Antonio Vivaldi
(1678 - 1741)

Born March 4, 1678 in Venice and died July 28, 1741 in Vienna.

Antonio Vivaldi's father was a professional violinist in the orchestra of the prestigious Basilica di San Marco in Venice, and Antonio proved to be a highly talented violinist himself. Indeed, his instrumental music marks one of the peaks of Italian Baroque violin composition. According to his own account, within a year of his ordination to the priesthood in 1703, Antonio Vivaldi no longer wished to celebrate mass, possibly due to physical ailments ("tightness of the chest"). It may be, however, that Vivaldi, called the "Red Priest" because of his hair color, was feigning illness - he is said to have left the altar at times in order to write down a musical idea that had suddenly come to him. In the same year as his ordination, Vivaldi was appointed maestro di violino at the Ospedale della Pietà, one of the Venetian girls' "orphanages." (This "hospital" was in fact a home for the illegitimate daughters of noblemen and their numerous mistresses, which is reputed to have housed as many as 6,000 girls; it was generously endowed by the girls' "anonymous" fathers; the young ladies were well cared-for; and musical training was a central part of the curriculum. Many of Vivaldi's hundreds of concerti were exercises that he would play with his talented students.) He was associated with the Pietà, usually as music director, until 1740, teaching violin, composing oratorios and concertos for weekly concerts, and establishing a shining reputation both at home and abroad. During the years in which he composed operas (1713-1739), the Venetian theaters staged more works of Vivaldi's than of any other composer, and he also traveled to Rome, Mantua, and elsewhere to supervise his operas' performances. About 1740 he took a position at the court of Emperor Charles VI in Vienna, where he died.

Vivaldi was a composer who was both unbelievably speedy (he is said to have completed the opera Tito Manlio in five days, and he prided himself on being able to write a concerto faster than a copyist could write it out) and incredibly prolific (approximately 500 concertos exist, as well as 23 sinfonias, 75 solo or trio sonatas, 49 operas, about 40 cantatas, some 50 motets, and many oratorios). Although he is known today for only a few instrumental works (chiefly the cycle of violin concerti known as the Four Seasons), Vivaldi's influence is clearly evident in the forms of later Baroque music, notably in the original compositions of Bach and his German contemporaries, and also in Bach's transcriptions for harpsichord and organ of Vivaldi's concerti. Indeed, Vivaldi was one of the most significant figures in the transition from late Baroque to early Classical style because of the economy of his writing for string orchestra, his theatrical conception of the role of the instrumental soloist; the conciseness of his themes, the grace and clarity of his forms, the driving energy of his rhythms, the continuity of the flow of his musical ideas, and his emphasis on the sonic contrasts and tensions between soloists and larger ensembles. 

© 2002 Lorelette Knowles