They were a revolution in musical conception: in them Vivaldi represented flowing creeks, singing birds (of different species, each specifically characterized), a shepherd and his barking dog, buzzing flies, storms, drunken dancers, hunting parties from both the hunters' and the prey's point of view, frozen landscapes, and warm winter fires.

The inspiration for the concertos is not the countryside around Mantua, as initially supposed, where Vivaldi was living at the time, since according to Karl Heller they could have been written as early as 1716–1717, while Vivaldi was engaged with the court of Mantua only in 1718. Though three of the concerti are wholly original, the first, 'Spring', borrows patterns from a sinfonia in the first act of Vivaldi's contemporaneous opera Il Giustino. The Four Seasons is the best known of Vivaldi's works.

They were published in 1725 in Amsterdam, together with eight additional concerti, as Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione ( The Contest Between Harmony and Invention). These were composed around 1718−1720, when Vivaldi was the court chapel master in Mantua. The Four Seasons ( Italian: Le quattro stagioni) is a group of four violin concertos by Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, each of which gives musical expression to a season of the year. Her discography includes a decade of CDs with The Sixteen, many of which feature her as soloist – Handel’s Jeptha (as Angel), Dixit Dominus, Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, Pianto della Madonna, and the Lutheran Masses of Bach.Antonio Vivaldi (engraving by François Morellon de La Cave, from Michel-Charles Le Cène's edition of Vivaldi's Op. Since then, she has worked with the leading Baroque ensembles of our day, singing under the batons of Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Paul McCreesh, Philippe Herreweghe and Harry Christophers.

Grace won the Early Music Prize while studying singing at London’s Royal Academy of Music.

She is joined by some of Europe’s leading Baroque musicians from the Academy of Ancient Music to perform a selection of works by Handel and Vivaldi, with performaces led by violinist Bojan Čičić under artistic director Joseph Crouch. Signum Records are proud to present the debut orchestral recording from Grace Davidson, one of the UK’s leading British sopranos specialising in Baroque music.

Vivaldi music academy