Antonio Vivaldi

The "red-headed priest", as he was nicknamed, is not only the author of the Four Seasons and hundreds of other concertos, both programmatic and non-programmatic, but also of numerous operas and vocal works that have been discovered and recorded, shedding new light on the Venetian monument to Baroque music. Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was born on March 4, 1678, in the midst of an earthquake in the City of the Doges, in difficult circumstances that may explain his frail constitution and lifelong asthma. The son of Giovanni Battista Vivaldi, a barber and violinist at Saint Mark's Basilica, he was the eldest of nine siblings and the only musician, proving to be astonishingly precocious at the instrument. A pupil at the San Geminiano parish school, he was soon destined for the priesthood and a life as a musician. He received his tonsure at the age of fifteen on September 18, 1693, three years before his appointment to the Ducal Chapel, where he became a member of the Arte dei sonadori. After receiving minor orders in 1699 and the diaconate the following year at San Giovanni in Oleo, Vivaldi was ordained a priest on March 23, 1703. Shortly afterwards, he was appointed violin master at the Pio Ospedale della Pietà, a hospice and orphanage that served as a conservatory, while his father officiated at a similar establishment, the Ospedale dei Medicanti. The particularity of this institution, where he remained until 1709, was that only young girls were admitted, receiving a religious and musical education that trained them in singing. Under the direction of choirmaster Francesco Gasparini, the Venetian blond-haired priest taught composition and published his first collections of works: 12 Sonates de chambre pour deux violons et basse continue op. 1 (1705), which includes the famous Sonata no. 12 "La Follia " (RV 63), and 12 Sonates pour violon et basse continue op. 2 (1709), also published in Amsterdam and Paris. Although he continued to celebrate the church service, Vivaldi devoted most of his time to music, thanks to dispensations granted to the man considered the best musician in the city. With his position subject to a vote by the administrators, the violin master was dismissed in 1709 but reinstated two years later, giving him time to spend in Brescia, where he performed his Stabat Mater (1712), one of the greatest pieces of sacred music, and in Amsterdam, where Opus 3 was published in 1711, a collection of twelve concertos entitled L'estro armonico, dedicated to Ferdinand III de' Medici, and marking a milestone in that it paved the way for the three-movement solo concerto, replacing the concerto grosso. It is also one of his most frequently performed works, half of which were transcribed by J. S. Bach for organ or harpsichord. In 1713, Vivaldi entered the realm of opera with Ottone in villa, premiered in Vicenza, where his oratorio for the canonization of Pope Pius V was also performed. Maintaining a steady pace right up to the end of his career, he composed, according to his own account, almost a hundred operas, most of them for the carnivals of Venice or Mantua, of which at least fifty have been identified and only twenty have survived, including Orlando finto pazzo (1714), Armida al campo d'Egitto (1718), Tito Manlio (1719), Il Giustino (1724), Farnace (1727), Orlando furioso (1727), Argippo (1730), La fida ninfa (1732), Motezuma (1733), L'Olimpiade after Métastase (1734), Il Tamerlano (also called Bajazet, 1735), Griselda on a libretto by Carlo Goldoni (1735) and Catone in Utica (1737). On this occasion, Vivaldi became impresario of Venice's Teatro Sant'Angelo, further consolidating his position and prestige. 1714 saw the publication of a new collection of twelve concertos known as La Stravaganza op. 4, followed by op. 5(Six Sonatas for one or two violins and continuo, 1716) and the only surviving oratorio, Juditha triumphans (1716), also a masterpiece of the genre. In 1717, Vivaldi welcomed Johann Georg Pisendel from Dresden, one of his few pupils outside the Pietà boarders, who on his return wasted no time in presenting the works dedicated by the master. After two new opus numbers, collections of concertos duly published in Amsterdam, Vivaldi spent two years in Mantua, where he served as Kapellmeister to Philip of Hesse-Darmstadt, while in Venice an anonymous pamphlet was published against him, Il teatro alla moda (1720), portraying him as a dubious impresario named Aldiviva. The author was none other than his rival, Benedetto Marcello. In any case, Vivaldi was warmly welcomed in Rome, where he presented the opera Ercole sul Termodonte (1723) and, the following year, the pastiche Il Giustino. Back in Venice after his meeting with Pope Benedict XIII, he set to work on his opus 8, the collection of twelve concertos dedicated to Count Morzin, Il Cimento dell'armonia e dell'invenzione (1725), which includes the famous Four Seasons concertos, an ode to nature that has become his most performed, recorded and broadcast work. This period also saw him fall in love with one of his students, the contralto Anna Girò, who starred in Dorilla in Tempe (1726) and more than fifteen other operas. In 1727, the collection La Cetra (op. 9) was published, and a concert was given in his honor at the French Embassy. Op. 10, dated 1729, comprises six concertos for flute, strings and continuo, the first ever for solo instrument. After his meeting with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, who was visiting Trieste at the time, Vivaldi continued his European travels, writing his last three known opuses during his lifetime, the eleventh(Five Violin Concertos and an Oboe Concerto, 1729), the twelfth(Five Violin Concertos and a String Concerto "ripieno ", i.e. without soloist, undated) and opus 13, Il Pastor fido(Six Sonatas for recorder, 1737). His operas were performed in Prague and Verona, while Didone was premiered in London in 1737. In 1740, he decided to leave Venice for Vienna. A grand concert and festival were held in his honor at the Pietà in March, prior to his departure. In October, however, Charles VI died, in the expectation of his protection, and despite numerous concertos and other works sold individually, Vivaldi ended his life in poverty not far from the Theater am Kärntnertor. Stricken by an infectious disease, he died on July 28, 1741 at the age of 63, leaving a body of work comprising over five hundred concertos in which he displayed his virtuosity, his mastery of new forms and his ability to showcase all the instruments of the Baroque orchestra. Forgotten after his death, he found favor again in the 20th century, thanks to musicologists such as the Dane Peter Ryom, who in 1974 drew up an imposing catalog in which each work is preceded by the abbreviation RV (Ryom-Verzeichnis), since added to as new discoveries are made.

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