Casanovas Orchestra: The Four Seasons: Vivaldi–Piazzolla

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THE 8 SEASONS is a joint performance of Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and the Estaciones Porteñas by the Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla. Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is his most famous work and one of the best-known works in the history of classical music. The four concertos that make up the work – ‘Spring’, ‘Summer’, ‘Autumn’ and ‘Winter’ – form part of a set of 12 concertos for violin and orchestra premiered in Amsterdam in 1725. In this work, Vivaldi sought to capture the feelings aroused in him by scenes of nature and rural life throughout the seasons of the year.

Las Estaciones Porteñas was composed by the Argentine bandoneonist and composer Astor Piazzolla in separate movements between 1964 and 1970. In this work, he masterfully blends tango, the quintessential form of Argentine popular music, with classical music. The music was originally composed for a quintet (bandoneon, violin, piano, electric guitar and double bass), but was rewritten by the Russian composer Leonid Desyatnikov between 1996 and 1998 for solo violin and string orchestra.

This version, which interweaves the seasons of each composer, with Vivaldi’s ‘La Primavera’ opening the concert and Piazzolla’s ‘Primavera Porteña’ bringing it to a close, is the one we will hear today performed by La Casanovas Orchestra, comprising outstanding soloists and professional musicians who come together to form a top-class ensemble. This makes the contrast between the vitality and energy of the Italian Baroque and the deep melancholy and longing of the Argentine tango all the more striking, in an extremely evocative combination.