“The Red Priest,” as Antonio Vivaldi was called by his contemporaries on account of the color of his hair, spent most of his life in the service of the Venetian “Ospedale della Pietà” and its famous orchestra of orphan girls. Aside from certain scenic effects in opera or ballet, Le Quattro Stagioni stands with Haydn’s two great oratorios and Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony as the supreme musical study of man in nature. No earlier programmatic compositions have taken so firm a hold on the imaginations of nearly three centuries of listeners. In the annals of program music, few works have gone into such charming detail of nature-painting as Vivaldi’s four seasonal concertos.

Yet its smooth contrapuntal dialogue, enhanced at various points by some atmospheric pizzicatos in the bass strings, demonstrates that even at this early age Mendelssohn, natural melodist though he always was, realized the primacy of fertile motifs over mere tune-spinning in the construction of symphonic forms. But the most appealing movement of the three is perhaps the central Andante, set in a gentle B Minor, and explicitly marked “dolce.” There is a sweetness about this unhurried rumination that foreshadows one of the composer’s most characteristic manners of thought.

Both are essentially monothematic, recasting their principal themes at the point where the key of the traditional subordinate theme is reached. The two outer movements, in concise sonata form, are insistently energetic, the finale in particular being a dashing gigue. 2 in D Major, completed around the time of the composer’s 12th birthday, shows a remarkable maturity both in its expressive poise and in its assured command of counterpoint. And the series of 13 symphonies, or sinfonias, for string orchestra that he produced between the ages of 12 and 14 command no less respect and affection among music-lovers. 1, composed at the age of 13, that reveal a no less stunning mastery. Yet there are even earlier works, such as the First Piano Quartet, Op. He was 16 when he wrote the Octet, and all of 17 when he wrote the overture. The Octet for Strings and the overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream are the works usually cited as evidence of Felix Mendelssohn’s surely unrivaled precocious genius.

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