For the similarly titled work by Antonio Vivaldi, see The Four Seasons (Vivaldi).

The Seasons (German: Die Jahreszeiten, Hob. XXI:3) is a secular oratorio by Joseph Haydn, first performed in 1801.

The Four Seasons are beautiful and wonderful anytime and anywhere. It could be background music to my reading or I could just sit and listen to it for its own beauty. Love the Boston Symphony Orchestra's interpretation of this great work by Vivaldi. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The Four Seasons (Il quattro stagione), concertos (4) for violin, strings & continuo ('Il cimento' Nos. 1 in E Major: La Primavera 'Spring'. The Vienna Residence Orchestra presents the most beautiful works of classical music in Vienna from Vivaldi's Four Seasons to Mozart's Little Night Music and Strauss’ Radetzky March. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Strauss, Antonio Vivaldi and Ludwig van Beethoven have one thing in common: They lived, played and composed in Vienna. One of the most famous, accessible, and beloved pieces of seasonal classical music, Antonio Vivaldi's Baroque masterpiece 'The Four Seasons' is given a thoughtful performance here by David Juritz and the London Mozart Players.

History[edit]

Haydn was led to write The Seasons by the great success of his previous oratorio The Creation (1798), which had become very popular and was in the course of being performed all over Europe.

Libretto[edit]

The libretto for The Seasons was prepared for Haydn, just as with The Creation, by Baron Gottfried van Swieten, an Austrian nobleman who had also exercised an important influence on the career of Mozart (among other things commissioning Mozart's reorchestration of Handel's Messiah).^[1] Van Swieten's libretto was based on extracts from the long English poem 'The Seasons' by James Thomson (1700–1748), which had been published in 1730.

Whereas in The Creation Swieten was able to limit himself to rendering an existing (anonymous) libretto into German, for The Seasons he had a much more demanding task. Olleson writes, 'Even when Thomson's images were retained, they required abbreviation and adaptation to such an extent that usually no more than faint echoes of them can be discerned, and the libretto often loses all touch with the poem which was its starting point. Increasingly during the course of the oratorio, the words are essentially van Swieten's own or even imported from foreign sources.'^[2]

Like The Creation, The Seasons was intended as a bilingual work. Since Haydn was very popular in England (particularly following his visits there in 1791–1792 and 1794–1795), he wished the work to be performable in English as well as German. Van Swieten therefore made a translation of his libretto back into English, fitting it to the rhythm of the music. Olleson notes that it is 'fairly rare' that the translated version actually matches the Thomson original.^[3] Van Swieten's command of English was not perfect, and the English text he created has not always proven satisfying to listeners; for example, one critic writes, 'Clinging to [the] retranslation, however, is the heavy-handed imagery of Haydn's sincere, if officious, patron. Gone is the bloom of Thomson's original.'^[4] Olleson calls the English text 'often grotesque', and suggests that English-speaking choruses should perform the work in German: 'The Seasons is better served by the decent obscurity of a foreign language than by the English of the first version.'^[5] Van Swieten's words also show some inconsistency in tone, ranging from the rustically humorous (for instance, a movement depicting a wily peasant girl playing a trick on her rich suitor) to the uplifting (as in several large-scale choruses praising God for the beauty of nature).^[6]

Composition, premiere, and publication[edit]

The composition process was arduous for Haydn, in part because his health was gradually failing and partly because Haydn found van Swieten's libretto to be rather taxing. Haydn took two years to complete the work.

Like The Creation, The Seasons had a dual premiere, first for the aristocracy whose members had financed the work (Schwarzenberg palace, Vienna, 24 April 1801), then for the public (Redoutensaal, Vienna, 19 May).^[7] The oratorio was considered a clear success, but not a success comparable to that of The Creation. In the years that followed, Haydn continued to lead oratorio performances for charitable causes, but it was usually The Creation that he led, not The Seasons.

The aging Haydn lacked the energy needed to repeat the labor of self-publication that he had undertaken for The Creation and instead assigned the new oratorio to his regular publisher at that time, Breitkopf & Härtel, who published it in 1802.^[8]

Forces[edit]

The Seasons is written for a fairly large late-Classical orchestra, a chorus singing mostly in four parts, and three vocal soloists, representing archetypal country folk: Simon (bass), Lucas (tenor), and Hanne (soprano). The solo voices are thus the same three as in The Creation.

