Let’s listen to and look at the 1st Movement of Spring from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in a bit more detail….particularly the structure.

• Each of the concertos in The Four Seasons has three movements: fast; slow; fast.
• Firstly we’re going to look at the structure of one fast movement in particular.
• There are some descriptions in these 11 coloured boxes of sections of music in the first movement of Spring.
• Listen to the movement several times and study each description carefully.

• Which description goes with which section?

• You’ll be able to put them in the correct order once you’ve worked all that lot out!

• Once you’ve worked out how the 1st movement of Spring is put together, have a listen to the first movement of Autumn.

• Make a note of all the similarities and differences.

• Draw some conclusions about the 1st Movement form of Baroque concertos.

• You can find the answers to the Spring exercise here, by the way!

• So were you able to draw any conclusions from these two movements about the structure of Vivaldi’s fast movements in general?
• Here’s a list of possible conclusions.
• Which are true? Which are false?

♦ There are alternating passages featuring the soloist and the orchestra.

♦ The first theme is played by the full orchestra.

♦ The first theme returns frequently during the movement.

♦ Sometimes elements of the first theme appear in the accompaniment of the solo sections.

♦ The returns of the first theme are always in the tonic key.

♦ The returns of the first theme are sometimes shortened versions of the theme.

♦ The solo passages in between the returns of the first theme are always the same.

♦ Sometimes the passages in between the returns of the first theme are played by the orchestra.

♦ The soloist doesn’t play while the orchestra plays the first theme.

♦ The solo parts are more virtuosic than the orchestra parts and they move through more keys.

♦ This structure could be described as a type of Rondo Form.

♦ This structure could be described as a type of Binary Form.

• Here are the answers to this mini-activity!

• If you look at and listen to some more of the fast movements from The Four Seasons, you’ll see and hear that these conclusions can be applied to them as well.
• This “returning” opening theme or section is called ritornello.
• The word “ritornello” means “little return” and, like lots of musical terms, is Italian.

Ritornello

The basic principles of ritornello are:

• first section of music returns in total or in part during the movement . This is the ritornello.
• the ritornello is usually played by the entire orchestra including the soloist.
• the sections in between the reappearances of the ritornello (we’ll call them “episodes”) generally feature the soloist.
• the music in the episodes is often unrelated thematically to that of the ritornello.
• motives from the ritornello may be used in the accompaniment to the episodes or in fact can be used as the basis for the music in the episode.
• the ritornello is not always in the tonic key, but is usually in related keys such as the dominant, subdominant or relative minor/major.­
• the episodes are the ones which modulate to the new key (often briefly through others) which is confirmed by the entry of the ritornello in the new key.
• sometimes the soloist appears in the middle of a ritornello, and sometimes the orchestra plays during an episode.

­*Ritornello resembles Rondo Form in that the opening idea returns several times (ABACA), but in Rondo Form, the returning “A” section is always in the tonic.