History knows of 554 compositions by Vivaldi; of these 454 are concertos. A clever satirist said that Vivaldi had not written six hundred concertos, but had written the same concerto six hundred times;47 and sometimes it seems so. There is in these pieces much sawing of strings, much hurdy-gurdy continuo, an almost metronomic beating of time; even in the famous series called The Seasons (1725) there are some deserts of monotony.
