Weekly SpinOn:
Autumn Reflections

Autumn – Concerto in F Major: Allegro

“Celebra il Vilanel con balli e Canti
Del felice raccolto il bel piacere
E del liquor de Bacco accesi tanti
Finiscono col Sonno il lor godere”

“The peasant celebrates with song and dance,
rejoicing in the harvest’s bounty.
Filled with the liquor of Bacchus,
they end their pleasures in sleep.”

–Vivaldi, Sonnets “The Four Seasons”

Autumn begins in celebration and ends in reflection. The four works in this playlist follow that path — Vivaldi’s Autumn sets the harvest to music, while in Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 2 you can almost hear the call of the hunt and the echo of Bacchus’s wine. Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8 turns to the countryside, its gentle motion shaped by warmth and distance, and Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben looks back, the brightness of life slowly settling into calm.

Track 1: The Four Seasons – Autumn – Antonio Vivaldi

It may seem obvious to start an autumn playlist with Vivaldi, but The Four Seasons remains the clearest musical picture of the year. Written around 1723 and published two years later as part of his Opus 8, the four violin concertos follow the cycle of spring, summer, autumn and winter.

Each one was linked to a short sonnet — probably written by Vivaldi himself — that describes what the music shows. The lines quoted at the beginning of this playlist come from the Allegro of Autumn, the part of The Four Seasons included here, where the peasants celebrate the harvest, drink wine, dance, and finally fall asleep. The piece captures both the life of the countryside and the rhythm of energy and rest that defines the season.

Karajan recorded The Four Seasons in 1972 with the Berlin Philharmonic and soloist Michel Schwalbé. He treated the work less like a solo concerto and more like a small symphony, focusing on structure and balance. The sound is full and smooth, and the exchange between violin and orchestra carefully shaped. Schwalbé’s playing is clear and elegant, giving the music focus and warmth. It’s not performed in today’s period style, but it has its own integrity — a version that finds beauty in design rather than display.

Track 2: Horn Concerto No. 2 in E-flat major, K. 417 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

This next piece does not mention autumn in its title, but it belongs to the season through its sound. Autumn was the traditional time for hunting, and for centuries the horn was an essential part of that world. Before it became a musical instrument, the hunting horn was a tool — used to signal across long distances, to mark the start of the chase or the moment of success. Its bright tone carried well through open fields and forests, especially during the par force hunts that were popular among European nobility in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

By Mozart’s time the horn had moved from the field to the orchestra. Composers in France and Germany began writing concert pieces for the instrument, attracted by its wide expressive range. The natural horn could play only a limited set of notes, shaped by lip pressure rather than valves, and this made it both demanding and distinctive. Mozart wrote four concertos for his friend Joseph Leutgeb, a Salzburg-born horn player who had returned from Paris and was known for his control and warm tone. The Horn Concerto No. 2, completed in 1783, keeps the calls of the hunt but turns them into graceful musical figures — the language of the countryside adapted for the concert hall.

Karajan recorded the concerto in 1953 with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Dennis Brain, who was then Britain’s leading horn player. Brain and Karajan worked together closely during these years, making several recordings of Mozart’s horn concertos and other classical works. Their partnership helped define the modern sound of the instrument — clear, centred, and free of effort.

 

Track 3: Symphony No. 8 in G major, Op. 88: III. Allegretto grazioso – Antonín Dvořák

Dvořák wrote his Eighth Symphony in 1889 at his country home in Vysoká, south of Prague. Surrounded by gardens, forests and ponds, he composed the work in a setting that reflected his lifelong closeness to nature. During this period he wrote to a friend:

“If only you could know how happy I am to be able to sit down and work again in the peace of the countryside… I am working so splendidly and it makes me so happy!”

That sense of calm and freedom is present throughout the symphony. At 48, he was already an experienced and internationally recognised composer, but he wanted this work to sound freer, more spontaneous and more personal than his earlier ones.

The third movement, Allegretto grazioso, shows that intention clearly. The music moves with the grace of a folk dance and often recalls earlier themes from the symphony — many of them carried by the horns. What once sounded fresh now returns as memory, giving the music a tone of maturity and reflection. It feels like the work of a composer at peace with his craft and his surroundings — the autumn of life expressed in sound.

Karajan recorded the symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1985 at the Musikverein in Vienna. By then, he had reached the autumn of his own life and career. Like Dvořák, he felt deeply connected to nature and often spoke about the need for long walks and quiet time in the countryside rather than in big cities. That sense of stillness and space also shapes this recording — a performance marked by balance, clarity, and the calm of someone who no longer has to prove anything.

Track 4: Ein Heldenleben – Des Helden Weltflucht und Vollendung – Richard Strauss

After Dvořák’s gentle look at nature and memory, Strauss turns to the later stages of life. Ein Heldenleben (“A Hero’s Life”), written in 1898, tells the story of a man’s journey — his struggles, his achievements, and finally his withdrawal from the world. The last section, Des Helden Weltflucht und Vollendung (“The Hero’s Retirement and Fulfilment”), brings a sense of closure. Earlier themes return, now softer and changed, like memories seen from a distance.

Strauss said the piece was not about one person, but about “the heroism of humanity.” The ending captures that feeling: a life fully lived, with its noise and conflict behind it. It is music for the autumn of life — calm, reflective, and complete.

Karajan recorded Ein Heldenleben several times with the Berlin Philharmonic, first in 1959 and again in 1974 for Deutsche Grammophon. The solo violin part, representing the hero’s companion, was played by Michel Schwalbé — the same musician who appears as soloist in the opening track of this playlist, Vivaldi’s Autumn. Born in Poland in 1919, Schwalbé lost his parents and sister in the Holocaust and settled in Switzerland after the war. Karajan personally persuaded him to join the Berlin Philharmonic in 1957, where he served as concertmaster for more than two decades. His grave in Berlin bears the inscription “Ein Leben für Musik und Aussöhnung” — a life for music and reconciliation — words that give this closing track a quiet sense of completion.

—  Pia Bernauer (Karajan Institute, Salzburg)