VIVALDI'S FOUR SEASONS and the lark ascending

Mozart - Overture to The Marriage of FigaroVaughan Williams - The Lark AscendingMozart - Flute Quartet in DVivaldi - The Four Seasons Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons is the most recorded work in classical music and a defining showpiece for solo violin. Each concerto depicts a different season, shaped by accompanying poems - possibly written by Vivaldi himself - and inspired by the vivid seasonal landscapes of artist Marco Ricci. Across the four concertos, Vivaldi transforms the natural world into vivid musical scenes, evoking birdsong and buzzing flies, harvest celebrations, drunken revellers, barking dogs, summer storms and winter ice. Alongside this, Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending, composed on the eve of the First World War, offers a more reflective perspective. Inspired by George Meredith's poem, it captures a pastoral world on the brink of change, its soaring violin line suggesting a lark gliding high above the mechanised world below, "lost on his aerial rings / In light, and then the fancy sings." Mozart appears twice in the programme: first in the fizzing Overture to The Marriage of Figaro, and later in his Flute Quartet in D, originally written for a wealthy amateur flautist. The work places the flute firmly in the spotlight, from the bright, effortlessly tuneful opening to the slow movement, where it sings a long, expressive line over gently plucked strings, before a playful, quicksilver finale brings the piece to a close. Whether you're already in the know or completely new to classical music, this is a programme to be enjoyed by all.