Top 10 facts about Antonio Vivaldi

Antonio Vivaldi – Life and Legacy. Vivaldi was an Italian baroque composer, virtuoso violinist, teacher and Catholic priest. Born Antonio Lucio Vivaldi in Venice on the 4th March 1678, he is recognised as one of the greatest baroque composers and his influence during his lifetime was widespread across Europe. He is known mainly for composing many instrumental concertos, for the violin and a. Despite his reputation today as one of Venice's greatest sons, Antonio Vivaldi wasn't always lionized in the city of his birth. In wealthy Venice of the 18th century, despite having been ordained a priest, he was forced to defend his music against the church, particularly in the person of the Bishop of Venice, who was determined to destroy Vivaldi's career and his operas. The Music Museum of Venice and the Italian Institute Antonio Vivaldi From the end of May, 2019 the Museum of Music in Venice begins a long-term project presenting the precious work of the Istituto Italiano Antonio Vivaldi, a world reference for the study and knowledge of the great Venetian composer. Hear Antonio Vivaldi’s magnificent ‘Four Seasons’ performed by Venice’s acclaimed I Musici Veneziani. The 1.5-hour show will whisk you back to 18th-century Venice, with performers dressed in traditional Venetian costumes and a spectacular setting in the exclusive Salone Capitolare at.

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

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

Antonio Vivaldi - A Prince In Venice

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.

Vivaldi A Prince In Venice

All music lovers always connect the city of Venice with the famous composer Antonio Vivaldi.

Vivaldi A Prince In Venice Movie Trailer

The great composer of Baroque music was indeed born in Venice and lived and worked here most of his life. But those who visit Venice, looking for evidence of him becoming one of the greatest violinists of all time, will probably be disappointed, because in addition to having little information about his life, little is left in his city.

But we know that little Antonio was baptized in the beautiful Gothic church of San Giovanni in Bragora, the parish of his family, in May 1678.

Lorenzo De Medici Rosemary Johnson

In fact, in this wonderful church there is a plaque dedicated to him next to the baptismal font. We do not know however, which was his house, but we can imagine a child and adolescent in St Mark's Basilica with his father, who was a violinist.

Ten years after his mother introduced him to an ecclesiastical career and Antonio went to study theology in the church of San Geminianus, in front of St Mark's Basilica, the jewel of the Renaissance destroyed by Napoleon.

In 1703 he was ordained a priest in the church of San Giovanni in Oleo which was also destroyed in the 800s.

He worked as a violin teacher in the Pietà Church from 1703 to 1720, but the current church overlooking the Riva degli Schiavoni is not the one known by Vivaldi, because the building was rebuilt in neoclassical style in 1740.

Antonio Vivaldi also worked as a theatre manager in the famous Sant'Angelo Theatre and it is where he wrote his most famous works. The theatre, which overlooked the Grand Canal, was destroyed in 1804 and replaced by a hotel.

Around 1730s he left Venice never to return, and died a poor and forgotten man in Vienna and buried in a mass grave with no tombstone.