Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is often seen as decorative classical music. Yet, in Vivaldi’s time, his concertos were bold, intense, and energetic as is the music from AC/DC. In 1725 Venice, The Four Seasons made a striking impression. (“The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi”, n.d.)
Vivaldi’s musical style shares key qualities with hard rock bands like AC/DC. Both create music that is driven, repetitive, virtuosic, and intense, using these traits to deliver powerful emotional impact.
Winter as Hard Rock
Of all the Four Seasons, Winter best shows these traits. Its fast sections are jagged and relentless, evoking icy winds. The strings shiver and tremble like cracking branches. In the middle, the music retreats into quiet stillness, as if sitting by a fire before the storm returns.
And that’s why it resonates so easily with AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” The opening guitar riff in “Thunderstruck” has the same restless energy as Vivaldi’s Winter violin. Both build tension and unleash it in powerful bursts. They evoke thunder, lightning, ice, and storms, turning raw power into music.
When Sound Becomes Force
The Vivaldi-AC/DC link goes beyond surface similarities. Both use:
- Repetition as intensity: the riff, the rhythm, the pulse.
- Contrast as drama: quiet moments that make the storms more overwhelming.
- This music is not just intellectual, it hits you physically and viscerally.
Played on gut strings or electric guitar, both show music is more than sound, it’s something you feel. It’s not “pretty” music, it’s elemental
Why is Classical music boring?
Classical music is often dismissed as “boring” because it seems tied to the conservative establishment, concert halls, polite applause, and traditions that feel frozen in time. However, this view confuses the wrapper with the gift. In their own day, works by Beethoven, Stravinsky, or Bartók were anything but safe: they shocked audiences, provoked scandals, and pushed instruments and performers to their limits. (Knocke, n.d.) Mozart’s operas, although celebrated and highly appreciated, did not receive such a welcome reception at their premieres. Perhaps you can recall this quote?
Too many notes, dear Mozart, too many notes’ is what Emperor Joseph II supposedly said after the first performance of the Entführung aus dem Serail in Vienna’s old Burgtheater. Mozart’s reply was: ‘Just as many as necessary, Your Majesty.
(McGath, 2014)
Closing Reflection
Comparing Vivaldi and AC/DC isn’t just about mixing up genres. Both strive to capture the raw forces of nature: wind, ice, thunder, and fire, proving that music can channel these elements with equal power, no matter the era.
Winter and Thunderstruck are two expressions of the same elemental force. Despite the centuries that separate them, both ignite an overwhelming sense of power; music as fierce as lightning, thunder, or ice.
In that force, we find meaning; music, unchanged in its power, becomes something we feel.
The resonance linking Vivaldi’s “Winter” and AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” lies in their thematic repetition and electrifying energy. Across centuries and genres, their music transforms raw power into an exhilarating, unified force, reminding us that music, above all, is a vital and universal experience.