Antonio Vivaldi

Overview

Biography

Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist, and Roman Catholic priest, born in Venice. He spent much of his career at the Ospedale della Pietà, a Venetian institution for orphaned and illegitimate girls, where he trained a world-famous orchestra and composed an enormous body of music for their performances.

Vivaldi was extraordinarily prolific: over 500 concertos, more than 40 operas, sacred choral works, and chamber music. His concertos for violin, oboe, lute, and other instruments established the three-movement concerto form that would dominate instrumental music for the rest of the Baroque period and beyond. His most famous work, the set of four violin concertos known as The Four Seasons (1725), is arguably the most recorded piece of classical music in history. Each concerto depicts a season through vivid tone-painting — the chirping of birds in Spring, the oppressive heat of Summer, a harvest dance in Autumn, and the biting cold of Winter — accompanied by sonnets that may have been written by Vivaldi himself.

Vivaldi died in Vienna in poverty and was buried in a pauper's grave, his reputation having dimmed considerably in his final years. The twentieth century saw a spectacular rediscovery of his music: Bach transcribed several of his concertos, and today his works are performed and recorded worldwide.