100: Autumn

 Today we continue our exploration of the Four Seasons with a look at Autumn, a time when hard work reveals joyful abundance. This is the central conceit of this concerto. In its three parts, it tells the story of the months of the harvest and the celebration around it. 

Like the other concerti in this series, Vivaldi wrote a sonnet for it. Setting the stage for the first movement, he writes, “The peasant celebrates with song and dance the harvest safely gathered in. / The cup of Bacchus flows freely, and many find their relief in deep slumber.” (“Bacchus” another name for “Dionysus,” the Greco-Roman deity of partying, wine-making, food, harvests, abundance, fertility, and many other things.) For the second movement, Vivaldi writes “The singing and the dancing die away / as cooling breezes fan the pleasant air, / inviting all to sleep / without a care.” And finally, for the third movement, “The hunters emerge at dawn, / ready for the chase, / with horns and dogs and cries. / Their quarry flees while they give chase. / Terrified and wounded, the prey struggles on, / but, harried, dies.”

Notice the folk-like character of especially the first and third movements, where the story centers on a group of peasants (1) and foxhunters (3). That’s no accident, and is one of the masterstrokes that makes this collection of concerto such a good vehicle for the storytelling Vivaldi set out to do. I love horses, and as both an equestrian and a musician, I have some context that people who are only musicians probably don’t, that I think is absolutely crucial to an effective third movement. When horses walk, there are four distinct footfalls. We call each one of these a “beat.” Walking, therefore, is a “four-beat gait.” When they trot, imagine pairs in an X: left front and right hind, right front and left hind. These pairs move together, and they alternate. Because of these aptly named “diagonal pairs”, we say trotting has two beats. However, ask a horse to transition “up” to the next “higher” (i.e., faster) gait, and they’ll (almost always—there are some very interesting exceptions in “gaited” horses, like those in Iceland, in some parts of Peru, etc.) go into an equal 3-phase pattern. Galloping is even faster, and splits one of the phases of the canter into two, so we have 4 beats. In musical terms, think of quarters, eighths, eighth-triplets, and sixteenths. 

It is trivial to “sit” the walk. One may either sit or “post” the trot; posting is more comfortable, but once you learn to come up out of the saddle as the outside front leg moves forward and sit down as it come back, it becomes second nature. Sitting a canter or gallop is harder, and it took me years to learn—until I started thinking of the scherzo of Beethoven 9 in my head as I cantered and asked the horses to canter at a pace that matched the tempo of the music in my head. Allowing my mind to focus on the music led to my body naturally relaxing, thereby freeing my hips from tension and making the canter much smoother for everyone involved.

I mention this because the third movement of Autumn is a foxhunt (done on horseback) written in such a fast 3 that it feels in 1—exactly like the scherzo. This makes it both perfect for storytelling (because the music mimics the canter) and as a soundtrack for equestrians trying to learn to sit the canter, like I did with the Beethoven. Having done the same mental listening exercise with the third movement of Autumn would have produced the same results. 



Here are some recordings:


1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g632Wbi17gg

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIdwCrfDNjU&list=RDUIdwCrfDNjU&start_radio=1

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JEJ4Is6fTg

4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MizlR6-kQo8&list=RDMizlR6-kQo8&start_radio=1

5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWXjC_H-KN4&list=RDyWXjC_H-KN4&start_radio=1


 


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