Vivaldi, Antonio

The Seasons | Le Stagioni; | Translated by Julius A. Molinaro [with a Preface by William Rueter]

Toronto: The Aliquando Press, 1978. Duodecimo, 16.1 x 12.4 cm. Cased in quarter pale ochre cloth and pink, green, and gold French marbled paper over boards. Paper title-label to the spine. Bright green endpapers. Unpaginated [pp. 28; on double-leaves]. The spine is slightly sunned, and there is mild rubbing to the covering paper at the corners. The sewing is a little loose between the second and third gatherings. Slightly musty. Else a near fine copy. The parallel Italian and English texts were set in Bembo roman and Deepdene italic with Open Kapitalen for display. They were printed on Ingres Ecole paper and embellished with a rich variety of ornaments printed in a range of colours. Each of the four section titles is printed with an ornamented border in at least two colours. From an edition of 60 copies. The present copy is number 45.

Printed to commemorate the tercentenary of Vivaldi’s birth. (The Aliquando Century, BK 40). Item #300

“The Seasons was first published in Amsterdam in 1725 by Michel-Charles de Cène as the first four concerti of Vivaldi’s opus 8, ‘Il Cimento dell’ Armonia e dell’ Inventione’. The essence of programme music had been established since the Renaissance; Biber, Couperin le Grand, Lully, and Kuhnau contributed some of the finest programmatic writing of the Baroque period. But ‘The Seasons’ was the first extensive orchestral work in imitation of nature.

It was performed in 1728 at the Concert Spirituel in Paris, and immediately ‘La Primavera’ became popular in France. In 1755 Jean-Jacques Rousseau arranged it for flute solo, and ten years later Corrette ‘borrowed’ it as the basis for a choral setting of Psalm 148.

The immense popularity of the music has minimized the validity of the four anonymous explanatory sonnets accompanying its publication. Each sonnet, by means of quotations above the musical score, adds specific literary content to the music itself. Marc Pincherle, the Vivaldi scholar thinks the composer might have dashed off the sonnets, or requested them from a librettist; or they may have been in existence before the composition.

It is difficult to know if the sonnets inspired or were simply appended to the music. In his dedication Vivaldi indicates that ‘The Seasons’ was well received before its publication, but he implies that the texts are included to clarify the score. Yet the sonnets are not merely superimposed on the music, but are an intrinsic part of the work. The description of calm between storms in the summer sonnet, and repose between activity in the winter sonnet, exactly parallels the fast-slow concerto plan. The poems are written in a pastoral style popular in the first half of the eighteenth century, and they paint a typical rustic genre-picture. The sonnets are not first-rate poetry, and cannot be compared with the descriptive detail of James Thomson’s poem on the same subject written just five years later. But they display a charm in their impressionistic interpretations of the progression of the seasons. The literary effects are small in scale, but the poet succeeds in his expression, within the conventions of dancing shepherds and the joys of pastoral life.

The poems display competent literary skill, most obviously in the descriptions within the winter sonnet. The form of the autumn sonnet is of particular technical interest; the first and second quatrains contain the same rhyme scheme, and the final word in each line of the first quatrain is identical to the equivalent line ending of the second quatrain.

An anonymous eighteenth century French writer criticized the text of ‘The Seasons’ for its lack of accuracy in depicting nature, and in 1776 John Hawkins called the concept of the work ‘ridiculous’. But the music has survived well; though Vivaldi’s concerti have been familiar to us for only three decades, ‘The Seasons’ is among the most pleasurable music of the baroque era.

During the tercentenary of Vivaldi’s birth, it seems appropriate to allow the sonnets to endure on their own merits, and I am grateful to Professor Molinaro for his literal translation. The sonnets are reprinted in honour of their musical progenitor.”
— William Rueter, from the Preface.

Price: $125.00