Q 01/05

How many concertos make up Vivaldi's The Four Seasons?

A) 6

B) 12

C) 8

D) 4

Answer · why

D) 4

Each gives musical expression to one season, and each is in three movements, fast–slow–fast.

Q 02/05

Vivaldi was a leading composer of which era of music history?

A) Renaissance

B) Romantic

C) Medieval

D) Baroque

Answer · why

D) Baroque

Baroque: when the style passed, Vivaldi's music fell out of fashion for almost two centuries, and The Four Seasons became a favourite only after recor...

Q 03/05

In which city were The Four Seasons first published, in 1725?

A) Leipzig

B) Paris

C) London

D) Amsterdam

Answer · why

D) Amsterdam

Amsterdam: Vivaldi had left Italian printers for a Dutch music firm in 1711, and its widely reprinted editions carried his concertos to buyers across ...

Q 04/05

The Four Seasons open a set of twelve concertos whose Italian title translates as what?

A) The Harmonic Inspiration

B) The Trial of Reason and Passion

C) The Contest Between Harmony and Invention

D) The Garden of Melody and Delight

Answer · why

C) The Contest Between Harmony and Invention

The Contest Between Harmony and Invention is the usual rendering, but 'cimento' can also mean a test, so the title may promise a proving of both skill...

Q 05/05

Which German composer admired Vivaldi's concertos enough to arrange ten of them for keyboard?

A) George Frideric Handel

B) Georg Philipp Telemann

C) Joseph Haydn

D) Johann Sebastian Bach

Answer · why

D) Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach reworked ten Vivaldi concertos for harpsichord and organ, and when the Vivaldi revival began two centuries later, those arrangem...