The orchestral parts are for 2 flutes (1st doubling on piccolo in one aria), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons and contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 1 alto trombone, 1 tenor trombone and 1 bass trombone, timpani, percussion, and strings.

However, some of the key early performances at the Tonkünstler Society in Vienna were for much larger forces (as was the fashion at the time); Haydn led performances for both large and small ensembles. Material surviving from these large-scale Viennese performances indicates the use of tripled wind (arranged into three separate groups, each one similar to the Harmonie wind ensembles of the time), doubled brass and as many as ten horn players, backed up by at least eighty string players and similar numbers of singers.^[9]

In addition, a fortepiano usually plays in secco recitatives, with or without other instruments from the orchestra.

Musical content[edit]

The oratorio is divided into four parts, corresponding to Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, with the usual recitatives, arias, choruses, and ensemble numbers.

Among the more rousing choruses are a hunting song with horn calls, a wine celebration with dancing peasants^[10] (foreshadowing the third movement of Beethoven'sPastoral Symphony), a loud thunderstorm (ditto for Beethoven's fourth movement), and an absurdly stirring ode to toil:

The huts that shelter us,

The wool that covers us,

The food that nourishes us,

All is thy grant, thy gift,

O noble toil.

Haydn remarked that while he had been industrious his whole life, this was the first occasion he had ever been asked to write a chorus in praise of industry.

Some especially lyrical passages are the choral prayer for a bountiful harvest, 'Sei nun gnädig, milder Himmel' (Be thou gracious, O kind heaven), the gentle nightfall that follows the storm, and Hanne's cavatina on Winter.

The work is filled with the 'tone-painting' that also characterized The Creation: a plowman whistles as he works (in fact, he whistles the well-known theme from Haydn's own Surprise Symphony), a bird shot by a hunter falls from the sky, there is a sunrise (evoking the one in The Creation), and so on.

The 'French trash' episode[edit]

There is some evidence that Haydn himself was not happy with van Swieten's libretto, or at least one particular aspect of tone-painting it required, namely the portrayal of the croaking of frogs, which is found during the serene movement that concludes Part II, 'Summer'. The version of the anecdote given below is from the work of Haydn scholar H. C. Robbins Landon.

In 1801, August Eberhard Müller (1767–1817) prepared a piano version of the oratorio's orchestra part, for purposes of rehearsal and informal performance. Haydn, whose health was in decline, did not take on this task himself, but he did look over a draft of Müller's work and wrote some suggested changes in the margins. Amid these changes appeared an off-the-cuff complaint about van Swieten's libretto:

NB! This whole passage, with its imitation of the frogs, was not my idea: I was forced to write this Frenchified trash. This wretched idea disappears rather soon when the whole orchestra is playing, but it simply cannot be included in the pianoforte reduction.^[11]

Robbins Landon continues the story as follows:

Müller foolishly showed the passage in the enclosed sheet, quoted above, to the editor of the Zeitung für die elegante Welt,^[12] who promptly included it in support of his criticism of Swieten's wretched^[13] libretto. Swieten was enraged, and [Haydn's friend] Griesinger reported that His Excellency 'intends to rub into Haydn's skin, with salt and pepper, the assertion that he [Haydn] was forced into composing the croaking frogs.'^[14]

A later letter of Griesinger's indicates that the rift thus created was not permanent.

