A Season to Sing – Joanna Forbes L'Estrange
“A revolutionary re-imagining of The Four Seasons,
full of innovation, humour and wit”
Michael Howell (composer & musician)
A Season To Sing is a choral re-imagining of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. Under the auspices of the RSCM, of which Forbes L’Estrange is an honorary Fellow, A Season to Sing was co-commissioned by fifty-five choirs worldwide, a mix of choral societies, community choirs, chamber choirs, youth choirs, upper voice choirs, and church choirs.
“The Four Seasons is the first piece of music I can remember hearing from my childhood. I used to dance around the sitting room to it!” Joanna recalls. “I thought a great way to mark its 300th anniversary would be to make it possible for choirs to perform it. Vivaldi’s tunes are so magnificent they deserve to be sung!”
The 40-minute work, which weaves Bible verses, poetry, hymns, madrigals and sonnets into Vivaldi’s music, is bookended with Forbes L’Estrange’s own original settings of Ecclesiastes 3: To everything there is a season. Movement 1 ‘A Time to Dance’ sets verses 1-4; movement 14 ‘A Time of Peace’ sets verses 5-8. (The anthem ‘To Every Thing There is a Season’, an amalgamation of these two movements, is available as a separate publication.)
The key to the international appeal of A Season To Sing is threefold: 1) the music is already known and loved across the world 2) the piece is specifically composed to be singable by every type of choir 3) it’s fun to learn as well as to perform. Spring, for example, includes a whistling chorus of bird song; Summer’s storm is simulated using body percussion; the hunting horns of Autumn are repurposed as the trumpets of Psalm 150; Vivaldi’s own L’Inverno sonnet is employed to create a Winter soundscape, complete with vocalised shivers and chattering teeth!
The 10 most frequently asked questions about A Season to Sing:
Q1. How long is the whole piece? 40 minutes, so fills one half of a concert.
Q2. Would it be too challenging for a community chorus? No! It is deliberately written to be singable by every type of choir. Plus there are part-learning tracks to help you!
Q3. Do you have to be an SATB choir to sing it? No, it can be performed by upper voice choirs too i.e. SA
Q4. Does it have to be with organ? We don’t have an organ in our venue. No, you can perform it with strings instead :-)
Q5. Would we need to book any solo singers? No, all of the movements are for choir, no soloists.
Q6. Is it possible to hire the vocal scores or do you have to buy them? Yes, you can hire them.
Q7. Is the vocal score available as a digital download? Yes, it’s available as an e-book.
Q8. Is there a spiral-bound option for our conductor which will lie flat on the music stand? Yes, it’s the one called “Full Canadian binding” on the webpage.
Q9. What would be good to programme in the other half of the concert? Madrigals, secular pieces about nature/the seasons, settings of For the beauty of the Earth...
Q10. Is it true you have to be able to whistle?! There’s one whistling section in the first movement of Spring but not everybody in the choir needs to join in. (Fun fact: Joanna can’t actually whistle!) Also, all of the notes are covered in the accompaniment so it’s more for effect and to entertain the audience!
