Ginny marries Nick and she becomes pregnant with his child.
• Beth Burroughs (Elizabeth Alda). Beth is the daughter of Jack and Kate. She attends college and is an excellent student. Noting her upbeat attitude, Danny observes that she 'takes a real bite out of life.' Beth's relationship with Lisa, a classmate, has deteriorated at college.
• Lisa Callan (Beatrice Alda). Lisa is the daughter of Nick and Anne. Her parents' divorce greatly affected her and caused her to become sullen, withdrawn, and isolated at school. Lisa confesses her unhappiness to her father, who is unable to cheer her up.

Release[edit]

The film had its premiere at the Denver International Film Festival on April 30, 1981 before opening May 22.^[4]

Reception[edit]

The Four Seasons was a critical and box office success. Produced on a budget of $6.5 million, the film grossed $50,427,646,^[2] making it the ninth highest-grossing film of 1981.^[5] It holds a 77% 'Fresh' rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes from 13 reviews.^[6]

Best Vivaldi Four Seasons Cd

The film also renewed interest in the Vivaldi concerti after which it was named and which its musical score included.

Awards[edit]

• Nominee Best Picture-Comedy Golden Globe (Martin Bregman)
• Nominee Best Actor-Comedy Golden Globe (Alan Alda)
• Nominee Best Actress-Comedy Golden Globe (Carol Burnett)
• Nominee Best Screenplay Golden Globe (Alan Alda)
• Nominee Best Original Comedy Screenplay Writers Guild of America (Alan Alda)
• Winner Best Foreign Film Bodil Awards (Denmark) (Alan Alda)

References[edit]

Best Vivaldi Four Seasons Vinyl

1. ^PRYOR AND ALDA PROVING STARS STILL SELL MOVIESHARMETZ, ALJEAN. New York Times 30 May 1981: 1.10.
2. ^ ^ab'The Four Seasons, Box Office Information'. Box Office Mojo. Retrieved March 9, 2012.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
3. ^'The Four Seasons'. Turner Classic Movies. Atlanta: Turner Broadcasting System (Time Warner). Retrieved October 29, 2016.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
4. ^Brown, Gene (1995). Movie Times. Macmillan. ISBN0-02-860429-6.
5. ^'1981 Domestic Grosses'. Box Office Mojo. Retrieved March 9, 2012.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
6. ^'The Four Seasons, Movie Reviews'. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved March 9, 2012.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)

Vivaldi Four Seasons Best Recording

External links[edit]

• The Four Seasons at IMDb
• The Four Seasons at Television Obscurities

Best Vivaldi Four Seasons Recording