Why Vivaldi?

How pleasant to have a selection from "The Four Seasons" by Antonio Vivaldi playing as students come into your classroom. It's been reported that "The Four Seasons" is the most widely played music in the world. From my point of view, listening to his work allows students to learn a great deal about Western Music. We would look at maps of Europe and pictures of Venice, all the while hearing Joshua Bell, among many choices available, playing. The appeal of his music to me is how contemporary it sounds. How understandable. It feels fresh and vital.

John McWhorter pointed out some years back that up until about 25 years ago when the subject was MUSIC everyone understood the topic was about the rich history of Western Music and the composers and their esteemed works. Then in a profound shift in our culture the subject became commercialized and infantilized to refer to current Pop Music. OK, that's why we learn about Vivaldi!

Here's a link to a .mov file that was generated from a Keynote presentation we made about Vivaldi.