9.6 - Vivaldi: The "Spring" Concerto

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Del curso dictado por Yale University

Introduction to Classical Music

1452 calificaciones

Yale University

Introduction to Classical Music

1452 calificaciones

Using a simple and enjoyable teaching style, this course introduces the novice listener to the wonders of classical music, from Bach fugues to Mozart symphonies to Puccini operas.

De la lección

The Baroque Era

Novelists, poets, painters, mathematicians, and even geologists talk about "fugue-like" structure in their media and disciplines. But what is a fugue and how did we get it? To find out, we enter the world of Baroque music and famed master of the fugue, Johann Sebastian Bach. First, we'll get a chance to "live" during the Baroque period by taking a detailed look inside the life, career, and even home of Bach-- explore where and how Bach and his family lived, discuss Bach’s music, and talk about the techniques of Baroque music as a whole. Next, Bach’s music will then be compared and contrasted with that of his exact contemporary and fellow German, George Frideric Handel. One might say that Bach was an idealist and Handel was a realist when it came to music, so we’ll look at how these personality traits informed each composer’s musical style. Finally, we'll wrap up the module with an introduction to music of the Classical Period, and who better to lead the way than the inimitable Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?

9.1 - Introduction to Baroque Art and Music6:53

9.2 - Early Baroque Opera in Italy11:24

9.3 - Early Baroque Opera in London13:26

9.4 - Baroque Instruments and Orchestras21:15

9.5 - A Baroque Favorite: Pachelbel's Canon5:43

9.6 - Vivaldi: The "Spring" Concerto13:30

Conoce a los instructores

Craig Wright
Henry L & Lucy G Moses Professor of Music
Department of Music

[MUSIC]

As you heard with the opening slide here for this segment,

we're going to engage now the first movement of Antonio Vivaldi's well known,

The "Spring" Concerto.

Let's start with Vivaldi himself.

As you can see from the main points of this slide, he was born in Venice,

reared around the church of San Marco, the Basilica of San Marco.

He became an ordained priest but continued to develop a career as

an opera composer and composer of instrumental music, and as a teacher.

But let's move on now, to Venice itself.

Here you see, San Marco in the very center there, and

the Doge's Palace off to the right.

Now we're going to slide a little bit to the right down the,

the waterway here to this church, the Church of the Ospedale della Pieta,

the Church of Hospice of Mercy.

It was actually an orphanage for girls.

An orphanage for girls who were trained specifically in music.

Let's move now to the high alter.

Here's the high alter of this orphanage, convent, music conservatory.

Now, we're going to take a look at, I guess, the North Wall.

Yes, it would be the North Wall.

And you see the balcony here, the gallery.

And note carefully the metal grill and the organ in the background.

So here's how it looks today.

And here's how it looks, here's how it looked in Vivaldi's day,

with the girls singing and playing behind the screen.

And you can still see the organ there.

As we saw, Vivaldi was the master of the concerto.

He wrote 450 of them.

Some concertos which he wrote for solo instruments such as violin, flute,

and even instruments such as the guitar and the mandolin.

Others were concertos for small groups of soloists.

Two violins or three violins, for example.

Let's see the difference between a solo concerto, and

what's called a concerto grosso.

So as you can see here, we've got the genre of music called a concerto,

in which one or more soloists play, with and against a larger orchestra.

We have a solo concerto,

that's one type of concerto in which we've got just a soloist plus orchestra.

And in the Baroque period we've got this genre called the concerto grosso,

which has several soloists plus orchestra.

When they all play together, soloists and full orchestra, that's called the tutti.

But that full group can be divided into a big group, a larger group,

called the concerto grosso, and a smaller group,

the little group of just soloists called the concertino.

So we've got these soloists, and

we've, basically we've got everybody playing together.

Generally speaking, concerti grossi are written for three movements, or

are written in three movements, fast-slow-fast.

The popularity of the genre peaked about 1730 and then diminished thereafter.

But that the solo concerto continued into the Romantic period.

Indeed, and really, even into the Modern period as well, because it offered

the opportunity for, in fact, a single soloist to showcase his or her styles.

Now, these pieces, these genres, of the concerto grosso,

fast-slow-fast in terms of movements.

The first movement was usually written in ritornello form.

So let's take a look at that now in our next slide.

And it's a very simple idea.

It's just an alter, alternation.

Much as we have in ritorn, rondo form.

Much as we have in rondo form, of this idea of a refrain.

Refrain played by everybody is called, an Italia ritornello.

The refrain played by everyone alternating with, soloists.

The concertino, playing, soloist derived from the ritornello.

And then the tutti will come back with the ritornello.

More soloists, more tutti ritornello, more soloists, and

so on, it goes, until the end.

So, let's take a look now at a slide that will get us up to

speed with regard to the famous Concerto in E Major, the "Spring" Concerto.

