Spring (from The Four Seasons) (fast)

This is the first movement of Antonio Vivaldi's famous work, The Four Seasons. It is a melody that many people know, though the original version is performed a bit faster than our fastest track. That's right, we give you two different tempos in our recordings. You can use the slower one for slower groups or as a warm-up for the faster version you will eventually perform.

The Four Seasons is a group of four violin concerti, one for each season. For our arrangement of the first movement of the first concerto, we use an entire string orchestra plus three recorders - soprano 1, the harder part which plays most of the melody; soprano 2, an easier part that uses only G, A, B, and C; and an alto recorder part, suitable to most young alto players. If you want to download the piano/recorder score to follow along, it is one of our downloadable extras available at our web site.

If you have time to broaden your work on this song, consider studying the composer. His works like this one, are considered to be some of the best music written in the style of this period. Do be sure to listen to the original, if you can. Discuss the music during his lifetime with your students, too. What was most successful for him? (It was opera, over which he was an impresario – similar to a producer or manager). Whether performing his own works or that of others, it was his work in opera that paid his bills when nothing else did.