Antonio Vivaldi
«The Four Seasons»
The Contest Between Harmony and Invention
ABOUT PERFORMANCE
First violins:
Federico Cardilli*, Azusa Onishi, Eleonora Minerva, Sabina Morelli
Second violins:
Leonardo Spinedi*, Francesco Peverini, Alessandro Marini, Vanessa Di Cintio
Violas:
Gianluca Saggini*, Riccardo Savinelli, Luana De Rubeis
Cellos:
Giulio Ferretti*, Chiara Burattini
Double bass:
Alessandro Schillaci
Harpsichord:
Ettore Maria del Romano
NATURE AND THE CULTURE OF SOUND
The concerts that we’ve become accustomed to call The Four Seasons, are contained in a series of twelve and were published in Amsterdam in 1725 as Opera 8.
Vivaldi himself entitled the work, Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’invenzione
(The Pursuit of Harmony and Invention).
The collection is dedicated to the Bohemian Count Wenzel von Morzin, who requested the composer as his “maestro of music in Italy”, that is, as a non-resident Kappellmeister:
Vivaldi’s fame was widespread in all of Europe.
There is no need to add a single word of comment to the title: cimento (pursuit, or test) / armonia (harmony) / invenzione (invention), the sense of composition, between rules and freedom, science and art, is perfectly contained there in.
