The Four Seasons, this winter

Google Le Petite Bande and you'll come up with a Wikipedia entry, a movie and several Youtube videos, all in a matter of 0.09 seconds, all about the same Belgium-based baroque band. Obviously it’s a popular search.

Google Le Petite Bande and you'll come up with a Wikipedia entry, a movie and several Youtube videos, all in a matter of 0.09 seconds, all about the same Belgium-based baroque band. Obviously it’s a popular search.

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So what does that have to do with us? For starters, this famous orchestra will be performing in Delhi on October 28 and then move on to several other cities in the country. And they will be performing Vivaldi’s best-known work — Le Quattro Stagioni a.k.a The Four Seasons — the most recorded and performed baroque concerti in the world. And it’s a style of European classical music that is not often brought to India. “I believe that Baroque music is a kind of universal language that can be understood and enjoyed by everyone who is in love with music,” says Sigiswald Kuijken, the founder of this Belgian Orchestra who has been brought down by the Belgian embassy.

Baroque is often considered to be the style of music that gave rise to opera. A hundred and sixty year old style, it is dominated by instruments like the violin and the viola.

Which is perhaps why Le Petite Bande has chosen to play this particular piece. “Vivaldi composed this four violin concerti in a combination of four sonnets which described the four seasons in their typical aspects,” says Kuijken, who has played this set for over 30 years now. “Our orchestra strives to faithfully reproduce the original sound quality and interpretation of this set without lapsing into the academics of it all.”

October 28 at 7 pm at Stein Auditorium, India Habitat Centre. Open to all