Program Notes: Vivaldi The Four Seasons

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH 
Cantata No. 51, “Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen!” BWV 51 
BORN: March 21, 1685, in Eisenach 
DIED: July 28, 1750, in Leipzig 
COMPOSED: 1730 
WORLD PREMIERE: September 17, 1730, in Leipzig. 

What to Listen For:  

• Bach takes a leaf from Baroque operatic conventions by pitting virtuosic vocal writing against an equally demanding instrumental part for trumpet, to thrilling effect. 

Bach takes a leaf from Baroque operatic conventions by pitting virtuosic vocal writing against an equally demanding instrumental part for trumpet, to thrilling effect. 

Bach’s 200-plus surviving cantatas give ample proof of his comprehensive knowledge and fluency in writing for the human voice. The popular cantata, “Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen!” (“Praise God in Every Nation”) is a showpiece for solo soprano and a veritable concerto for an equally capable trumpeter (not unlike “The trumpet shall sound” from Part III of Handel’s Messiah). Dating from relatively early in Bach’s long tenure at the Thomas Church in Leipzig (from 1723 to his death in 1750), this is an irresistibly catchy and festive work. Since opera was off limits to a Lutheran, church-affiliated composer in the 18th century’s first half, Bach invested this and other cantatas with a level of shining virtuosity that would have been equally at home on the operatic stage. Music scholar Albert Schweitzer described this work as a “brilliant coloratura piece for soprano and trumpet, full of stirring life, as the instrumental theme in the first aria at once makes clear.”  

An unstoppably energetic opening movement leads, after a palette-cleansing recitative, to a lovely aria that has been likened to “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music. In the fourth section, the soprano sings the chorale melody “Sei Lob und Preis mit Ehren” (“Glory, and praise with honor”) and sails without a break into the concluding “Alleluia,” an exuberant paean of praise and a fittingly virtuosic display piece capped by a ringing high “C” at the movement’s climactic point. 
 
Steven Lowe © 2015, revised 2025 

 
ANTONIO VIVALDI 
Gloria in D major, R. 589 
BORN: March 4, 1678, in Venice 
DIED: July 28, 1741, in Vienna 
COMPOSED: 1713–1719 
WORLD PREMIERE: Details of the first performance are unknown. Upon Vivaldi’s death the work was lost, only to be rediscovered in the 1920s. Its first modern performance took place in Siena, Italy, in 1939. 

What to Listen For:

• Vivaldi’s writing for this setting of the hymn “Gloria in excelsis Deo” is marked by dramatic contrasts in mood, texture and instrumental color, conveying a sense of immediacy and rhythmic fervor that seem to reflect the extraordinary speed with which he composed.  

Antonio Vivaldi spent many productive years as a lay priest at the Musical Seminary of the Hospital of Mercy in Venice, a home and school for illegitimate or orphaned girls, who received a thorough musical education. The most talented musicians stayed on as part of the Seminary’s orchestra. Vivaldi’s duties covered all musical bases, from teaching a variety of instruments, to composing and serving as superintendent of music. In his almost four decades (1704–1740) at the Seminary, Vivaldi wrote enormous quantities of music to educate and showcase the skills of his well-trained students, using his resources to explore all manner of instrumental effects.  

During his lifetime, Vivaldi was highly esteemed throughout Europe, more for his operas and choral works than for his concertos. Only within the past 20 years have pioneering souls begun to perform and record his colorful operas and explore more fully his choral and other vocal works. But one choral piece that has enjoyed wide currency predating the current generation’s “rediscovery” of such music is the Gloria in D major, R, 589. The manuscript actually turned up in the 1920s along with a number of other works, including a Gloria in D major (R. 588) that has not achieved the same degree of popularity as the one we hear tonight. 

The Gloria text is a hymn of joy, praise and worship long connected with the Roman Catholic Mass. Vivaldi’s writing, generally simpler and less sumptuously contrapuntal than his great German counterpart and admirer, J.S. Bach, is marked by dramatic contrasts in mood, texture and instrumental color. It conveys a sense of immediacy and rhythmic fervor that seem to reflect the extraordinary speed with which Vivaldi composed. He claimed that he could compose faster than his copyists could transcribe his works. 

The opening movement, Gloria in excelsis, launches this 12-section work with octave leaps and repeated notes that establish the triumphant key of D-major and create a sense of ceremonial grandeur and boundless energy. Punctuating trumpets and oboes reinforce the declamatory outbursts from the chorus and rhythmic momentum.  

