Vivaldi: The Four Seasons

Recognition is only the starting point. After the opening of Spring, follow what happens while the familiar material is absent, then notice how its return changes the scene. These concertos offer an accessible way to hear a soloist and an ensemble sharing responsibility for a musical narrative.

The recording here is the stereo performance made by Felix Ayo and I Musici in Vienna in 1959. They had already recorded the music in mono: matching artist names alone do not establish that two releases contain the same performance. The compositions belong to a much earlier history. Published in 1725 as the opening four concertos of Vivaldi’s Opus 8, each season has three movements. Four concertos are not four movements of a single symphony.

Listen for changing roles

The seasonal images can help, but identifying every bird or storm is not an entrance examination. Begin by distinguishing passages where the ensemble presents recognisable material from those where the violin takes another route. In the slow central movements, a change of pace also changes the scale of attention. A broad landscape can become a more intimate experience. The contrast between sustained melody and short accompaniment is often as revealing as the image assigned to a passage.

A recording within a longer history

Decca’s later account places Ayo’s successful stereo version within I Musici’s sequence of recordings. That does not mean this album invented interest in Vivaldi or gave the work its first performance. Colin Clarke’s 2001 reissue review criticised the pacing and weight of the accompaniment: later reception was not uniformly admiring. That assessment is not a report from 1959. This modern-instrument reading is useful as one perspective among many, rather than an instruction that every subsequent interpretation must sound like it.

Where this programme ends

The linked digital compilation contains fifteen tracks. The first twelve constitute The Four Seasons; the final three belong to the separate concerto L’amoroso, RV 271, recorded in 1958. Stop after the twelfth track once to preserve the boundary between works. The compilation’s 1986 date and the service’s individual track dates must not be confused with the 1959 recording sessions. Different release dates can describe the circulation of the same performance rather than a newly recorded interpretation.