I decamped to New York City, where I planned to study music. Even then I knew that my talent fell short of the mastery required for a real performing career, and I didn’t last long as a music major. But the sadness of my failure was mitigated by the promise of other passions. “Winter” had surpassed itself, leading me toward a life that I never would have had were it not for this random VHS rental.Īnd it has taught me how to let go. Except for the occasional wedding of a friend or family member, my violin lies dormant in a dusty case underneath the desk where I write. Despite a lifetime of wanting to, I have never been able to play “Winter” it comes too fast, in too challenging a key. The finger-tangling high notes in the first movement require a dexterity in F minor that I was never fully able to achieve. For now, I am content to listen to recordings while silently following the sheet music, my fingers twitching involuntarily like the post-mortem spasms of a cadaver. But there may come a time when I will try to play “Winter” again.īecause, however grim Vivaldi’s masterpiece can be, it is not fully absent of hope.
His score for “The Four Seasons” includes sonnets meant to explicate motifs within the music itself. A dog mentioned in the “Spring” sonnet, for example, is represented by a barking sound made on the viola’s lower strings. Of all these corresponding sonnets, “Winter” is the most carnal. Finger-trembling trills on the violin’s thin, high-pitched E-string emulate shivering and teeth-chattering. The violin solo runs up and down the ebony fingerboard, conjuring the feeling of feet slipping on thin ice, bodies crashing into snowy embankments. But there is also comfort: the warmth of the hearth fire, tranquil and legato on the bow lazy days punctuated only by the pizzicato of ice droplets on the roof. It is difficult music for a difficult season, times that are bound to be more challenging than we allow ourselves to imagine.
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