Et in terra pax is as private and meditative as the opening Gloria is exuberant, and finds Vivaldi using chromatic harmony to heighten expression. The Laudamus te is joy incarnate, positing a repeated instrumental refrain sandwiched between the vocal sections. The ensuing Gratias agimus tibi is only six bars in length, but solemnly evokes praise to God through chordal movement. Cast in the same key as the Gratias, the Propter magnam gloriam showcases Vivaldi’s adept contrapuntal writing to illuminate a further aspect of God’s glory. 

Balanced against a lovely instrumental tune, the seamless soprano solo Domine Deus expresses the gentle and tender side of the Almighty. The succeeding Domine Fili Unigenite is animated by dotted rhythms. Reverting again to the minor mode, the Domine Deus, Agnus Dei pits the descending alto soloist’s line with chord-based commentary from the chorus and orchestra. Qui tollis, also in the minor, combines expressive chromaticism with rhythmic urgency. Though quickly paced, the Qui sedes ad dexteram continues the essentially serious mood of the preceding two movements as the strings accompany the alto soloists. 

Quoniam tu solus sanctus marks a return to the D-major optimism of the opening movement and leads into the double-fugue, which ends the work in a most celebratory fashion.  

Steven Lowe © 2015, revised 2025 

 
ANTONIO VIVALDI 
Le quattro stagioni (“The Four Seasons”), Op. 8 
COMPOSED: 1725 
WORLD PREMIERE: Undocumented 

What to Listen For:  

• Vivaldi’s most enduring work is a musical romp through the seasons, from the jaunty birdcalls and rustic dance of spring to the dramatic thunderstorms of summer, through an autumnal hunt replete with dogs and hunting horns, and finally, to the austere quiet and conversely howling winds of winter. 

Vivaldi’s most enduring work is a musical romp through the seasons, from the jaunty birdcalls and rustic dance of spring to the dramatic thunderstorms of summer, through an autumnal hunt replete with dogs and hunting horns, and finally, to the austere quiet and conversely howling winds of winter. 

In 1725, Vivaldi collected a dozen violin concertos and published them under the unifying title of Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione (“The contest between harmony and invention”). By this time, he was already renowned throughout Europe both as a violinist and composer. In fact, he was one of the earliest composers to make a decent living through the publication of music.   

The Four Seasons are so-called because the composer published them in conjunction with four sonnets, probably of his own creation, that describe the seasons of the year and their effects on the human condition. Whether he wrote the music first and then added the texts, or conceived them from the outset as a pairing is unknown. Remarkably, the music stands perfectly on its own as absolute music, yet it is richly and unabashedly programmatic at the same time. 

Vivaldi did not create the three-movement concerto format (fast-slow-fast), but he certainly propelled it into a position of dominance over the earlier four or five-movement concerto favored by Corelli, with its frequent alternation of slow and fast sections. All four of the concertos that constitute The Four Seasons are in three movements, with generally vigorous outer movements flanking imaginative and often expressive slow movements. 

The year begins not in January’s winter thrall, but in the spirit of rebirth that is the essence of spring. Here is a sprightly concerto, its opening Allegro filled with joyous song and birdcalls, followed by a languorous largo and a rustic, dance-like finale.  

Summer is not nearly as benign. Its G-minor signature foretells summer storms, though not before assorted cuckoos, turtledoves and goldfinches make their appearance in the first movement. The Adagio conveys the unhappiness of a sopping wet shepherd, his dark mood intensified in the stormy, virtuosic finale. 

A happier mood pervades the F-major concerto in its autumnal splendor. Peasants dance, a man drinks to excess (with devilishly challenging violinistic leaps and jumps), then falls into slumber in the quiet Larghetto, before hunters emerge in the boisterous Allegro assai finale.  

The concluding concerto begins with a truly masterly evocation of a foreboding winter landscape: repeated F-minor eighth-note chords establish a bleak and frigid scene, while the solo violin is nothing less than the bone-chilling “whistling wind.” The ensuing Largo offers respite as we move indoors, sharing in the comfort of a warm fire sheltered from the cold and wet. The evocative finale conjures images in musical terms of walking on ice, alternating between fear and confidence. The very last section plays out the sonnet’s description of the ‘northern’ scirroco, that wintry wind that “howls around the bolted door.”  
 
Steven Lowe © 2013, revised 2025