![]() ![]() Many of the first movement’s peculiarities deserve attention. The finale’s unprecedented representation of destructive power is made all the more effective by what precedes it: an immense tightening of tension throughout the first movement that the weary lyricism of the slow movement cannot dissipate. Haydn’s use of it, for the opening bars of ‘The Seasons’ (1801), is particularly close to Vivaldi’s: played harshly in G minor, it conveys Winter’s undiminished threat with similar menace. Descent through the tetrachord in a minor key is a melodic feature common to many composers’ works – frequently those concerning suffering. With perfect logic, it also characterizes the winds that threaten to bring the storm. Vivaldi’s four-note leitmotif not only makes the connection between the violence of the storm and, in diminution, its cutting effects (solo part, bars 41-8 and 109-13). Of all the Seasons, only Summer has a relentless progression across its three movements from anticipation to realization of a single event, and this is reflected in the fast movements’ unusually high degree of motivic integration. Vivaldi’s vision of the fear and destruction associated with a temporale – a violent storm, brewed by the warm winds from the Sahara, of a kind that regularly afflicts Italy in summer – is arguably his most inspired characterized concerto.
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