by Music Director David Brown
“When are you going to play ‘Summer?!'”
It has been a joy to program the various movements of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons intermittently and seasonally relevant for our Sunday services over the past two years that I have been Music Director. But you’re right: I still haven’t made it to “Summer,” as many of you have observed. As a composition, “Summer” is a little strange, and far from the 21st-century Mid-Atlantic conception of the season. The Four Seasons—the first four violin concertos of Vivaldi’s eighth opus (among over 500 concertos that he wrote in total)—are uncharacteristically florid in their musical depictions of nature. We hardly have to guess about the intentions of the composer or the “story,” as each season is accompanied by three sonnets (likely written by Vivaldi himself) describing the natural world or its impact on a character’s life.
Even more than the trepidatious “Winter,” I would argue “Summer” is the darkest of The Four Seasons. As a cold-weather person myself, I don’t enjoy the prospect of an early 18th century Venetian summer 200 years before air conditioning; but beyond the first two lines of the accompanying sonnet, blistering heat is not the source of anguish in the “Summer” concerto. Instead, a fierce summer storm approaches on the horizon in the first movement, threatens a cowering shepherd in the second, and descends on the land in (the very famous) third. It is a curious and compelling angle that produced some of the fiercest, most iconic music of the Baroque period.
Cowering in the face of a violent storm is an analogy that I wish were not so relatable in this moment of American history. But perhaps together we can draw inspiration from Vivaldi’s music to step forward not as the fearful shepherd, hopelessly encumbered by the horrors of our federal government but as the storm itself—a storm of grassroots activism, community-building, justice, and love. Jodie and I will perform the three movements of Vivaldi’s “Summer” for the Offertory, Interlude, and Postlude, respectively. The Prelude will be my own arrangement of Koji Kondo’s “Song of Storms” from the inimitable classic Nintendo 64 titles in The Legend of Zelda franchise.
Together we will sing hymns #389: “Gathered Here” and #1017: “Building a New Way.”
See you Sunday!