Antonio Lucio Vivaldi, is greatly remembered all around the world as a priest that had an exceptional amount of talent and skill when it came to composing music and playing instruments, specifically the violin. Yet the mystery of how this man became as successful as he did, remains. However, after a bit of research the answer was found. Antonio Vivaldi was a 17th and 18th-century musician who’s become one of the most famous figures in European classical music. He was born on March 4, 1678, in Venice, Italy. Vivaldi must have been destined for greatness by virtue of his ground-shaking birth (Literally), a large earthquake occurred in Venice on his birthday. Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 - 28 July 1741), nicknamed il Prete Rosso ('The Red Priest') because of his red hair, was an Italian Baroque composer, p. Antonio Lucio Vivaldi, nicknamed il Prete Rosso ('The Red Priest'), was a Venetian priest and Baroque music composer, as well as a famous virtuoso violinist; he was born and raised in the Republic of Venice. The Four Seasons, a series of four violin concerti, is his best-known work and a. Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), Italian Composer, Violinist, Teacher and Priest Antonio Vivaldi is one of the leading and renowned violinists who contributed immensely in the development of the music industry into its current state in the society. He was born on 4 March, 1678 of his parents.
Top 10 facts about Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Vivaldi was a 17th and 18th-century musician who’s become one of the most famous figures in European classical music.
He was born on March 4, 1678, in Venice, Italy. Vivaldi must have been destined for greatness by virtue of his ground-shaking birth (Literally), a large earthquake occurred in Venice on his birthday.
Antonio Vivaldi was ordained as a priest at birth although he later chose to follow his passion for music. He became a prolific composer who created hundreds of works, became renowned for his concertos in Baroque style, and was a highly influential innovator in form and pattern.
Some facts about this Italian composer
1. Antonio Vivaldi was mentored by his father
Young Antonio was taught to play the violin by his father, Giovanni Battista Vivaldi, a professional violinist who was also a barber. Antonio got to tour Venice with his father while playing the violin together.
Through his father and the tours, Vivaldi met and learned from some of the finest musicians and composers in Venice at the time. While his violin practice flourished, chronic shortness of breath barred him from mastering wind instruments.
2. Antonio Vivaldi went to the monastery
At the age of 15, Antonio began studying to become a priest. He also took music lessons. He was ordained in 1703.
Due to his red hair, Vivaldi was known by the locals as “il Prete Rosso,” or “the Red Priest.” His career in the clergy was short-lived due to health problems that prevented him from delivering mass and drove him to abandon the priesthood shortly after his ordination.
3. Antonio Vivaldi the Maestro di violin
After leaving the priesthood, Vivaldi went to Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage in Venice where he became the master of the violin.
He was regarded as an exceptional technical violinist as well as a famous composer. He began his career at the orphanage aged 25 and stayed for over three decades composing most of his major work.
The orphanages provided shelter and education to children who were abandoned, orphaned or came from poor families.
Vivaldi taught and mentored the children who began to gain appreciation and praises abroad.
4. Vivaldi had a strained relationship with his workmates
Despite his amazing work and excellent teaching skills that saw most of the children master their musical skills and even joining the Ospedale’s renowned orchestra and choir, his relationship with the board of directors of the Ospedale was often on the rocks.
The board would vote every year to decide whether to keep him as a teacher. They unanimously voted him out once, and only later realized the importance of his role after a year. The recalled him back.
During that time, Vivaldi practised as a freelance musician. He later became responsible for the entire musical activity o the institution when he was called back.
5. Vivaldi took on other jobs other than teaching
In addition to his regular employment, Vivaldi accepted a number of short-term positions funded by patrons in Mantua and Rome.
It was during his term in Mantua, from around 1717 to 1721, that he wrote his four-part masterpiece, The Four Seasons. He paired the pieces with four sonnets, which he may have written himself.
6. Antonio Vivaldi’s secret love life
Vivaldi took up a job offer as a Maestro di Cappella by prince Philip of Hesse-Darmstadt in Mantua. He produced several operas in the three years he was there.
