I’ve loved this Vivaldi piece since my childhood. I loved it long before I knew it was Vivaldi, and certainly before I knew that it was the Largo from Vivaldi’s Chamber Concerto in D Major. My friends and I remember encountering this music in a short film that a local TV station would play sometimes during commercial breaks on weekday afternoons.
As we recall it, the film was set in a field of long green grasses and wildflowers during a rainstorm. Gentle lute music unfolded as the film proceeded through a series of close-ups of this idyllic field on a rainy day: raindrops dripping off of leaves, raindrops spilling softly off of flowers, raindrops causing ripples in puddles on the ground.
It made for an enriching and soothing few minutes that would open up a well of peace inside of me, tinged with an ache of longing and melancholy.
I’m not sure when or how I figured out what piece was featured in this film that had been a core memory from my childhood. Probably as an adult I heard it on the classical music radio station we’d often have playing at work, in which case once I’d heard and recognized the music, I must have paused and waited to hear if the announcer would identify it.
Even before I knew the details of the who and the what, though, this music was a holy grail for me, a piece that I longed not only to find again and listen to, but to play on the piano.
Back in the 1990s there was a computer kiosk at one of my favorite local brick-and-mortar music stores where you could browse, purchase, and print out sheet music, and I remember being so pleased to find on it a piano solo transcription of this piece, because it’s one of my all-time favorites.
Vivaldi composed his Chamber Concerto in D Major for lute, violins, and continuo, though it is also often performed on guitar. And the sheet music I have from the kiosk was arranged for solo piano by somebody named Lani Smith.
It is a piece I turn to so often at the piano. I find that that playing the Largo aligns me, taps into some deep and central stillness and wonder and hush.
That brick-and-mortar music store has long since closed and transformed into a fitness club. The need for such a print-on-demand kiosk has been replaced by, well, the internet. And when it came to writing this post, it actually felt unlikely that I could point anybody now to this favorite piano solo arrangement of mine. The Lani Smith version didn’t show up in web search results or on websites for sheet music vendors like MusicNotes or SheetMusicPlus.
But check this out: after a dollop of detective work I have found this same beautiful Lani Smith piano arrangement in a songbook: The Complete Classical Wedding Book for Piano. It was not easy to suss out.
Of course, when I describe a short film with gentle Vivaldi music playing over a montage of flower petals and green leaves and raindrops gently falling, people of a certain age or generation might suggest that I’m thinking instead of a different short film that also used this same Vivaldi piece. That film first aired on TV in 1969, during season one of “Sesame Street” — episode eight.
However, the “Sesame Street” vignette was a zoomed-in montage showing raindrops on a single yellow flower and the flower’s petals and leaves and stem. At the close of the film, the camera widened out to reveal that this yellow flower was growing not in a field but all alone in a planter on the outside of a gritty high rise in New York City.
The film also aired following the famous 1983 segment (in episode 1839) when Big Bird learned about the death of longtime “Sesame Street” storekeeper, Mr. Hooper. (You can find the Mr. Hooper scene in that episode at about 48:00, and the Vivaldi film at 52:00.)
This “Sesame Street” vignette looms large in the consciousnesses of many children who grew up watching the show in the late 60s and the 70s and early 80s, so much so that a common way people refer to the Vivaldi piece is as the “Sad Flower Song.”
Here’s one blog post about the “Sesame Street” film, in which author Rowan Floyd recalls finding this song again, decades after it first made an impression on her. “I didn’t know the name of the song,” writes Floyd, “but this image, and its music, stuck with me, followed me like Peter Pan’s Shadow, with a life of its own that I couldn’t catch.”
Currently you can watch the “Sesame Street” video on YouTube here and here. The gift of having the video posted online is not only in watching the so-called “Sad Flower” film itself but in reading through comments from people who are moved, thrilled, and even astonished to find this music and video that had haunted them for decades.
One commenter marvels, “I guess I just can’t believe there it is again. One of the first really beautiful things ever I saw- and heard. I feel like [I] found a stuffed animal that’s been lost.”
So many people post variations of “I thought I was the only one!” One commenter recalls that, as a boy, the segment lulled him “into a state of silent reverence.” A few people recount how they would unsuccessfully try to hum the melody as they asked people what this “doo doo DOO” music might be, while others searched for it online by “typing ‘Sesame Street guitar song’.”
A user with the handle Cindys1969 posts: “I remember being no more than 4 years old and sitting in front of the TV and hearing this for the first time; watching. I began to cry. My mother asked me why I was crying and I told her it was the music. I said, it hurts. From then on I have loved music- this piece still chokes me up.”
I’ve never yet been able to find footage of that other, local version of the film — the idyllic one in a peaceful rainy field. But my friends also remember it as being distinct from the film on “Sesame Street.”
Either way I’m pleased to be able to point people to the songbook containing the piano solo arrangement of the Largo that has itself become such a source of alignment for me. It is lovely to play on the piano.
Where to find it:
“Chamber Concerto in D Major, RV 93: II. Largo”
Composed by Antonio Vivaldi
Transcribed for piano by Lani Smith
SONGBOOK: find Lani Smith’s piano solo transcription of Vivaldi’s “Chamber Concerto in D Major, RV 93: II. Largo” in the songbook, “Complete Classical Wedding Book for Piano,” compiled by Mark Barnard and available for purchase at SheetMusicPlus, The Lorenz Corporation, at Stanton’s Sheet Music, or on Amazon. Songbook also available as a digital download.
Publisher: Unity Music Press / The Lorenz Corporation (2014)
Catalog #: 70/1051
Status (2026): In print
OTHER ARRANGEMENTS:
- short piano solo version (MusicNotes)
- piano solo arrangement by Magdalena Galka (SheetMusicDirect)
- guitar arrangements by Douglas Niedt
- for organ solo (Lorenz Corporation songbook, Standard Wedding Music for Organ)
- organ solo, arranged by Kevin Norris (SheetMusicNow)
- YouTube video showing arrangement by Paul Barton
FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION:
- International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP): Chamber Concerto in D major, RV 9 (also known as Concerto for lute, 2 violins, and continuo in D major) by Antonio Vivaldi (composed in 1730-31) - includes links to complete scores as well as transcriptions and arrangements for instruments including guitar, keyboard, piano, organ, violins and cello, or saxophone.
- ClassicFM: On the Trail of the Vivaldi Manuscripts
- Claasical guitarist John C. Williams recording, with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla, of the Largo from Vivaldi’s Chamber Concerto in D Major, RV 9 (Spotify)
- YouTube: various performances and recordings of Vivaldi’s Chamber Concerto in D Major, RV 9
- Muppet Fandom: Antonio Vivaldi - details other “Sesame Street” moments featuring music by Vivaldi
- other pieces arranged by Lani Smith (SheetMusicPlus)
- Wikipedia: MusicWriter - article about MusicWriter, the company behind the now-obsolete NoteStation print-on-demand sheet music kiosks.
So Many Songbooks 