Vivaldi's Four Seasons & Ravel's Bolero
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Palau de la Música Catalana Carrer Palau de la Música 4-6, 08003 Barcelona
Image courtesy of Palau de la Musica Catalana
Vilvaldi wanted to capture the feelings that awoke in him the seasons of the year through his music. The violins, string orchestra and the continuous bass are able to imitate the song of the birds, the characteristics of the shotgun, the barking of dogs, the murmuring of the water streams... It is an example of descriptive music which was very popular in the baroque period, incorporating musical innovations and endowing it with a great freshness and expressive force.
The Four Seasons is his most famous and widespread work to date. The four scores (Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter) are part of a set of twelve concertos for violin and orchestra released in Amsterdam in 1725. In its premiere, the work was enthusiastically received, although it was from the second half of the nineteenth century when these four pieces were included in innumerable concerts, crossing the limits of classical music to conquer the favor of all musical tastes.
Bolero is an authentic orchestral exercise whose interest lies in the way Ravel combines the different instruments, from the subtle pianissimo at the beginning to a very strong ending.
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