Vivaldi's "Autumn" Party

With the onset of each new season, we can’t help but revisit Vivaldi’s masterful violin concerto The Four Seasons.

Fall is underway, and we’re thrilled to share the first movement of Vivaldi’s “Autumn” concerto with you and your little ones. We love highlighting that this piece of music represents a harvest festival -- we love to call it a “party” when sharing it with young kiddos. 

The music alternates between a steady beat section with an accessible melody, and the solo violin passages that are much more free sounding, traversing the range of the instrument. We highlight the form of the piece by tapping rhythm sticks to the beat during the A section, and then picking up scarves to move and flow with the solo violin. Not only does this promote active listening and gross motor movement which is sure to engage, it is just fun! We encourage kids to listen for the slow section at the end where all the party guests fall asleep (and we “fall asleep” too, of course), and then wait to be surprised about what happens at the very end of the piece.

We’ll walk you through this activity on Episode 28 of the Clap for Classics podcast. Listen here! It is also found in the “Autumn All Around” music course, found inside the Clap for Classics! All Access Membership and Four Seasons: Music and More curriculum, alongside other fantastic seasonal songs and listening activities.

We've created a listening map to accompany this activity.  Grab it at www.clapforclassics.com/episode28.  It’s a great way to extend the learning with a visual representation of what is happening in the music.  We are teaching musical form in this episode, and your child will experience the form through movement and then the listening map will help solidify the concept.

Have you picked up our Fall Freebie yet? (5 Fall-themed Classical Pieces to listen to with your child and how to listen).  If you have, you might have already listened to Vivaldi’s “Autumn” from the Four Seasons with us! In that list, we shared some ideas for listening to the first 2 movements.

 But If you'd like to listen to the rest of Vivaldi's "Autumn" concerto, check out this video and musical play idea to accompany the 3rd movement of the piece.  We use leaves to play with while we jump and dance to this music.

Want to learn more about what exactly you can expect inside our "Autumn All Around" course? Check out this link where we go over details about the music, art, poetry and STEM units for this season.

If you'd like to extend the learning even further, we've got a great informational video about Vivaldi. 

A few things you’ll learn inside the video include:

• Vivaldi’s nickname and the color of his hair
• Introduction to the string family
• What’s a concerto?
• What’s a movement?
• Listen to excerpts from all four of the seasons

As you can tell, we love this season and all the wonderful music that comes with it!  We hope you'll bookmark this page and come back to try all the fall-themed activities that we offer.

Our hope is that you have a musical moment today and every day!