Antonio Lucio Vivaldi

Born: Venice, March 4, 1678

Died: Vienna, (buried July 28, 1741)

Another Italian composer and virtuoso violinist, Antonio Vivaldi is remembered today for the enormous number of concertos he composed throughout his lifetime. He most likely learned the violin from his father, himself a violinist at St. Mark's in Venice. Antonio took holy orders to enter the Catholic Priesthood, and became known as "The Red Priest" due to the color of his hair. He became a teacher in Venice at the Ospedale della Pietà (a school for foundling girls) in 1703, and later became the director of concerts there. His music was extremely popular, and he traveled a great deal over Europe, spreading his fame as a violinist and composer. During the 1730s, however, his popularity began to abate and in 1738 he was dismissed from the Ospedale. Desperate, he eventually settled in Vienna in 1740, hoping to reclaim his fame. He didn't, and he died there the next year, to be buried in a pauper's grave.

Vivaldi's most famous compositions are the concertos for one or more solo violins and string orchestra, although he composed a great deal of music in other genres, including cantatas, operas, trio sonatas and others. Indeed, Vivaldi's instrumental works lay the foundation for the development of the concerto into the Classical Period. Among his published collections of string concertos are included La Stravanganza, Op. 4, La Cetra, Op. 9, and the ever-popular The Four Seasons, comprised of four concertos, each depicting aspects of the seasons of the year. For instance, the third movement of the Concerto in F "Autumn" imitates the sounds of a hunt. Vivaldi followed the usual pattern of the era in his concertos by framing a melodious or dramatic slow second movement with fast and lively first and third movements. Of his more than 500 concertos, some 290 are for violin solo and strings, or for string orchestra alone. However, Vivaldi also composed a great number of concertos for other instruments and various instrumental combinations. One such work is the sprightly Concerto in G major for two mandolins. The solo concerto reached its culmination during the later Classical Period in the concertos of Mozart and Beethoven.