My musical interests are all across the board. While I am obsessed with anything Beatles, and I love most rock and pop music, I also have a love of classical music. This morning I was listening the one of my favorite pieces “The Four Seasons” by Antonio Vivaldi. This piece is perhaps the most popular pieces of Baroque music, and is notable for basically defining the modern solo concerto (a solo instrument with accompanying orchestra).”The Four Seasons” is actually a set of four separate violin concertos, each being named for a different season. Listen to them and even without any accompanying notes you can tell which concerto is which season.
There have been to many recordings of “The Four Seasons” to mention, and many of them very good. My current favorite (and one of the best) is a recording done by Itzhak Perlman accompanied by the Israel Philharmonic orchestra and conducted by Zubin Mehta. While my preference is for the third concerto, titled Autumn, here are videos of the three movements of the fourth concerto, Winter.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBq4ov5Y_84]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dggfA9Vo64U]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8DzsScxhBE]