Activity 1: Discuss winter weather changes. For example:
- In certain areas on Earth, winter brings frigid weather.
- Streams, lakes, and rivers freeze solid, thick enough that people can walk or drive over the ice.
- Some people ice fish on lakes, cutting holes in the ice and catching fish through the openings.
- Storms called blizzards may occur. Blizzards are extreme winter storms with heavy snow, fast winds, and low visibility.
Activity 2: Describe the Music
After listening to the music, describe and discuss what you heard.
Read the list of adjectives below. Select those that describe the music or think up additional adjectives.
- Happy
- Sad
- Quiet
- Loud
- Fast
- Slow
- Scary
- Dreamy
- Magical
- Rhythmic
- Dignified
Activity 3: Study the Painting
Examine the painting below while listening to the music.
- Narrate the scene shown in the painting aloud using your own words.
- Describe how the painting relates to the music.
Find the following items in the painting:
- Snow
- Houses
- Church Steeple
- Roofs
- Trees
- Fence
- Hill
- Horizon
Activity 4: For each movement, listen to the movement, pause the playback, and read the associated lines of Vivaldi's Winter Poem.
(0:00) Allegro Non Molto Movement (Allegro Non Molto means not very quick)
- To tremble from cold in the icy snow,
- In the harsh breath of a horrid wind;
- To run, stamping one's feet every moment,
- Our teeth chattering in the extreme cold.
(4:00) Largo Movement (Largo means slow tempo and dignified)
- Before the fire to pass peaceful,
- Contented days while the rain outside pours down.
(6:15) Allegro Movement (Allegro means brisk tempo)
- We tread the icy path slowly and cautiously,
- for fear of tripping and falling.
- Then turn abruptly, slip, crash on the ground and,
- rising, hasten on across the ice lest it cracks up.
- We feel the chill north winds course through the home
- despite the locked and bolted doors...
- this is winter, which nonetheless
- brings its own delights.