The Four Seasons: L'estate, op. 8 no. 2

L'estate is the darkest of The Four Seasons. Its sonnet describes men and animals flattened by heat, the cuckoo and the turtledove, then a night broken by gnats and flies, and finally the hailstorm that levels the corn. Vivaldi builds the first movement out of near-silence and sudden violence, and the closing Presto is a single sustained storm, the most frequently detached and separately performed movement of the cycle. The concerto is in G minor, and the solo violin is given its most exposed writing anywhere in opus 8.