101: Winter

 In direct opposition to “Summer” framing it as “atypical,” you could reasonably argue that “Winter” is the far more “typical” Baroque concerto. After, Winter follows the expected minor-major-minor tonal framework in a way that Summer clearly doesn’t.

Turning to the middle movement, let me offer a word of caution: so many times, I hear “Largos” that clearly aren’t “Largo,” and are much more likely an “Allegro” trying to fly under the radar. We can sit here and debate what constitutes “Largo” versus “Larghetto” or where the line is between “Largo” and “Adagio,” but too often, I hear the second movement played so fast that there really is no defensible characterization of the chosen tempo as anything within a stone’s throw of “Largo.” 

These overzealous tempi pose another problem, about which I’ve written plenty (in the context of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony’s third movement): if [some chosen tempo I think is way too fast to be honestly labeled “Largo”] is, for the sake of argument, accepted as “Largo,” then what that means is that, for example, the last movement of Summer, unambiguously marked Presto would have to be so fast—to be sufficiently faster than a Largo to qualify as a Presto, since these things have a natural hierarchy about them—that no one, not even Niccolo Paganini, could possibly play it at all, let alone as cleanly as Summer should be. Order is paramount in the Baroque conception of music, and, in order to preserve it and not distort the relationships between the movements—and their storytelling ability which is in a sense predicated on those relationships—one necessarily must pick a slow enough tempo for the middle movements (this one especially) so as to make their faster outer cousins even possibly physically playable.

As has been the case with the three concerti before it, Winter has an accompanying sonnet written by Vivaldi himself. Before we dive into the customary list of recommended recordings, let’s go through the sonnet. In the first movement, we hear about “Shivering, frozen mid the frosty snow in biting, stinging winds; / running to and fro to stamp one's icy feet, teeth chattering in the bitter chill.” In the second, “To rest contentedly beside the hearth, while those outside are drenched by pouring rain.” Finally, in the third, “We tread the icy path slowly and cautiously, for fear of tripping and falling. / Then turn abruptly, slip, crash on the ground and, rising, hasten on across the ice lest it cracks up. / We feel the chill north winds coarse through the home despite the locked and bolted doors… / this is winter, which nonetheless brings its own delights.”


Here are some recordings:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYNDA0MT4Qk

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEkmwDimvtU (Please don’t mind the mistake in the video title; this really is Winter, not Autumn, despite the F major/minor mislableling)

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXq-imi271w

4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCqO-0339k0



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