Clear, concise guide to the four sonnets published with Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons (Op. 8, 1725): background, the authorship question, and easy-to-read summaries showing how each sonnet maps to the music.
When Antonio Vivaldi published Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione, Op. 8, in 1725, the set of four violin concertos now known as The Four Seasons (Le quattro stagioni) was accompanied by four short Italian sonnets — one for each season. The sonnets describe scenes and events (birds, storms, hunters, shivering people, etc.) that the music vividly depicts. They are an early and famous example of programmatic writing in Baroque instrumental music.
The sonnets appear in the original printed edition along with the music. Scholars generally agree the sonnets were intended as program notes that explain what the music depicts; they help the listener match musical figures to concrete images (birds, thunder, footsteps on ice, etc.).
The authorship is not 100% settled. Many scholars think Vivaldi himself wrote them because of how precisely they match the music, and because they appeared in the edition he issued. Other scholars have suggested they could have been written by a poet or collaborator in Vivaldi’s circle. Either way, they were published as part of Vivaldi’s score and are considered integral to how the concertos were conceived.
The sonnets function like program notes. When you read a sonnet and then listen, you can hear musical devices mapping to the text: trills for birds, sustained low strings for thunder, short accented leaps for footsteps, repeated patterns for chattering teeth, fast scales for storms, hunting calls and dog-barks in the violin figurations, and so on.
Sonnet theme: Birds singing, murmuring brooks, sleeping shepherds awakened by festive dances, then a sudden spring storm with thunder and rain that passes and returns to sunny skies.
Musical mapping: Bright, light violin figurations and trills for birds (1st movement); a calm pastorale-like slow movement with gentle ornamented lines for sleeping shepherds and murmuring streams; a lively dance (3rd movement) for shepherds’ festivities that ends with rapid figurations representing thunder and sudden weather changes.
Sonnet theme: Heavy heat makes people languid and sleepless; insects buzz and bother people; a violent summer storm (tempest) with thunder, lightning and furious winds forces everyone to run for shelter.
Musical mapping: Oppressive, languid gestures and long sustained notes for the heat (1st movement); slow, sleepy writing for those overcome by drowsiness (2nd movement); a furious, fast finale with agitated scales and violent bowing for the thunderstorm (3rd movement).
Sonnet theme: Harvest celebrations and dances after the grape harvest; villagers get drunk and fall asleep; a hunt with horns, barking dogs, and hunters returning with their spoils.
Musical mapping: Cheerful dance rhythms for the harvest feast (1st movement); nodding, drowsy music depicting drunks and sleepers (2nd movement); hunt music in the finale — hornlike figures on the violin, trumpet-like fanfares, and rapid figurations imitating dogs and pursuit (3rd movement).
Sonnet theme: Cold, biting wind and falling snow — people shiver, stamp their feet, and slip on ice; then they warm themselves by the fire, but a sudden storm returns and the listener hears gusts and sleet.
Musical mapping: Chattering, short detached notes and aggressive rhythms for chattering teeth and harsh winds (1st movement); a slow, peaceful adagio for the warmth of the fireside and sleeping with cozy harmonic support (2nd movement); an agitated finale with rapid scales and harsh accents for slipping on ice and a raging winter storm (3rd movement).
If you’d like, I can provide the original Italian sonnets (as printed in the 1725 edition) and one or more English translations, or walk through one concerto movement and point out exactly where the music matches specific lines of the sonnet.