Vivaldi's The Four Seasons

One of the most delightful pieces in classical music is Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. These four short violin concertos from 1723 depict seasons full of hope, blossoming, and growth, but also a world frozen in the winter cold. For each season, Vivaldi wrote a short poem that serves more or less as a script: the singing birds, the barking dog, and the thunderstorm he describes all find their way into the music.