Term 3, Week 9 - Spring has Sprung

 It is now officially spring! (Please note, seasons do not have capital letters, unless they are used in titles as above - and including titles of pieces of music, or at the beginning of sentences. Otherwise, they are written: summer, autumn, winter, spring.) 


The most famous piece of music written about the seasons  is called The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi. This week we are listening to  Spring

Antonio Vivaldi  was born in born in Venice in 1678 and  died in Vienna in 1741. He was an Italian composer.  He was a very important composer in Italy. He became a priest and was called il Prete Rosso  -  the Red Priest - because of his red hair. Notice you cannot see his red hair in this painting because it's covered with a wig. He wrote more than 400 concertos  for various instruments,  but especially for the violin.  He taught at a school for orphaned girls and  wrote a lot of his music for his pupils to play. His most popular work is the group of four violin concertos called “The Four Seasons”. Each concerto describes a season: spring, summer autumn, and winter. Vivaldi's music is in the Baroque style which means an ornate style of music which was popular from 1600 - 1750.

Interesting facts about Vivaldi:
- There was an earthquake in Venice on the day he was born
- He had asthma and was often quite sick.
- He was a quick worker and could write a concerto in a day and an opera in a week.
- a lot of his work was discovered after his death, and some was discovered in 1926  and 1973 

Here's an activity page about Vivaldi's Spring  with a music map to work out the differences between loud and soft, and many and few violinists.

 This is Itzhak Perlman conducting an orchestra and playing the violin to Spring by Vivaldi.

Electric guitar version of Vivaldi's Four Seasons - Spring 

Sand animation  by Ferenc Cakó (born 1950), a Hungarian artist, to Vivaldi's Spring

Here's our favourite drummer   Andrea Vadruccci (Vadrum) playing his version of  Vivaldi's Spring 

Here's a group of women singing Vivaldi's  Spring  a cappella    Listen to how they make all the different sounds.


Karaoke sing-along to Let It Go from "Frozen".

Everything is Awesome Karaoke. 

There's a hole in my bucket - Muppet style.  The words change a bit in this version, but the story is the same.

There's a hole in my bucket - sing-along karaoke.


 Here's New Zealand's own Topp Twins singing along to the book "There's a Hole in My Bucket".