The Four Seasons

The Four Seasons is a set of four violin concertos by the Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, each of which represents a season of the year. They were published in Amsterdam as part of a collection called Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione, and each is accompanied by a sonnet, probably written by Vivaldi himself, describing the scenes the music is meant to depict. The works are an early and celebrated example of program music: listeners can hear birdsong in spring, a summer storm, the stamping of the dancers at an autumn harvest and the chattering teeth and slipping on ice of winter. They became hugely popular during the twentieth century and are among the most recorded works of classical music.

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