It was during this time that he was introduced to Anna Tessieri Giro, who became his student and protégée. She later moved in with him and would accompany him on his many travels.
Speculations flew around whether the two were involved in a romantic relationship beyond their friendship.
Vivaldi was quick to deny the speculations in a letter he wrote to his patron Bentivogilo on November 16, 1737.
7. Vivaldi had tough Financial Times
Antonio Vivaldi Was The Son Of A
Although he seemed to be a successful and famous musician, he faced financial difficulties like most of his fellow composers at the time.
In his later years, Vivaldi’s compositions were no longer held in high regard as they once were in Venice. This could be as a result of his changing musical tastes that outmoded.
To get himself out of the financial murk, Vivaldi opted to sell a huge number of his manuscripts at low prices to finance his move to Vienna.
8. Vivaldi spent time in Vienna
There is no clear reason as to why he moved to Vienna, but it is believed that after meeting with Emperor Charles VI, he aspired to take up a position as a composer in the imperial court.
Vivaldi also staged operas while in Vienna when he lived near Karntnertor theater.
His new life and career were cut short after Charles VI died, leaving him without royal protection and no steady source of income. Antonio Vivaldi sunk back into bankruptcy.
9. Vivaldi died poor
Photo by Wendy Scofield on Unsplash
Antonio Vivaldi died a pauper despite his fame. He died on July 28, 1741, aged 63 of an internal infection.
No music was played at his funeral, only the bells at St. Stephen’s Cathedral chimed to note his passing. He was buried in a simple grave in a public hospital cemetery.
A memorial plaque has been placed on the site that was once his home, which has since been destroyed.
10. Antonio Vivaldi’s life documented
His life has been featured in a 2005 movie, Vivaldi, A Prince of Venice. A radio play was also done for ABC Radio that same year.
The play was later adapted to a stage play titled The Angel and the Red Priest.
Vivaldi’s genius skills and music continue to influence many musicians centuries later. His complete music catalogue was found in 1926 at a boarding school in Piedmont. The music of Vivaldi has been performed widely since World War II. The choral composition Gloria, re-introduced to the public at Casella’s Vivaldi Week, is particularly famous and is performed regularly at Christmas celebrations worldwide. His work includes nearly 500 concertos that have influenced subsequent composers, including Johann Sebastian Bach.
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Antonio Vivaldi Was From The Baroque Period
Antonio Vivaldi (Composer) |
Born: March 4, 1678 - Venice, Italy
Died: July 27/28, 1741 - Vienna, Austria |
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi, nicknamed il Prete Rosso ('The Red Priest'), was a Venetian priest and Baroque music composer, as well as a famous virtuoso violinist; he was born and raised in the Republic of Venice. The Four Seasons, a series of four violin concerti, is his best-known work and a highly popular Baroque piece. |
Life |
Though ordained a priest in 1703, according to his own account, within a year of being ordained Antonio Vivaldi no longer wished to celebrate mass because of physical complaints ('tightness of the chest') which pointed to angina pectoris, asthmatic bronchitis, or a nervous disorder. It is also possible that Vivaldi was simulating illness - there is a story that he sometimes left the altar in order to quickly jot down a musical idea in the sacristy.. In any event he had become a priest against his own will, perhaps because in his day training for the priesthood was often the only possible way for a poor family to obtain free schooling.
Though he wrote many fine and memorable concertos, such as the Four Seasons and the Op. 3 for example, he also wrote many works which sound like five-finger exercises for students. And this is precisely what they were. Vivaldi was employed for most of his working life by the Ospedale della Pietà. Often termed an 'orphanage', this Ospedale was in fact a home for the female offspring of noblemen and their numerous dalliances with their mistresses. The Ospedale was thus well endowed by the 'anonymous' fathers; its furnishings bordered on the opulent, the young ladies were well looked-after, and the musical standards among the highest in Venice. Many of Vivaldi's concerti were indeed exercises which he would play with his many talented pupils.
