Winter

On the way to the babysitter’s this morning, I was listening to WFCL, as I nearly always do. (That’s the all-classical NPR affiliate here.) Vivaldi’s “Winter” began, but I quickly realized this was not an arrangement I had heard before. It was for strings and HARP.

Harp.

Let me tell you–it was beyond impressive to hear the first section, Allegro non molto, played on a harp. (That’s the really fast part at the beginning.) I bet the harpist fingers were sore afterward, but wow, she was awesome. (Crappy sample on Amazon totally does not show off what I was talking about.)

And then Largo began and I realized this was it! This was probably EXACTLY what Vivaldi had in mind when he composed this piece. Largo on a harp just sounds right. I can’t explain it any better than that but it sounds the way it’s supposed to.

I missed most of the third section, Allegro, because I was inside dropping off the baby. But this thing was major enough that I had to share, even if only based on the first two-thirds of the composition.