Vivaldi's Four Seasons: Live from the Barbican
Start time: 8pm
Approximate running time: 75 mins, no interval
Please note all timings are approximate and subject to change.
This performance is subject to government guidelines.
Harriet Smith takes us through tonight’s programme of Italian treasures.
Today we get to experience arguably the best-known set of violin concertos ever written – The Four Seasons – alongside a composer whose music has almost entirely vanished from sight.
The life of the Italian composer Maria Grimani is so wreathed in mystery that we don’t even know for certain when she died. She appears to have been born into a noble Venetian family and what we do know is that she spent periods of time in Vienna, where she was active during the reign of Charles VI and was one of the last of a series of female oratorio composers at the imperial court. Strikingly she was first-ever woman to have an opera produced there: Pallade e Marte was unveiled at the Vienna court theatre in celebration of the emperor’s saint’s day on 4 November 1713.
Maria Grimani’s gifts, though, are self-evident even from the short sinfonia (overture) that opens Pallade e Marte. It ranges from a bustlingly upbeat opening section, strings supported by busy harpsichord continuo, to a slower-moving section full of sighing phrases and juicily biting harmonies. This in turn gives way to a more optimistic theme, underpinned by lilting rhythms that end the sinfonia in a mood of good humour.
Arcangelo Corelli was a generation older than Grimani and details of his earlier life are somewhat vague. He made his mark in Rome, however, where he’d moved by 1675. He was an outstanding violinist and made major developments in the genres of the concerto and the sonata. His influence is out of all proportion to the small number of works left to posterity.
The sheer quality of his composing shows through wonderfully in the 12 Concerti grossi, Op 6, of which we’ll hear the first two pieces. (A concerto grosso is a work that features a group of instrumentalists who function as soloists.)
The brief opening movement of the first concerto sets off with all due solemnity before a bustling second one that alternates busyness with dramatic silences. The third has a stately gait, while the fourth enjoys irrepressibly high spirits, though underneath the energy we can still detect the courtly gait of the previous movement. A gently sighing Largo brings us into a minor key, with Corelli showing his genius for creating music from the simplest of building blocks. Shadows are banished in the faster-moving sixth movement, which reveals itself to be a brief but perfectly formed fugue. The Concerto grosso closes with a dancing Allegro.
The opening movement of the F major Concerto grosso is emotionally wide-ranging, from the ceremonial to a melting dip into the minor. The confident demeanour of the fugal Allegro that follows is shattered by a slow third movement, in which Corelli pulls us into the depths of despair. As the speed becomes more flowing the underlying harmonies remind us that there is no respite from the sadness, though this is ultimately overcome by an elegantly dancing final Allegro.
At the other end of the scale from Corelli’s small legacy is that left by Antonio Vivaldi, whose sheer productivity has sometimes counted against him. There’s no question that he took violin playing to a new level and the pupils of the Venetian Ospedale della Pietà, where Vivaldi spent most of his working life, were fortunate indeed. As a concerto composer he built on the legacy of figures such as Corelli and in turn influenced Tartini, J S Bach and Telemann.
When a work is as famous as Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, it’s easy to take for granted its radical experimentalism. The accompanying sonnets, which Vivaldi had printed alongside the music, and which will be displayed as captions tonight, make explicit the images conjured in the concertos (the author is unknown but may be Vivaldi himself).
Each concerto conjures a different world and the range of moods and musical effects are so striking it seems impossible that the forces – solo violin, strings and continuo – are so modest. Listen out, for example, for the barking dog (the viola in the middle movement of ‘Spring’), or, in the first movement of ‘Summer’, the calls of the cuckoo, turtledove and goldfinch, while in the same concerto’s slow movement the buzzing gnats and flies disturb the heat of the day, the sense of ennui banished by a violent storm that Vivaldi whips up for the work’s finale. ‘Autumn’ finds raucous peasants partying hard in the opening movement, while their alcoholic stupor is conjured with daring harmonic colours in the slow movement, the last movement bringing things back to life with a vigorous hunt. ‘Winter’ again inspires from Vivaldi music of extraordinary colouristic imagination, from the pre-Minimalismtic chugging of the first movement (depicting the savagery of the cold), via the warm glow of the slow movement, to a finale which is introduced by an improvisatory-sounding solo violin before a thrilling evocation of wild storms viewed from the comfort of indoors.
© Harriet Smith
Start time: 8pm
Approximate running time: 75 mins, no interval
Please note all timings are approximate and subject to change.
This performance is subject to government guidelines.
Programme and Performers
Programme
Arcangelo Corelli Concerto Grosso No 1 in D major, Op 6
Maria Grimani Sinfonia to Pallade e Marte
Arcangelo Corelli Concerto Grosso No 2 in F major, Op 6
Antonio Vivaldi The Four Seasons
Performers
Academy of Ancient Music
Richard Egarr director & harpsichord
Rachel Podger violin
Ken Chalmers surtitles
Vivaldi's Four Seasons sonnets
Spring has arrived merrily
the birds hail her with happy song
and, meanwhile, at the breath of the Zephyrs,
the streams flow with a sweet murmur:
thunder and lightning, chosen to proclaim her,
come covering the sky with a black mantle,
and then, when these fall silent, the little birds
return once more to their melodious incantation:
and so, on the pleasant, flowery meadow,
to the welcome murmuring of fronds and trees,
the goatherd sleeps with his trusty dog beside him.
To the festive sound of a shepherd’s bagpipe,
nymphs and shepherds dance beneath the beloved roof
at the joyful appearance of spring.
Beneath the harsh season inflamed by the sun,
Man languishes, the flock languishes, and the pine tress burns;
the cuckoo unleashes its voice and, as soon as it is heard,
the turtle dove sings and the goldfinch too.
