Concerto No. 3

At a glance

• What it isthe first movement of 'Autumn' from The Four Seasons, a fast Allegro.
• Who, when, whythe first movement of the 'Autumn' concerto in Vivaldi's collection published in 1725.
• What to listen forthe full orchestra's merry dance, and the solo violin's picture of a drunkard staggering.

Listen for

• The feastthe orchestra begins with a merry rhythm that seems to stamp, the villagers' dance.
• Staggeringthe solo violin runs up and down quickly, then sways as if losing the beat. The score marks it 'the drunkard'.
• Sleepnear the end the music slows and quiets, depicting the drunkard falling asleep, then closes with the feast's rhythm from the start.

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.

The 'Autumn' concerto moves from the feast of the first movement to deep sleep in the second and a dawn hunt in the finale, a plan that seems to follow one day of the season. Vivaldi used the solo violin's virtuosity to depict even human gestures in sound.