The term 'Frenchified trash' was almost certainly not a gesture of contempt for France or French people; Haydn in fact had friendly relationships with French musicians (see, e.g. Paris symphonies). Rather, Haydn was probably referring to an earlier attempt by van Swieten to persuade him to set the croaking of the frogs by showing him a work by the French composer André Grétry that likewise included frog-croaking.^[15]

Critical reception[edit]

Although the work has always attracted far less attention than The Creation, it nonetheless has been strongly appreciated by critics. Charles Rosen calls both oratorios 'among the greatest works of the century', but judges The Seasons to be the musically more successful of the two.^[16]Daniel Heartz, writing near the end of a massive three-volume account of the Classical era, writes 'The Hunting and Drinking choruses first led me to study Haydn's music more extensively beginning some forty years ago ... no music has elated me more in old age than The Seasons.'^[17]Michael Steinberg writes that the work 'ensure[s] Haydn's premiere place with Titian, Michelangelo and Turner, Mann and Goethe, Verdi and Stravinsky, as one of the rare artists to whom old age brings the gift of ever bolder invention.'^[18] Opinions vary as to the nature of the relationship between The Creation and The Seasons – whether they are two separate works or an enormous religious diptych. Van Swieten, at any rate, was certainly keen to follow up on the former's success with another large-scale pictorial work in a similar vein,^[19] and some authors have seen the two oratorios as constituting the first and second act of a metaphorical 'vast sacred opera'.^[20]

Notes[edit]

1. ^Richard Drakeford, notes to Philips recording 464 035-2 (1999).
2. ^Olleson (2009:357)
3. ^Olleson (2009:357)
4. ^Bernard Holland, writing in the New York Times, January 23, 1988.
5. ^Olleson (2009:357)
6. ^Drakeford (1999).
7. ^Clark (2005:xvi)
8. ^Jones (2009:25)
9. ^Paul McCreesh, in notes to Signum Records CD SIGCD480, Haydn: The Seasons (2017).
10. ^This chorus ('Juhe, der Wein ist da', 'Huzzah, the wine is there') contains the so-called 'drunk fugue', described by Humphreys as 'a riotous fugal chorus in which the voices drop the subject halfway through the entries (as in a drunken stupor) while the accompanying instruments are left to complete it.' (Humphreys 2009: 111)
11. ^Cited from Robbins Landon (1959, 197)
12. ^German: 'Journal for the elegant world'
13. ^It is not clear whether this is Robbins Landon's opinion or the journal editor's.
14. ^Robbins Landon (1959, 197)
15. ^Dies (1810, 187)
16. ^Rosen (1971, 370)
17. ^Heartz (2009:644 fn.)
18. ^Steinberg's words appeared originally in program notes; they are quoted here from Heartz (2009:644)
19. ^Karl Schumann, notes to Philips recording 464 034-2 (1999).
20. ^Marc Vignal, notes to Philips recording 464 034-2 (1999).

References[edit]

• Clark, Caryl (2005) The Cambridge Companion to Haydn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Dies, Albert Christoph (1810) Biographical Accounts of Joseph Haydn, Vienna. English translation by Vernon Gotwals, in Haydn: Two Contemporary Portraits, Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin Press.
• Heartz, Daniel (2009) Mozart, Haydn, and Early Beethoven: 1781-1802. New York: Norton.
• Humphreys, David (2009) 'Fugue,' article in David Wyn Jones, ed., Oxford Composer Companions: Haydn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Jones, David Wyn (2009) 'Breitkopf & Härtel,' article in David Wyn Jones, ed., Oxford Composer Companions: Haydn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Olleson, Edward (2009) 'Seasons, The', article in David Wyn Jones, ed., Oxford Composer Companions: Haydn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Robbins Landon, H. C. (1959) The Collected Correspondence and London Notebooks of Joseph Haydn. London: Barrie and Rockliff.
• Rosen, Charles (1971) The Classical Style. New York: Norton.

Mozart Four Seasons Music

External links[edit]

• Haydn: The Seasons - complete recording from the Internet_Archive
• German libretto.
• English translation.

This year mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli is celebrating 30 years of recording with Decca Classics, a collaboration that produced her highly successful 1999 Vivaldi album. Their latest venture – and Bartoli’s current tour with Les Musiciens du Prince, her brainchild – revisits the composer. Her stop at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam demonstrated that the best reason for celebration is that the Roman diva’s technical and expressive powers are undiminished. Inevitably, her voice, unique and instantly recognisable, has lost a little of its freshness. In its upper reaches it turns thin and piercing, but in its native mezzo country it still flows like molten amber. And Bartoli sings with such dedication that every word about burbling brooks and warbling larks sounds as if it is of global importance. She also loves to share the limelight with other musicians. Having toured with cellist Sol Gabetta and Cappella Gabetta, she is now appearing with the ensemble’s concertmaster, Sol’s brother Andrés.

