Vivaldi And His Violin Concerto The Four Seasons

Antonio·Vivaldi, the Italian composer and violinist, made great contributions to the development of Baroque concerto. He produced a great many violin concertos all his life, and among them the Four Seasons is most famous. The composition featured the programme music, which fully expressed the structures of Baroque concerto, and meanwhile among the highest staging rate ones in European music history. The western researches about Vivaldi dated from the last century, but much later in our country. In recent years, researches and documents of Vivaldi's music are on the increase. Among them are mainly biographic narrations about his life and compositions, while few dealt with the analysis of his works itself, the Four Seasons. The thesis is intended to make an analysis of the Four Seasons from its structure and content, based on the history and culture background of the 18^th century Venice, Vivaldi's life, his compositions and their influence, for the purpose of forming a whole and detailed understanding of its involution and techniques of art of the classical master piece of violin concerto, the Four Seasons.The thesis is divided into four partsThe first part is the introduction, which deals with the existent research achievements and the intention of presenting the thesis.The second part is devoted to the description of Venetian history and culture background and the brief narration of Vivaldi's three-phased compositions, aimed to further interpret and analysis the work by means to the understanding of the musician's life.The third part is composed of creating background and musical analysis based on content and form. The analysis of the violin concerto, the Four Seasons occupies the core of the thesis.The conclusion summarizes its unique art features, namely Programme Music and Ritornello Form.