Concerto No. 1

At a glance

• What it isthe third and last movement of 'Spring' from The Four Seasons, a fast Allegro subtitled 'Pastoral Dance'.
• Who, when, whywritten by Vivaldi in Venice and published in a collection of concertos in 1725.
• What to listen forthe long notes held by the low instruments, and the swaying dance rhythm above them.

Listen for

• Bagpipesviolas and the lower instruments hold the same note to imitate the drone of a country instrument.
• Dancethe orchestra starts a dance in a swaying rhythm, and the solo violin steps out to sing above it.
• Shade and sunlighta brief shadow of the minor falls in the middle, then the bright dance returns to round off spring.

When it was written

The Four Seasons are the first four concertos of Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione, a collection Vivaldi published in Amsterdam in 1725. Each comes with a sonnet describing its season, and the score marks which line of the poem each passage depicts. The sonnets are sometimes thought to be by Vivaldi himself, but this is not certain.

For many years Vivaldi taught violin and led the music at the Pietà, an orphanage in Venice. Its ensemble of girls was so skilled that travellers from across Europe came specially to hear them, it is said.