Antonio Vivaldi

At 63 years old, Antonio Vivaldi has this physical status:

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – July 28, 1741) was an Italian Baroque musical composer, virtuoso violinist, lecturer, and priest.

He was born in Venice, the capital of the Venetian Republic, and his fame during his lifetime was broad throughout Europe.

He made many instrumental concertos for the violin and a few other instruments, as well as sacred choral works and more than forty operas.

The Four Seasons is his most well-known piece. Many of his compositions were written for the Ospedale della Pietà, a home for abandoned children.

Vivaldi had been employed as a Catholic priest for 1 1/2 years, from 1703 to 1715, and from 1723 to 1740.

Vivaldi's operas in Venice, Mantua, and Vienna had some success with costly stagings of his operas.

Vivaldi travelled to Vienna after observing Emperor Charles VI and wishing for royal help.

However, the Emperor died soon after Vivaldi's arrival, and Vivaldi himself died of hunger less than a year later.

Early life

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was born in Venice on March 4th, then the Venetian Republic's capital. He was the son of Giovanni Battista Vivaldi and Camilla Calicchio, as documented in the San Giovanni register in Bragora.

He was baptized at his house right after his birth by the midwife, the reason for which has sparked rumors. Most likely it was due to his inability or an earthquake that allegedly struck the city that day. Vivaldi's mother may have devoted him to the priesthood in the aftermath of the earthquake. Nonetheless, there was no earthquake on the day Vivaldi was born, and this rumour may have arisen from an earthquake that wreaked havoc on Venice on April 17, 1688. The ceremonies, which had been postponed, were delivered two months later.

Vivaldi had five siblings: Bonaventura Tomaso, Margarita Gabriela, Cecilia Maria, Francesco Gaetano, and Zanetta Anna. Vivaldi's health was in jeopardy. Strettezza di petto ("tightness of the chest"), one of his signs, has been described as a form of asthma. While this did not stop him from learning to play the violin, writing, or participating in musical performances, it did not discourage him from playing wind instruments.

Giovanni Battista, his father, was a barber before becoming a professional violinist and was one of the founders of Sovvegno dei musicisti di Santa Cecilia, a group of musicians. Antonio taught Antonio how to play the violin and then toured Venice, playing the violin with his young son. Antonio was probably educated at an early age, according to the extensive musical experience he had gained by the age of 24, when he first started working at the Ospedale della Pietà.

Giovanni Legrenzi, an early Baroque composer and the maestro di cappella at St Mark's Basilica, was the president of Sovvegno. Legrenzi may have taught the young Antonio his first lessons in composition. Vivaldi's father may have been a composer himself: an opera named La Fedelta Rossi, a Giovanni Battista Rossi, was composed by a Giovanni Battista Rossi in 1689, the name under which Vivaldi's father joined the Sovvegno di Santa Cecilia. Laetatus sum, Vivaldi's earliest liturgical work, was published in 1691 at the age of thirteen.

He began studying to become a priest in 1693, at the age of fifteen. He was ordained in 1703, aged 25, and was soon dubbed il Prete Rosso, "The Red Priest." (Rosso means "red" in Italian and would have referred to his hair's color, a family characteristic.)

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Career

Although Vivaldi is best known as a composer, the violinist at the time was also known as an exceptional technical violinist. "Vivaldi played an excellent solo accompaniment, and at the end he introduced a free fantasy [an improvised cadenza] that "certainly stunned me because no one has ever played or will play in such a way," German architect Johann Friedrich Armand von Uffenbach said. Vivaldi (24) became a maestro di violino (master of violin) at a boarding school in Venice in September 1703, and although his talent as a violinist gained him the position, he soon became a respected music teacher.

He created the bulk of his major works while working at the Ospedale for the next 30 years. There were four similar institutions in Venice; their aim was to provide shelter and education to children who had been abandoned or orphaned, or whose families were unable to help them. They were funded by Republic funds. As they reached the age of 15, the boys learned a trade and were forced to leave early. The girls received a music education, and the most gifted among them remained and became active participants of Ospedale's renowned orchestra and chorus.

