The piece
The Four Seasons are the first four violin concertos of the collection Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione, published in Amsterdam in 1725. Each concerto follows a sonnet; in the Largo of Winter, quiet days are spent by the fire while the rain falls outside: the solo violin sings, and the other violins play the rain in pizzicato. This easy version, written for Noctave after the 1725 edition, keeps the whole movement, its eighteen bars, in E-flat major.
The right hand plays the solo violin's melody, without its two trills; the left hand holds the cello's bass, most often one note per half bar. The sixteenths in bars 3 and 4 climb in small groups: prepare each position before you play it, and keep the line as smooth as a violin. Bars 5 and 6 set down a long note and then three small notes around it; let them breathe, without hurrying.