Antonio Vivaldi's relationship with the Ospedale began right after his ordination in 1703, when he was named as violin teacher there. Until 1709, Vivaldi's appointment was renewed every year and again after 1711. Between 1709 and 1711 Vivaldi was not attached to the Ospedale. Perhaps in this period he was already working for the Teatro Sant' Angelo, an opera theater. He also remained active as a composer - in 1711 twelve concertos he had written were published in Amsterdam by the music publisher Estienne Roger under the title l'Estro armonico (Harmonic Inspiration).
In 1713, Vivaldi was given a month's leave from the Ospedale della Pietà in order to stage his first opera, Ottone in villa, in Vicenza. In the 1713-1714 season he was once again attached to the Teatro Sant' Angelo, where he produced an opera by the composer Giovanni Alberto Rostori (1692-1753).
As far as his theatrical activities were concerned, the end of 1716 was a high point for Vivaldi. In November, he managed to have the Ospedale della Pietà perform his first great oratorio, Juditha Triumphans devicta Holofernis barbaric. This work was an allegorical description of the victory of the Venetians (the Christians) over the Turks (the barbarians) in August 1716.
At the end of 1717 A. Vivaldi moved to Mantua for two years in order to take up his post as Chamber Capellmeister at the court of Landgrave Philips van Hessen-Darmstadt. His task there was to provide operas, cantatas, and perhaps concert music, too. His opera Armida had already been performed earlier in Mantua and in 1719 Teuzzone and Tito Manlio followed. On the score of the latter are the words: 'music by Vivaldi, made in 5 days.' Furthermore, in 1720 La Conduce o siano Li veri amici was performed.
In 1720 Antonio Vivaldi returned to Venice where he again staged new operas written by himself in the Teatro Sant' Angelo. In Mantua he had made the acquaintance of the singer Anna Giraud (or Giro), and she had moved in to live with him. Vivaldi maintained that she was no more than a housekeeper and good friend, just like Anna's sister, Paolina, who also shared his house.
In his Memoires, the Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni gave the following portrait of Vivaldi and Giraud: 'This priest, an excellent violinist but a mediocre composer, has trained Miss Giraud to be a singer. She was young, born in Venice, but the daughter of a French wigmaker. She was not beautiful, though she was elegant, small in stature, with beautiful eyes and a fascinating mouth. She had a small voice, but many languages in which to harangue.' Vivaldi stayed together with her until his death.
Antonio Vivaldi also wrote works on commission from foreign rulers, such as the French king, Louis XV - the serenade La Sena festeggiante (Festival on the Seine), for example. This work cannot be dated precisely, but it was certainly written after 1720. In Rome Vivaldi found a patron in the person of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, a great music lover, who earlier had been the patron of Arcangelo Corelli. And if we can believe Vivaldi himself, the Pope asked him to come and play the violin for him at a private audience.
Earlier, in the 1660's, musical life in Rome had been enormously stimulated by the presence of Christina of Sweden in the city. The 'Pallas of the North,' as she was called, abdicated from the Swedish throne in 1654. A few years later she moved to Rome and took up residence in the Palazzo Riario. There she organized musical events that were attended by composers such as A. Corelli and Scarlatti. Other composers, too, such as Geminiani and Georg Frideric Handel worked in Rome for periods of time. Like them, Vivaldi profited from the favorable cultural climate in the city.
Despite his stay in Rome and other cities, Antonio Vivaldi remained in the service of the Ospedale della Pietà, which nominated him 'Maestro di concerti.' He was required only to send two concertos per month to Venice (transport costs were to the account of the client) for which he received a ducat per concerto. His presence was never required. He also remained director of the Teatro Sant' Angelo, as he did in the 1726, 7 and 8 seasons.
Between 1725 and 1728 some eight operas were premiered in Venice and Florence. Abbot Conti wrote of his contemporary, Vivaldi: 'In less than three months Vivaldi has composed three operas, two for Venice and a third for Florence; the last has given something of a boost to the name of the theater of that city and he has earned a great deal of money.'
