Which composer wrote 'The Four Seasons'?

Antonio Vivaldi wrote The Four Seasons, a set of four violin concertos that portray spring, summer, autumn, and winter. The Italian Baroque composer published them in 1725 as the first four concertos in a larger collection titled Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione, or The Contest Between Harmony and Invention.

Each concerto uses music to suggest scenes from nature and seasonal life. Listeners can hear ideas such as birdsong, a barking dog, summer storms, hunting, harvest celebrations, icy landscapes, and warmth beside a winter fire. Vivaldi reinforced these images with accompanying sonnets, probably written by him or under his direction.

The four concertos generally follow a fast-slow-fast, three-movement design. Their vivid storytelling makes them an early and exceptionally clear example of program music: instrumental music intended to evoke a narrative, scene, or extra-musical idea.

The work is sometimes mistaken for a single extended composition, but it is actually four separate concertos. Vivaldi wrote many other concertos—more than 500 are attributed to him—but The Four Seasons became his most famous music and one of the best-known works of the Baroque era.