As you may know, Vivaldi wrote a set of four concerti grossi for,

Baroque orchestra, The Four Seasons in which each in turn

intends to depict the feelings and sounds and sights of the different seasons.

And to set the mood, Vivaldi wrote a poem, an illustrative sonnet for each.

The poem is descriptive but the music more so.

So any time we have music that tries to play out through sound, a poem,

a narrative, even an historical event, we call that program music.

So we've got a good example of program music here

with Vivaldi's "Spring" Concerto.

So let's start with the beginning of the, "Spring" Concerto.

The first movement.

It's written in Ritornello form.

It has something that we call terraced dynamics,

sudden shifts between loud and soft.

And we'll hear that in just a moment.

And we've got something called a melodic sequence.

What's a melodic sequence?

Well, it's the repetition of the musical motive at a successive,

at successively higher or lower degrees of the scale.

We can sound this out here.

We have, you'll hear a motive played, and

then it's repeated, and then it's repeated again.

One, two, three, and each time it shows up, it's slightly lower.

I think I've got an audio clip.

Let's listen to this.

[MUSIC]

Okay, so that's a melodic sequence.

Again. [MUSIC]

Motif, second playing, third playing, each time going down.

So here we have the first movement, with its Ritornello, and

the Ritornello is divided into two parts, Parts 1 and 2.

[MUSIC]

Part 1 and Part 2, begins with a leap.

[MUSIC]

So those are the two parts of the Ritornello.

So let's listen now to the entire movement,

following along with the first violin part.

[MUSIC]

So here, we start with the ritornello.

Notice the music is now suddenly quieter.

Piano.

Good example of terraced dynamics.

Falls off.

Back up.

Sudden shift.

Terrace dynamics.

One, to the next.

And then suddenly quieter.

[MUSIC]

Okay, this is our first, statement by the concertino.

Soloist, two violinists working here.

Playing trills and notes close to each other high up,

imitating obviously the sounds of birds in spring.

[MUSIC]

And now, the ritornello will come back.

Ritornello, Part 2.

[MUSIC]

Now, as you can see from all of these fast-moving 16th notes.

[MUSIC]

We've got action here.

And this is Vivaldi's attempt to represent in music the motions of

a babbling brook or stream.

[MUSIC]

Okay.

[MUSIC]

I'm going to pause it right here.

I'm going to pause it right here.

Tell me, you're about to hear Ritornello Part 2.

Anything different?

Maybe I can even move it back.

Yeah.

Hey good for me.

I'm going to move it back.

What's the difference between Ritornello Part 2,

first statement and the present statement?

Let's see if I can get it going.

I bet I can.

[MUSIC]

All right.

Did you hear the difference?

Could you tell the difference?

Well, he's taken it down.

He's down from here.

[MUSIC]

To down to here.

[MUSIC]

So he's taking it down.

Actually taking it down to the dom.

Now we're going to pick it up and the music gets very agitated.

You'll hear the violin technique of tremolo and then suddenly races up.

Races up like, almost like lightning bolt.

Well, of course this is Vivaldi's attempt to represent a storm in spring.

[MUSIC]

It's up.

Another statement of theme.

What's different?

[MUSIC]

Did you hear the difference?

[MUSIC]

Two. [MUSIC]

So went from major to minor.

He's modulated, the composer modulates in these concertino sections,

modulates to the minor.

Let's go on.

[MUSIC]

So there's our statement in minor.

Now the sun's coming back out, storms over.

Rising up, rising up chromatically in the violins.

[MUSIC]

Everybody's happy, the world is right again.

Back to the [INAUDIBLE] our major statement.

[MUSIC]

Playing Ritornello Part 1.

Now we're going to build up to a final climax.

[MUSIC]

And finally back home, tonic key, Ritornello Part 2.

[MUSIC]

All right, that's an energetic movement from a concerto,

the "Spring" Concerto, by Antonio Vivaldi.

Let's review some terms.

Solo concerto.

Obviously that is a soloist playing along with and against an orchestra.

Concerto grosso involves a concertino in which there are a group of

soloists playing along with and against an orchestra.

Ritornello is a refrain, that comes back again and again.

A melodic refrain that returns.

Tutti means everybody in the orchestra,

including the soloist, playing all together.

Concertino is simply the small group of soloists.

Terrace dynamics indicate these abrupt shifts of loud and soft in Baroque music.

Program music is simply music that attempts to portray through sound.

A poem, a narrative, a story, or some historical event.

And melodic sequence have we, as we have seen, is the repetition of a musical

motive at successively higher or lower degrees of the scale.

Now, that famous movement that we just heard from Vivaldi's "Spring"

Concerto lasts about three minutes and ten seconds.

Next session we'll turn to a concerto by J.S.

Bach that will last three times as long as Vivaldi's movement.

Which gives us something to look forward to with regards to Bach and

his endless capacity for musical invention.

See you then.

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