During these years Vivaldi was also extremely active in the field of concertos. In 1725 the publication Il Cimento dell' Armenia e dell'invenzione (The trial of harmony and invention), Op. 8, appeared in Amsterdam. This consisted of twelve concertos, seven of which were descriptive: The Four Seasons, Storm at Sea, Pleasure and The Hunt. Vivaldi transformed the tradition of descriptive music into a typically Italian musical style with its unmistakable timbre in which the strings play a major role.
These concertos were enormously successful, particularly in France. In the second half of the 18th century there even appeared some remarkable adaptations of the Spring concerto: Michel Corrette (1709-1795) based his motet Laudate Dominum de coelis of 1765 on this concerto and, in 1775, Jean-Jacques Rousseau reworked it into a version for solo flute. 'Spring' was also a firm favorite of King Louis XV, who would order it to be performed at the most unexpected moments, and Vivaldi received various commissions for further compositions from the court at Versailles.
In 1730 Antonio Vivaldi, his father, and Anna Giraud traveled to Prague. In this music-loving city (half a century later Mozart would celebrate his first operatic triumphs there) Vivaldi met a Venetian opera company which between 1724 and 1734 staged some sixty operas in the theater of Count Franz Anton von Sporck (for whom incidentally, J.S. Bach produced his Four Lutheran Masses BWV 233-236). In the 1730-1731 season, two new operas by Vivaldi were premiered there after the previous season had with his opera Farnace, a work the composer often used as his showpiece.
At the end of 1731 Vivaldi returned to Venice, but at the beginning of 1732 he left again for Mantua and Verona. In Mantua, Vivaldi's opera Semimmide was performed and in Verona, on the occasion of the opening of the new Teatro Filarmonico, La fida Ninfa, with a libretto by the Veronese poet and man of letters, Scipione Maffei, was staged.
After his stay in Prague, Antonio Vivaldi concentrated mainly on operas. No further collections of instrumental music were published. However Vivaldi continued to write instrumental music, although it was only to sell the manuscripts to private persons or to the Ospedale della Pietà, which after 1735 paid him a fixed honorarium of 100 ducats a year. In 1733 he met the English traveler, Edward Holdsworth, who had been commissioned to purchase a few of Vivaldi's compositions for the man of letters, Charles Jennens, author of texts for oratorios by G.F. Handel. Holdsworth wrote to Jennens: 'I spoke with your friend Vivaldi today. He told me that he had decided to publish no more concertos because otherwise he can no longer sell his handwritten compositions. He earns more with these, he said, and since he charges one guinea per piece, that must be true if he finds a goodly number of buyers.'
In 1738 Antonio Vivaldi was in Amsterdam where he conducted a festive opening concert for the 100th Anniversary of the Schouwburg Theater. Returning to Venice, which was at that time suffering a severe economic downturn, he resigned from the Ospedale in 1740, planning to move to Vienna under the patronage of his admirer Charles VI. His stay in Vienna was to be shortlived however, for he died on July 28, 1741 'of internal fire' (probably the asthmatic bronchitis from which he suffered all his life) and, like Mozart fifty years later, received a modest burial. Anna Giraud returned to Venice, where she died in 1750. |
Works |
See: Antonio Vivaldi - Works Pro control driver download. |
J.S. Bach Connection |
Antonio Vivaldi's concertos confirmed the three-movement scheme as standard. They also pioneered ritornello form, which became the normal structure used for the fast movements of concertos.
Equally influential was Vivaldi's style, heavily indebted both to the tradition of virtuosity in Italian string music and to the expressive but deliberately simplified musical language of the opera house. Vivaldi is commonly seen as a prime mover in the 'flight from counterpoint' that ushered in the galant style. This view needs qualification, but it remains true that it was the most radically simple features of Vivaldi's concertos that proved influential in their day.
