Spring!

Spring

by Antonio Vivaldi

Hello Crestview students,

I am sure you are noticing the signs of spring outside. Doesn't it feel great? I love how I can see the signs in my yard like some early spring greenery shooting out of the ground. The other day an amazing thing happened to show me that spring was really on its way..... We have an ornamental apple tree in our yard that grows tiny apples that aren't good to eat. The apples get really soggy and mushy but they hang on throughout the winter months. A week ago, all of a sudden, robins arrived in our yard. For two days the tree and the trees around our yard were full of robins eating these tiny apples. I counted about thirty robins in total! Wow!!! And after two days, the tree did not have a single apple left on it. Then the robins were gone. Flying off in search of nesting sights or more food. It was an amazing sight.

300 years ago, a composer named Antonio Vivaldi wrote a *violin concerto called The Four Seasons.  This is Vivaldi's most famous work of music that he composed. As you can figure out, it is made up of four concertos: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. If you listen carefully, in each season or movement you can hear musical representations of nature: flowing creeks, singing birds, a sleeping shepherd and his barking dog, buzzing flies, storms, dancers, frozen landscapes and warm winter fires. 

*A violin concerto is music that is composed for a solo violin and small orchestra.

Some people believe that Vivaldi wrote poems to accompany each concerto. This is the poem that supposedly accompanies Spring:

Springtime is upon us.
The birds celebrate her return with festive song,
and murmuring streams are
softly caressed by the breezes.
Thunderstorms, those heralds of Spring, roar,
casting their dark mantle over heaven,
Then they die away to silence,
and the birds take up their charming songs once more.

Today, listen to Spring. If you need help focusing on the music, lie down on the floor, relax your body and close your ideas. See if you can hear the sounds of spring in the music.  Listen for the barking dog in the middle of the Spring concerto. You can hear the "barking" beginning at the 3 minute and 50 second mark in the video. Of course it isn't a real dog barking sound but repeated notes that are a little louder and accented, played by the viola. 

Once you have listened to Spring, complete the Listening Journal worksheet in Seesaw or in the At Home Music Learning package. Return your work to me through Seesaw, send an email to the address in the Music Learning package or save it to return to school at a later date.