Antonio Vivaldi

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was born in Venice on 4 March 1678 to Giovanni Battista Vivaldi and Camilla Calicchio. He was baptized at home by the midwife right after birth, likely because he was in poor health—a rumor that an earthquake occurred that day is false, though one did hit Venice on 17 April 1688. The missing baptismal rites were completed two months later. He had five siblings: Bonaventura Tomaso, Margarita Gabriela, Cecilia Maria, Francesco Gaetano, and Zanetta Anna. Vivaldi suffered from a condition described as "tightness of the chest," probably a form of asthma, which kept him from playing wind instruments but not from learning the violin, composing, or participating in music.

His father, Giovanni Battista, started as a barber before becoming a professional violinist and helped found an association of musicians. He taught Antonio to play the violin and took him on tours around Venice, performing together. By age 24, Antonio had acquired extensive musical knowledge, likely from early training. The president of the Ospedale della Pietà, Giovanni Legrenzi, an early Baroque composer and maestro at St. Mark’s Basilica, may have given him his first composition lessons. Vivaldi’s father might have also composed: in 1689, an opera titled *La fedeltà* was credited to Giovanni Battista Rossi, the name Vivaldi’s father used in the Sovvegno di Santa Cecilia. At fifteen, in 1693, Vivaldi began studying for the priesthood. He was ordained at twenty-five in 1703 and soon earned the nickname "Il Prete Rosso" ("The Red Priest") because of his red hair, a family trait.

Vivaldi was not only a famous composer but also an exceptional technical violinist. The German architect Johann Friedrich Armand von Uffenbach called him "the famous composer and violinist" and wrote in his diary that Vivaldi played a solo accompaniment excellently and ended with an improvised cadenza that astounded him, saying it was hardly possible anyone had ever played or would ever play in such a way. In September 1703, at age twenty-four, Vivaldi became maestro di violino at the Ospedale della Pietà, a home for abandoned children in Venice. His violin skills likely got him the job, and he soon became a successful music teacher there. Over the next thirty years, he composed most of his major works while at the Ospedale. Venice had four such institutions, funded by the Republic, which sheltered and educated abandoned or orphaned children. Boys learned a trade and left at fifteen; girls received musical training, and the most talented stayed to perform in the Ospedale’s renowned orchestra and choir. Shortly after his appointment, the orphans gained appreciation abroad. Vivaldi wrote concertos, cantatas, and sacred vocal music for them—over sixty sacred works, including solo motets and large-scale choral pieces for soloists, double chorus, and orchestra. In 1704, he also became teacher of viola all’inglese, and as maestro di coro, he had to compose an oratorio or concerto for every feast and teach music theory and instruments.

Vivaldi composed many instrumental concertos for violin and other instruments, sacred choral works, and more than fifty operas. His most famous work is the series of violin concertos called *The Four Seasons*. He also had success staging expensive operas in Venice, Mantua, and Vienna. After meeting Emperor Charles VI, he moved to Vienna hoping for royal support, but the emperor died soon after his arrival, and Vivaldi died in poverty less than a year later, on 28 July 1741. For nearly two centuries, his reputation declined, but it revived in the early 20th century with scholarly research. Many of his compositions, once thought lost, have been rediscovered—some as recently as 2015. His music remains widely popular and is regularly performed worldwide.