The orphanages also gained admiration and respect in the United States shortly after Vivaldi's appointment. Vivaldi produced concertos, cantatas, and sacred vocal music for them. These sacred works, which number more than 60, are divided into solo motets and large-scale choral works for soloists, double chorus, and orchestra. In 1704, the position of viola all'inglese was added to his duties as violin instructor. The position of maestro di coro, which was at one time full by Vivaldi, needed a lot of time and effort. He was required to write an oratorio or concerto at every feast, and instruct the orphans both music theory and playing particular instruments.

The Ospedale's board of directors was often strained, and his friendship with the board of directors was often strained. Every year, the board had to decide whether or not to keep a teacher. In 1709, the referendum on Vivaldi was rarely unanimous, going 7 to 6 against him. He was recalled by the Ospedale as a freelance musician in 1711 following a unanimous vote; evidently, the board had understood the importance of his service throughout his absence during his year absence. When he was promoted to maestro de' concerti (music director) in 1716, he became responsible for all of the orchestra's musical activities.

Giuseppe Sala's first collection (Connor Cassara) of his works was published in 1705: his Opus 1 is a series of 12 sonatas for two violins and basso continuo in a traditional style. In 1709, a second series of 12 sonatas for violin and basso continuo was released—Opus 2. L'estro armonico (Opus 3), the first collection of 12 concerti for one, two, and four violins with strings, was a real breakthrough when a composer introduced it in Amsterdam in 1711, dedicated to Grand Prince Ferdinand of Tuscany. Alessandro Scarlatti and George Frideric Handel were among the prince's sponsored musicians, including Alessandro Scarlatti and George Frideric Handel. He was a musician himself, and Vivaldi most likely met him in Venice. L'estro armonico was a resounding success around Europe. La stravaganza (Opus 4), a series of concerti for solo violin and strings dedicated to an old violin student of Vivaldi's, Venetian noble Vettor Dolfin, was followed in 1714 by the Venetian noble Vettor Dolfin.

Vivaldi and his father travelled to Brescia, where the Stabat Mater (RV 621), which was set as part of a religious festival, was revived in February 1711. The piece seems to have been written in haste: the string parts are straightforward, the orchestration of the first three movements is based on a script, and no one's text is edited. Nevertheless, the work is considered to be one of his early masterpieces in large part due to the music's forced necessity.

Despite his frequent travels since 1718, the Ospedale paid him 2 sequins to write two concerti a month for the orchestra and rehearse with them at least five times when in Venice. According to the orphanage's files, he was paid for 140 concerti between 1723 and 1733.

Opera was the most popular musical performance in Venice in the early eighteenth century. Vivaldi's most profitable program was Vivaldi's most profitable. Several theaters were competing for the public's interest. Vivaldi began his career as an opera composer as a sideline: his first opera, Ottone in villa, was not performed in Venice, but at the Garzerie Theater in Vicenza in 1713. Vivaldi's next year, he became the impresario of Teatro San Angelo in Venice, where his opera Orlando finto pazzo (RV 727) was performed. The work was not to the public's taste, and it came to an end after a few weeks, being replaced with a new piece of a different design that had not been available earlier this year.

He performed Nerone fatto Cesare (RV 724, now lost), with music by seven different composers, of which he was the king. The opera contained eleven arias and was a hit. Vivaldi had intended to stage Arsilda, regina di Ponto, entirely of his own creation, but the state censor barred the performance. Arsilda, the main character, falls in love with Lisea, a woman who is pretending to be a man. Vivaldi's censorship allowed the opera to be performed the next year, and it was a resounding success.

Several liturgical works were created by the Pietà during this period. Two oratorios were the most important. Moyses Deus Pharaonis (RV 643) is now deceased. Juditha triumphans (RV 644) celebrates the Republic of Venice's victory over the Turks and the restoration of Corfu's island. It was one of his sacred masterpieces when it was created in 1716. Both the female and male roles were performed by all eleven singing parts. Many of the arias include parts for solo instruments, oboes, violas d'amore, and mandolins, which displayed the girls's individual talents.

Vivaldi wrote and produced two more operas, L'incoronazione di Dario (RV 79) and La costanza degli odi (RV 706). The latter was so popular that it was staged two years later, re-edited, and renamed Artabano re dei Parti (RV 701, now defunct). In 1732, it was also performed in Prague. Vivaldi wrote several operas that were staged all over Italy in the years that followed.

