There are few pieces of music as beloved as Antonio Vivaldi’s 1720 masterwork The Four Seasons, so it’s somewhat surprising that Early Music Vancouver has waited 45 years to present the piece in its entirety.
The momentous concert will showcase the musicians of the critically acclaimed Portland Baroque Orchestra (PBO) performing the four concertos of The Four Seasons on period instruments.
It will likely represent a dramatically different listening experience for those accustomed to hearing Vivaldi’s masterwork performed by modern instruments, according to Monica Huggett, the acclaimed violinist who’ll lead PBO’s performance.
“It really is an extraordinarily good piece,” says Huggett in a recent phone interview.
“People always ask me, ‘don’t you get tired of it?’ Actually, I don’t. It’s so vivid and it’s so theatrical and it’s interesting, and it changes characters so much, it’s almost like watching a movie.”
Violins are the very definition of highbrow music now, but long before Vivaldi, the stringed instrument was once looked down upon as low-class instruments.
“The violin wasn’t an instrument that an aristocratic gentleman would play because it was considered low class,” says Huggett. “It would be played in the street. It would be played for dances. Every now and then it would be played in a wedding or a big feast or a funeral, but a lot of the time it was being played in the marketplace and the courtyard of the castle for the servants. So the violinists had lots of tricks.”
Such tricks included imitating animals, people, and other instruments, and in The Four Seasons, Vivaldi highlighted the violin’s ability to imitate.
“That’s why it’s such a brilliant piece, and it grabs the audience so much, because the effects he uses are so vivid,” says Huggett.
Huggett’s list of favourite moments in The Four Seasons deftly illustrates its charm.
“At the end of the first movement, I fall asleep and snore, and it’s quite funny,” says Huggett.
“The slow movement of Spring is also gorgeous. It’s a little bit melancholy, and I ornament it and it’s very beautiful and expressive. I also have fun playing the lightning strikes at the end of Summer.”
Huggett first picked up the violin when she was 6-years-old, and started playing in orchestras when she was 8.
“I went to the Royal Academy of Music when I was 16, and I started playing string quartet arrangements of Beatles songs in a pizza restaurant when I was 17, and I joined the musician’s union when I was 19, and I was pretty much a full time professional by the time I was 21,” recalls Huggett, 61. “I’m somebody who likes to work. I’ve always worked hard. That comes naturally to me. Music always came first, and then I kept my nose to the grindstone.”
At the moment, Huggett owns and plays four old violins (and a myriad of bows). It can take a long time to get to know an instrument, says Huggett.
“Sometimes I have to change things and work with them, and sometimes I’ve played a new instruments and I’ve been so in love with it that I play it in a concert a week after I get it,” she says.
Her violin for the upcoming concert: a Landolfi from the 18th century, made in Milan and possessing a deep tone quality.
The concert will also feature additional works by Vivaldi, as well as pieces by Pietro Locatelli and Matthew Locke.
• Early Music Vancouver presents Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons on May 1 at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts.
