The thunder and lightning and hail from the sky With swarms of flies and of gnats all around him. Saps the strength from the shepherd’s tired limbs The fear of the furious thunder and lightning The shepherd is worried, out in the open,Īfraid of the storm and of what it might bring. The soft zephyrs blowing, the sudden arrival of Turtledoves, goldfinches each add their voices

The cuckoo bird loudly unleashes his song

The shepherds, the flock and the pines steep in heat Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Summer (click to enlarge, back to return) The goat-herder sleeps beside his faithful dog. Thunder, lightning, as if calling the chosen The spring waters, also the whispering breezes, Spring has arrived, with its fun festive airs Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Spring (click to enlarge, back to return) The profile illustrations of the four seasons are by Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1526 – 1593) and were painted about 150 years before Vivaldi lived. (The episode was about contemplating the more peaceful autumnal themes, and they actually didn’t use the last stanza, about the hunt, so that part is not read.) I don’t know who performed the reading but she does a wonderful job with the words. Here is the translation, as it was heard in Something Understood. The producers of an episode about Autumn found my translation and judged it to be the one they wanted to use in their production, so I was happy to grant the rights. BBC Radio 4 is a very popular and highly respected national radio channel in Great Britain, that programs a wide range of news and history, drama and comedy, and popular science. Something Understood is a Sunday evening feature show about spirituality and religion, covering a wide range of philosophical topics through many different traditions and points of view. The BBC Radio 4 program Something Understood of November 25, 2018, featured my translation of Vivaldi’s Autumn sonnet. My Translation of the Autumn Sonnet Read on BBC Radio 4 These translations have been featured in concerts in Singapore, Vancouver, Canada and on the BBC in the UK and worldwide. I invite producers of concerts or recordings to request permission to use my translations of these sonnets in concerts, for live reading to accompany a concert, for projection onto large screens or for printing onto programs or album notes. Public appearances of these translations:

It begins with the translation of the sonnet, but also contains extracts of the musical score to show how the music illustrates the story told in the sonnet and all of that material demands its own space. My listening guide to the Autumn concerto is on a separate page on this site. I have put the original Italian texts under each translation, for reference. While these verses may not be considered important in the history of Italian literature, their fame is great due to the popularity of the music. The Four Seasons are among the most popular musical compositions in the world and these sonnets are often printed with concert programs and album notes. These four sonnets about the seasons have been printed with the musical score of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons since the first edition, published in Amsterdam in 1725. It is not known if Vivaldi himself wrote these sonnets but chances are good that he did, or at least collaborated on them, since the music and the sonnets follow each other so closely and there is no other author credited. Vivaldi, the 4 Concertos and the 4 SonnetsĪntonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) wrote his famous four concertos as one of the earliest examples of “program music” or music that follows a narrative without performed words or dramatic action. Antonio Vivaldi, anonymous portrait, 1723, Museo della Musica, Bologna (public domain).

Seasons vivaldi