Concerto No. 2

At a glance

• What it isthe second movement of 'Summer' from The Four Seasons, alternating a slow Adagio with sudden bursts of Presto.
• Who, when, whythe middle movement of the second of the first four concertos in Vivaldi's collection published in 1725.
• What to listen forthe solo violin's weary song, the violins' buzzing figure, and the thunder in the low instruments.

Listen for

• A weary songthe solo violin sings a slow, lonely melody, the shepherd longing for rest.
• Insectsbeneath it the other violins play a short, finely repeated figure. The score notes that it depicts flies and gnats.
• Thunderbetween phrases of the slow song, the low instruments suddenly sound fast and loud, the thunder of an approaching storm that breaks in the next movement.

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.

'Summer' is full of tension. The first movement depicts people and animals exhausted by heat and a north wind on its way; after the unease of this second movement, hail and storm sweep the fields in the finale. Vivaldi painted summer not with joy but with fear.