The BG edition of ten Vivaldi concertos in J.S. Bach's transcriptions for solo harpsichord (BWV 972, BWV 973, BWV 975, BWV 976, BWV 978, and BWV 980), solo organ (BWV 593, BWV 594, and BWV 596), and four harpsichords with strings (BWV 1065) launched Vivaldi's own modern revival. J.N. Forkel's belief that J.S. Bach transcribed the works to improve his command of musical form is no longer accepted; far more likely is that he arranged them (leaving aside BWV 1065, a later work) at the behest of his patron Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar. Nor are the small changes made to the original in the course of their transcription to be understood necessarily as 'improvements'; most arose, rather, from a wish to make the concertos effective in their new medium.
The transcriptions for solo keyboard date from about 1713. Five (to be joined later by BWV 1065) came from concertos for one or two violins in Vivaldi's Op. 3; the remaining four were of concertos circulating in manuscript, versions of which later appeared in Op. 4 and Op. 7. J.S. Bach soon began to imitate Vivaldi in his own compositions.
The English Suites (BWV 806-811) of about 1715 contain many Vivaldian features; indeed, the Prelude of the Third Suite is a perfect specimen of ritornello form. J.S. Bach also imported Vivaldian style and structure into other genres, vocal and instrumental. Even the episodes of J.S. Bach's fugues often draw inspiration from the solo portions of Vivaldi's concertos. A great master in his own right, Vivaldi was perhaps the only non-German to leave a strong mark on J.S. Bach as a composer. |
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Source: Baroque Music Website; Wikipedia Website; Malcom Boyd, editor: Oxford Composer Companion J.S. Bach (Oxford University Press, 1999, Article author: Michael Talbot)
Contributed by Aryeh Oron (October 2008) |
Antonio Vivaldi: Short Biography | Works | Antonio Vivaldi & Bach |
Works arranged by J.S. Bach |
Concertos for organ:
Concerto for organ No. 2 in A minor (after A. Vivaldi), BWV 593
Concerto for organ No. 3 in C major (after A. Vivaldi), BWV 594
Concerto for organ No. 5 in D minor (after A. Vivaldi), BWV 596
Concertos for solo keyboard:
Concerto for solo keyboard No. 1 in D major, BWV 972 [after A. Vivaldi Op. 3/9]
Concerto for solo keyboard No. 2 in G major, BWV 973 [after A. Vivaldi Op. 7/2, RV 299]
Concerto for solo keyboard No. 4 in G minor, BWV 975 [after A. Vivaldi Op. 4/6, RV 316]
Concerto for solo keyboard No. 5 in C major, BWV 976 (after A. Vivaldi Op. 3/12, RV 265],
Concerto for solo keyboard No. 7 in F major, BWV 978 [after A. Vivaldi Op. 3/3, RV 310]
Concerto for solo keyboard No. 9 in G major, BWV 980 [after A. Vivaldi Op. 4/1, RV 381]
Concerto for 4 harpsichords, strings & continuo in A minor BWV 1065 [after A. Vivaldi: Concerto for 4 violins in B minor, RV 580 (l'estro armonico op.3 No.10)] |
Links to other Sites |
Antonio Vivaldi (Wikipedia)
Antonio Vivaldi: a detailed informative biography (Baroque Music)
Antonio Vivaldi (Classical Music Pages)
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) (Karadar)
Antonio Vivaldi (IMDB)
Antonio Vivaldi Biography (Naxos)
Antonio Vivaldi (Lesson Tutor)
Antonio Vivaldi - Biography, Discography (Goldberg)
Antonio Vivaldi Baroque Composer (essortment)
Antonio Vivaldi - A Profile (Classical Music)
Antonio Vivaldi (W.W. Norton)
Antonio Vivaldi - The Red Priest: Baroque Composer and Violinist (Classical Composers Suite 101)
Antonio Vivaldi (Britannica Online Encyclopedia)
Antonio Vivaldi (Sojurn)
Classical Net - Basic Repertoire List: Vivaldi
Antonio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741) (Find A Grave Memorial) |
Bibliography |
Antonio Vivaldi Was Famous And Influential As
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