His progressive operatic style gave him some problems with more conservative musicians, such as Benedetto Marcello, a magistrate and amateur singer who wrote a pamphlet condemning Vivaldi and his operas. Even as it does not mention him specifically, the pamphlet, Il teatro alla moda, criticizes the composer. On the left end of which there is a boat (the Sant'Angelo), a little angel is wearing a priest's hat and playing the violin. The Marcello family claimed ownership of the Teatro Sant'Angelo, and the resistance against the company's restitution had been ongoing, but no success had been obtained. The mysterious text under the engraving includes non-existent places and names: for example, ALDIVIVA is an anagram of "A. Vivaldi."

Vivaldi writes a letter to his patron Marchese Bentivoglio in 1737, he mentions his "94 operas." Only around 50 operas by Vivaldi have been found, and no other information of the remaining operas has been found. Although Vivaldi's exaggeration, it is likely that he wrote or was responsible for the creation of as many as 94 operas in his dual role of composer and impresario, given that his career spanned nearly 25 years. Although Vivaldi produced several operas during his lifetime, he never attained the fame of other great composers such as Alessandro Scarlatti, Johann Adolph Hasse, Leonardo Leo, and Baldassare Galuppi, as shown by his inability to maintain a production in a long period of time in any major opera house.

Vivaldi's 1717- to-date arrival as Maestro di Cappella of Prince Philip of Hesse-Darmstadt, governor of Mantua, was a significant new opera in Italy's northwest. Tito Manlio is one of several operas produced by the actor. In 1721, he was in Milan, where he presented the pastoral drama La Silvia (RV 734); nine arias from it survive. He returned to Milan again in the following year, with the oratorio L'adorazione delli tre re magi al bambino Gesù (RV 645, now lost). He went to Rome in 1722, where he introduced his operas' new style. Vivaldi was requested by Pope Benedict XIII to perform for him. Vivaldi returned to Venice in 1725, where he produced four operas in the same year.

Vivaldi wrote the Four Seasons, four violin concertos that give musical expression to the year's seasons. The composition was undoubtedly one of his most popular. Although three of the concerti are wholly original, the first act of Vivaldi's contemporaneous opera Il Giustino borrows from a Sinfonia. The concertos were influenced by Mantua's countryside. They were a step forward in musical conception: Vivaldi featured flowing creeks, singing birds (of various species, each uniquely identified), barking dogs, buzzing mosquitoes, screaming dogs, alcoholic cocktail makers, and Both the hunters' and the prey's viewpoints, frozen landscapes, ice-skating girls, and warming winter fires. Each concerto has been linked to a sonnet, notably Vivaldi, who portrayed the scenes depicted in the music. They were released as the first four concertos in a series of twelve, Il cimento dell'inventione, Opus 8, first published in Amsterdam by Michel-Charles Le Cène in 1725.

Vivaldi became acquainted with Anna Tessieri Gira, the girl's aspiring young singer who would be his mentor, protégée, and his favorite prima donna during his time in Mantua. Anna and her older half-sister Paolina joined Vivaldi and traveled with him on their many travels. Vivaldi and Girard's relationship sparked rumors, but no evidence exists to show anything beyond friendship and professional collaboration. Vivaldi, a scholar from Gir, adamantly denied any romantic relationship with him in a letter sent by his patron Bentivoglio dated 16 November 1737.

Vivaldi earned commissions from European nobility and royalty, some of which were:

Charles VI adored the Red Priest's music so much that he is said to have talked more with the composer at one meeting than he spoke to his ministers in over two years. Vivaldi was given the rank of knight, a gold medal, and a trip to Vienna. Vivaldi gave Charles a manuscript copy of La cetra, a series of concerti somewhat different from the one that was issued as Opus 9. The printing was likely postponed, causing Vivaldi to order an improvised collection for the emperor.

Vivaldi's later years, like many composers of the time, had financial difficulties. His compositions were no longer revered in Venice as they once were; they were no longer revered; their music was quickly outmoded; Vivaldi's response was to sell substantial amounts of his manuscripts at fair rates to finance his migration to Vienna. Vivaldi's reasons for his departure from Venice are uncertain, but it seems that after the success of his meeting with Emperor Charles VI, he wished to take up the position of a composer in the imperial court. Vivaldi may have stopped in Graz to see Anna Gir on his way to Vienna.

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