Sweet Zephyrus blows, but Boreas suddenly
opens a dispute with his neighbour,
and the shepherd weeps, for he fears
a fierce storm looming – and his destiny;
the fear of lightning and fierce thunder
and the furious swarm of flies and blowflies
deprives his weary limbs of repose.
Oh alas! His fears are only too true.
The sky thunders, flares and with hailstones
severs the heads of the proud grain crops.
The peasant celebrates in dance and song
the sweet pleasure of the rich harvest
and, fired by Bacchus’ liquor,
many end their enjoyment in slumber.
The air, which fresher now, lends contentment,
and the season which invites so many
to the great pleasure of sweetest slumber,
make each one abandon dance and song.
At the new dawn the hunters set out on the hunt
with horns, guns and dogs.
The wild beast flees, and they follow its track;
already bewildered, and wearied by the great noise
of the guns and dogs, wounded,
it threatens weakly to escape, but, overwhelmed, dies.
To shiver, frozen, amid icy snows,
at the harsh wind’s chill breath;
to run, stamping one’s feet at every moment;
with one’s teeth chattering on account of the excessive cold;
to pass the days of calm and contentment by the fireside
while the rain outside drenches a hundred others;
to walk on the ice, and with slow steps
to move about cautiously for fear of falling;
to go fast, slip, fall to to the ground;
to go on the ice again and run fast
until the ice cracks and breaks open;
to hear, as they sally forth through the iron-clad gates,
Sirocco, Boreas, and all the winds at war.
This is winter, but of a kind to bring joy.
from Paul Everett, Vivaldi: the Four Seasons and Other Concertos, Op 8
English language translation © Cambridge University Press 1996
Artist biographies
'Rachel Podger, the unsurpassed British glory of the baroque violin' (The Times) has established herself as a leading interpreter of the Baroque and Classical. She was the first woman to be awarded the prestigious Royal Academy of Music/Kohn Foundation Bach Prize in October 2015, Gramophone Artist of the Year 2018, and the Ambassador for REMA’s Early Music Day 2020. A creative programmer, Rachel is the founder and Artistic Director of Brecon Baroque Festival and her ensemble Brecon Baroque. Rachel is Patron for The Continuo Foundation.
Following an exciting and innovative collaboration, A Guardian Angel, with the ‘impeccable’ (Gramophone) vocal ensemble VOCES8, Rachel was thrilled to be one of the Artists in Residence at the renowned Wigmore Hall in 2019/2020. Alongside this, Rachel and Christopher Glynn released the world premiere of three previously unfinished Mozart sonatas in March 2021 which were completed by Royal Academy of Music Professor Timothy Jones. Rachel featured in The VOCES8 Foundation’s LIVE From London festivals in a new advent version of A Guardian Angel and as guest leader for the Academy of Ancient Music in Bach B Minor Mass. Rachel presented BBC Radio 3’s Inside Music and directed a new arrangement by Chad Kelly, The Goldberg Variations Reimagined.
A dedicated educator, she holds the Micaela Comberti Chair for Baroque Violin (founded in 2008) at the Royal Academy of Music and the Jane Hodge Foundation International Chair in Baroque Violin at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. Rachel has a relationship with The Juilliard School in New York where she visits regularly. Rachel Podger is managed worldwide by Percius. www.percius.co.uk
Richard Egarr brings a joyful sense of adventure and a keen, enquiring mind to all his music-making – whether conducting, directing from the keyboard, giving recitals, playing chamber-music, and indeed talking about music at every opportunity. Music Director of the AAM, Principal Guest of the Residentie Orkest in The Hague, and Artistic Partner of the St Paul Chamber, Egarr began as Music Director of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale in 20/21 season, and finishes at AAM in Summer 2021 after 15 years. He was Associate Artist with the Scottish Chamber 2011-2017 and has conducted multiple orchestras including London Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw and Philadelphia Orchestra.
Egarr established the Choir of the AAM; operas and Handel’s oratorios lie at the heart of his repertoire. He made his Glyndebourne debut in 2007 conducting a staged version of St Matthew Passion. With AAM at the Barbican he has conducted Monteverdi and Purcell cycles, La Finta Giardiniera and Nozze di Figaro.
He regularly gives solo harpsichord recitals, and his extensive discography on Harmonia Mundi includes solo keyboard works by Bach, Handel, Mozart and Couperin, and for Linn Records, Byrd and Sweelinck. His releases on AAM Records include seven Handel discs and J S Bach's Passions and in 2019 a new highly praised edition under Richard’s supervision of Handel's rarely performed Brockes-Passion. In October 2020 AAM Records released the world premiere recording of a hidden gem rediscovered by Egarr: Dussek’s Messe Solemnelle.
The Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) is an orchestra with a worldwide reputation for excellence in baroque and classical music. Using historically-informed techniques, period-specific instruments and original sources, we bring music vividly to life in committed, vibrant performances.
Established nearly 50 years ago to make the first British recordings of orchestral works using original instruments, AAM has released more than 300 albums to date, collecting countless accolades including Classic BRIT, Gramophone and Edison awards. We now record on our own-label AAM Records, and are proud to be the most listened-to period-instrument orchestra online, with over one million monthly listeners on Spotify.
Beyond the concert hall, AAM is committed to nurturing the next generation of musicians and music-lovers through our innovative side-by-side learning and participation initiative AAMplify. Working in collaboration with partners at the Guildhall School, London Music Masters, Cambridgeshire Music Hub and others we reach thousands of children and young people across primary, secondary and tertiary education each year.
AAM is Associate Ensemble at the Barbican Centre, London; Orchestra-in-Residence at the University of Cambridge and Research Partner to the University of Oxford.
AAM recently announced the appointment of Laurence Cummings as Music Director from the 2021/22 season.