Candlelight: Vivaldi's Four Seasons

The Listesso String Quartet is bringing Vivaldi's The Four Seasons to the Performing Arts Studio on Saturday, November 7. It's a Candlelight concert, which means the room will be lit by candlelight while the quartet works through the four concertos that make up the cycle.

If you've heard The Four Seasons before, you know the drill. Vivaldi wrote it as a set of four concertos, one for each season of the year, and each one is meant to evoke the specific mood and sounds of that time. Spring is the one most people recognize, with its bright, bird-like melodies; Summer brings the heat and the sudden storms; Autumn is the harvest; and Winter is the cold, sharp edge of the year. The quartet plays through all four in one sitting, so you get the whole cycle from start to finish.

It's a piece that works well in a smaller setting like this. Rather than a full orchestra, you've just got the string quartet—two violins, a viola, and a cello—handling the melodies and the harmony together. That keeps the focus on the music itself, and the candlelight adds a bit of atmosphere to the room. It's a familiar program, and hearing it played straight through is a good way to take it in.

Tickets start at $37.03, and the show is at the Performing Arts Studio in Atlanta on Saturday, November 7.