In a continuous programme that precluded applause between numbers, Gabetta was the soloist in Vivaldi’s most popular work, The Four Seasons. The concerto movements (minus the slow movements from Spring and Autumn) neatly framed ten opera arias that matched them in mood or theme. The birds in the first movement from Spring continued to chirrup in the dialogue between Bartoli and the flute in “Quell’augellin che canta”. The same staccato figures that tremble with cold in the opening bars of Winter tremble with horror in the ghost aria “Gelido in ogni vena”, so that was a natural pairing. The movements and arias either followed each other without a pause or were bridged by conductor Gianluca Capuano on the harpsichord, giving the concert the feel of an operatic performance. Bartoli and the instrumental soloists used all corners of the stage for their entrances and offstage effects, further enhancing the theatrical experience. Deprived of intermittent applause, the audience was already on its feet at intermission, and in a frenzy at the end.

The woodwind soloists matched Bartoli’s virtuosity and tasteful da capo variations, as in the exquisite “Non ti lusinghi la crudeltade” from Tito Manlio with its gently pleading oboe d’amore. Capuano accompanied the arias scrupulously. In the Seasons he favoured very fast tempi, sometimes sanding away the music’s comely contours, as in the bucolic Summer dances. His scenes were finely stitched tapestries in muted colours rather than vivid oil paintings. Gabetta played with plenty of fire, his breakneck speed at times compromising accuracy. When he took time to breathe he was lucid and refined, as in the slipping-on-the-ice solo in the last movement of Winter. Both he and Capuano used diminuendi and rests for narrative purposes, not always successfully – their semicolons sometimes sounded more like full stops, dimming the drama of the Autumn hunt, for instance. The preference for frenetic angularity best served the various orchestral storms drilled out in semi- and demisemiquavers.

Bartoli, famous for her quick-fire coloratura, proffered her own brand of thunder, occasionally underlined by bellicose flapping of her sapphire-blue dress. She spat out the precise notes in the revenge aria “Se lento ancora il fulmine”, bristling like a snarling lynx. In “Ah fuggi rapido” from Orlando furioso she arced an ornamental run from one end of the hall to the other as if flying a kite in a gale. Slow arias, such as the time-stoppingly beautiful “Vedrò con mio diletto” from Il Giustino, showed off her expressive core timbre and breath control. The excerpt from Farnace, “Gelido in ogni vena”, was ten-minutes plus of spellbinding theatre. Bartoli gradually decreased her volume until the final phrases were a mere whisper, achieving both intimacy and tragic breadth, something only a great interpreter can do.

Knowing that she’s unstinting with encores, her fans are always loath to let her go. There were no less than six on this occasion, or, to be precise, six and a half, a veritable miniconcert after the main event. After Handel’s demon-raising “Desterò dall’empia dite”, with trumpet obbligato, there was more Handel with the flute soloist. Then she grabbed a tambourine to accompany herself in Vivaldi’s jaunty “Sventurata navicella.” Cherubino’s aria “Voi che sapete” reminded us how well her caramel mezzo suits Mozart trouser roles. It was rather disorientating to hear Baroque instruments introducing “Non ti scordar di me”, but Bartoli stepped right into the early 20th-century idiom for a beautiful rendition of De Curtis’s perennial song. Then she stepped right back out for some more bravura sparring with the trumpet in Agostino Steffani’s “A facile vittoria”. The show came to an end when Steffani’s Baroque trumpet turned jazzy and Bartoli launched into the first verse of George Gershwin’s “Summertime”. Going by her past projects, both an evening of Italian evergreens and a jazz programme are unlikely propositions, but she could definitely pull off both.

Classical Music Youtube Vivaldi

4 Seasons Songs Mozart

In an upbeat programme, Cecilia Bartoli and the Musiciens du Prince-Monaco pay tribute to the dynamism of four leading Baroque composers.

The Four Seasons Mozart

Classical Music 4 Seasons