Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons contains four violin concertos.
The set consists of “Spring,” “Summer,” “Autumn,” and “Winter,” each represented by a three-movement concerto. Vivaldi published them in 1725 as the first four works of a collection titled Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione, or The Contest Between Harmony and Invention.
Each concerto uses a solo violin against an orchestra and is associated with a sonnet describing seasonal scenes. The music imitates details such as birdsong, storms, hunting, barking dogs, shivering, and slipping on ice. The sonnets are printed with the music, although their authorship is not definitively established.
The Four Seasons is therefore not one four-part concerto, but four separate concertos forming a connected cycle. Vivaldi’s vivid programmatic writing helped make the set one of the most recognizable examples of Baroque music.