Introducing the August 2023 issue of Gramophone – Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons

Friday, July 7, 2023

Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons: three centuries on, why the work is still loved by artists and audiences alike. Plus, the magnificent power of music and Shakespeare, and Karajan: the legacy of a true conducting icon

Gramophone August 2023 cover

This month's cover story explores one of the most popular of all classical works, Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, talking to some of its leading performers to explain why the Baroque masterpiece finds such recognition and resonance with modern audiences.

vivaldi's the four seasons

We also publish a major survey of the relationship between Shakespeare and music, looking at how composers across the past four centuries have set his texts and stories.

This month's Icons is one of the greatest of all conductors of the recording era, Herbert von Karajan, who is celebrated by his biographer, Richard Osborne.

shakespeare and music

For Musician and the Score we talk to baritone Florian Boesch and pianist Malcolm Martineau about Schumann’s Kerner Lieder; our Contemporary Composers focus is a musician from the Faroe Islands, Sunleif Rasmussen; and in Collection we take a listen to the recordings of Elgar's evocative orchestral cycle Sea Pictures and name the finest.

Plus, as always, the latest classical albums are reviewed by our expert critics, and the very best of those named Editor's Choices.

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