Antonio Vivaldi was born in Venice, Italy, which is where he spent most of his life. His father taught him to play the violin, and the two would often perform together. Antonio continued to study and practice the violin, even after he became a priest. He was called the 'Red Priest' because of his flaming red hair. About Vivaldi has an amazing community – that includes you! Follow the progress of Vivaldi browser, join in forum discussions, start your own blog or grab your.
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. Photoshop cs 6 for mac.
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
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. Canon mf4450 driver for mac.
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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and our community of experts to gain a global audience for your work! Betsy SchwarmThe Four Seasons, Italian Le quattro stagioni, group of four violinconcerti by Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, each of which gives a musical expression to a season of the year. They were written about 1720 and were published in 1725 (Amsterdam), together with eight additional violin concerti, as Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione (“The Contest Between Harmony and Invention”).
The Four Seasons is the best known of Vivaldi’s works. Unusually for the time, Vivaldi published the concerti with accompanying poems (possibly written by Vivaldi himself) that elucidated what it was about those seasons that his music was intended to evoke. It provides one of the earliest and most-detailed examples of what was later called program music—music with a narrative element.
Vivaldi took great pains to relate his music to the texts of the poems, translating the poetic lines themselves directly into the music on the page. In the middle section of the Springconcerto, where the goatherd sleeps, his barking dog can be marked in the viola section. Other natural occurrences are similarly evoked. Vivaldi separated each concerto into three movements, fast-slow-fast, and likewise each linked sonnet into three sections. His arrangement is as follows:
Spring (Concerto No. 1 in E Major)
Allegro
Spring has arrived with joy
Welcomed by the birds with happy songs,
And the brooks, amidst gentle breezes,
Murmur sweetly as they flow.
The sky is caped in black, and
Thunder and lightning herald a storm
When they fall silent, the birds
Take up again their delightful songs.
Largo e pianissimo sempre
And in the pleasant, blossom-filled meadow,
To the gentle murmur of leaves and plants,
The goatherd sleeps, his faithful dog beside him.
Allegro
To the merry sounds of a rustic bagpipe,
Nymphs and shepherds dance in their beloved spot
When Spring appears in splendour.
Summer (Concerto No. 2 in G Minor)
Allegro non molto
Under the merciless sun of the season
Languishes man and flock, the pine tree burns.
The cuckoo begins to sing and at once
Join in the turtledove and the goldfinch.
A gentle breeze blows, but Boreas
Is roused to combat suddenly with his neighbour,
And the shepherd weeps because overhead
Hangs the fearsome storm, and his destiny.
Adagio
His tired limbs are robbed of rest
By his fear of the lightning and the frightful thunder
And by the flies and hornets in furious swarms.
Presto
Alas, his fears come true:
There is thunder and lightning in the heavens
And the hail cuts down the tall ears of grain.
Autumn (Concerto No. 3 in F Major)Winter (Concerto No. 4 in F Minor)
Allegro
The peasant celebrates with dancing and singing
The pleasure of the rich harvest,
And full of the liquor of Bacchus
They end their merrymaking with a sleep.
Adagio molto
All are made to leave off dancing and singing
By the air which, now mild, gives pleasure
And by the season, which invites many
To find their pleasure in a sweet sleep.
Allegro
The hunters set out at dawn, off to the hunt,
With horns and guns and dogs they venture out.
The beast flees and they are close on its trail.
Already terrified and wearied by the great noise
Of the guns and dogs, and wounded as well
It tries feebly to escape, but is bested and dies.
Allegro non molto
Frozen and shivering in the icy snow,
In the severe blasts of a terrible wind
To run stamping one’s feet each moment,
One’s teeth chattering through the cold.
Largo
To spend quiet and happy times by the fire
While outside the rain soaks everyone.
Allegro
To walk on the ice with tentative steps,
Going carefully for fear of falling.
To go in haste, slide, and fall down to the ground,
To go again on the ice and run,
In case the ice cracks and opens.
Facts About Vivaldi
To hear leaving their iron-gated house Sirocco,Boreas, and all the winds in battle—
Quotes About Vivaldi
This is winter, but it brings joy.
About Vivaldi