Classical Music for the Seasons Music for the Seasons    

Lesson 17: The Four Seasons - Winter

by Antonio Vivaldi

Performer: European Archive

Directions

Study the musical selection for one week.

Over the week:

• Each day, listen to the musical selection.
• Practice reciting the title of the composition and the composer's name.
• Read the synopsis.
• Complete the enrichment activities.
• Study the review questions.

Synopsis

Bundling up under the covers, making snowmen and snow angels, sledding over the snow, and icicles dangling from gutters, For the next four weeks, you'll listen to selections that embody the winter season. If you live in an area that becomes cold and snowy, play this music, enjoy some hot cocoa, and watch the snow fall. Antonio Vivaldi wrote 'The Four Seasons' in 1723. The four concertos celebrate the seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Vivaldi published sonnets to accompany each season's concerto. He may have written these poems himself. The winter concerto varies its tempo and tone to reflect the vagaries of winter weather, from snowflakes drifting down from the sky to the wind whipping up violent snowstorms.

Enrichment

Activity 1: Discuss winter weather changes. For example:

• In certain areas on Earth, winter brings frigid weather.
• Streams, lakes, and rivers freeze solid, thick enough that people can walk or drive over the ice.
• Some people ice fish on lakes, cutting holes in the ice and catching fish through the openings.
• Storms called blizzards may occur. Blizzards are extreme winter storms with heavy snow, fast winds, and low visibility.

Activity 2: Describe the Music

After listening to the music, describe and discuss what you heard.

Read the list of adjectives below. Select those that describe the music or think up additional adjectives.

• Happy
• Sad
• Quiet
• Loud
• Fast
• Slow
• Scary
• Dreamy
• Magical
• Rhythmic
• Dignified

Activity 3: Study the Painting

Examine the painting below while listening to the music.

• Narrate the scene shown in the painting aloud using your own words.
• Describe how the painting relates to the music.

Find the following items in the painting:

• Snow
• Houses
• Church Steeple
• Roofs
• Trees
• Fence
• Hill
• Horizon

Activity 4: For each movement, listen to the movement, pause the playback, and read the associated lines of Vivaldi's Winter Poem.

(0:00) Allegro Non Molto Movement (Allegro Non Molto means not very quick)

• To tremble from cold in the icy snow,
• In the harsh breath of a horrid wind;
• To run, stamping one's feet every moment,
• Our teeth chattering in the extreme cold.

(4:00) Largo Movement (Largo means slow tempo and dignified)

• Before the fire to pass peaceful,
• Contented days while the rain outside pours down.

(6:15) Allegro Movement (Allegro means brisk tempo)

• 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 course through the home
• despite the locked and bolted doors...
• this is winter, which nonetheless
• brings its own delights.

Review

Question 1

What is the title of the music?

1 / 3

Answer 1

The title is 'The Four Seasons - Winter.'

1 / 3

Question 2

Who composed the music?

2 / 3

Answer 2

The composer is Antonio Vivaldi.

2 / 3

Question 3

In places with cold winter weather, what happens to the weather, the trees, and the animals during the winter season?

3 / 3

Answer 3

The weather grows frigid, ice and snow encase bare tree branches, rivers and lakes freeze over, and animals continue to hibernate or huddle in their burrows to stay warm.

3 / 3

❮ ❯

1. What is the title of the music? The title is 'The Four Seasons - Winter.'
2. Who composed the music? The composer is Antonio Vivaldi.
3. In places with cold winter weather, what happens to the weather, the trees, and the animals during the winter season? The weather grows frigid, ice and snow encase bare tree branches, rivers and lakes freeze over, and animals continue to hibernate or huddle in their burrows to stay warm.

References

'The Four Seasons (Vivaldi).' Wikipedia. Wikipedia.org. n.p.

'The Four Seasons Sonnets.' Wikisource. Wikisource.org. n.p.