Antonio Vivaldi (Composer) Born: March 4, 1678 - Venice, Italy Died: July 27/28, 1741 - Vienna, Austria Antonio Lucio Vivaldi, nicknamed il Prete Rosso ('The Red Priest'), was a Venetian priest and Baroque music composer, as well as a famous virtuoso violinist; he was born and raised in the Republic of Venice. Antonio Vivaldi (born Venice, 4 March 1678; died Vienna, 28 July 1741) was an Italian composer. He was the most important composer in Italy at the end of the Baroque period. Vivaldi wrote more than 400 concertos for various instruments, especially for the violin. The scores of 21 of his operas, including his first and last, are still intact.
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Emeritus Professor of Musicology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.
Antonio Vivaldi Biografia
Alternative Title: Antonio Lucio Vivaldi
Antonio Vivaldi, in full Antonio Lucio Vivaldi, (born March 4, 1678, Venice, Republic of Venice [Italy]—died July 28, 1741, Vienna, Austria), Italian composer and violinist who left a decisive mark on the form of the concerto and the style of late Baroque instrumental music.
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Life
Vivaldi’s main teacher was probably his father, Giovanni Battista, who in 1685 was admitted as a violinist to the orchestra of the San Marco Basilica in Venice. Antonio, the eldest child, trained for the priesthood and was ordained in 1703. His distinctive reddish hair would later earn him the soubriquetIl Prete Rosso (“The Red Priest”). He made his first known public appearance playing alongside his father in the basilica as a “supernumerary” violinist in 1696. He became an excellent violinist, and in 1703 he was appointed violin master at the Ospedale della Pietà, a home for foundlings. The Pietà specialized in the musical training of its female wards, and those with musical aptitude were assigned to its excellent choir and orchestra, whose much-praised performances assisted the institution’s quest for donations and legacies. Vivaldi had dealings with the Pietà for most of his career: as violin master (1703–09; 1711–15), director of instrumental music (1716–17; 1735–38), and paid external supplier of compositions (1723–29; 1739–40).
Soon after his ordination as a priest, Vivaldi gave up celebrating mass because of a chronic ailment that is believed to have been bronchial asthma. Despite this circumstance, he took his status as a secular priest seriously and even earned the reputation of a religious bigot.
Vivaldi’s earliest musical compositions date from his first years at the Pietà. Printed collections of his trio sonatas and violin sonatas respectively appeared in 1705 and 1709, and in 1711 his first and most influential set of concerti for violin and string orchestra (Opus 3, L’estro armonico) was published by the Amsterdam music-publishing firm of Estienne Roger. In the years up to 1719, Roger published three more collections of his concerti (opuses 4, 6, and 7) and one collection of sonatas (Opus 5).
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Vivaldi made his debut as a composer of sacred vocal music in 1713, when the Pietà’s choirmaster left his post and the institution had to turn to Vivaldi and other composers for new compositions. He achieved great success with his sacred vocal music, for which he later received commissions from other institutions. Another new field of endeavour for him opened in 1713 when his first opera, Ottone in villa, was produced in Vicenza. Returning to Venice, Vivaldi immediately plunged into operatic activity in the twin roles of composer and impresario. From 1718 to 1720 he worked in Mantua as director of secular music for that city’s governor, Prince Philip of Hesse-Darmstadt. This was the only full-time post Vivaldi ever held; he seems to have preferred life as a freelance composer for the flexibility and entrepreneurial opportunities it offered. Vivaldi’s major compositions in Mantua were operas, though he also composed cantatas and instrumental works.
The 1720s were the zenith of Vivaldi’s career. Based once more in Venice, but frequently traveling elsewhere, he supplied instrumental music to patrons and customers throughout Europe. Between 1725 and 1729 he entrusted five new collections of concerti (opuses 8–12) to Roger’s publisher successor, Michel-Charles Le Cène. After 1729 Vivaldi stopped publishing his works, finding it more profitable to sell them in manuscript to individual purchasers. During this decade he also received numerous commissions for operas and resumed his activity as an impresario in Venice and other Italian cities.
In 1726 the contralto Anna Girò sang for the first time in a Vivaldi opera. Born in Mantua about 1711, she had gone to Venice to further her career as a singer. Her voice was not strong, but she was attractive and acted well. She became part of Vivaldi’s entourage and the indispensable prima donna of his subsequent operas, causing gossip to circulate that she was Vivaldi’s mistress. After Vivaldi’s death she continued to perform successfully in opera until quitting the stage in 1748 to marry a nobleman.
Antonio Vivaldi Biografia Corta
In the 1730s Vivaldi’s career gradually declined. The French traveler Charles de Brosses reported in 1739 with regret that his music was no longer fashionable. Vivaldi’s impresarial forays became increasingly marked by failure. In 1740 he traveled to Vienna, but he fell ill and did not live to attend the production there of his opera L’oracolo in Messenia in 1742. The simplicity of his funeral on July 28, 1741, suggests that he died in considerable poverty.
After Vivaldi’s death, his huge collection of musical manuscripts, consisting mainly of autograph scores of his own works, was bound into 27 large volumes. These were acquired first by the Venetian bibliophile Jacopo Soranzo and later by Count Giacomo Durazzo, Christoph Willibald Gluck’s patron. Rediscovered in the 1920s, these manuscripts today form part of the Foà and Giordano collections of the National Library in Turin.
Quick Facts
- born
- March 4, 1678
Venice, Italy
- died
- July 28, 1741 (aged 63)
Vienna, Austria
- notable works
- movement / style
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Antonio Vivaldi (Composer) |
Born: March 4, 1678 - Venice, Italy
Died: July 27/28, 1741 - Vienna, Austria |
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi, nicknamed il Prete Rosso ('The Red Priest'), was a Venetian priest and Baroque music composer, as well as a famous virtuoso violinist; he was born and raised in the Republic of Venice. The Four Seasons, a series of four violin concerti, is his best-known work and a highly popular Baroque piece. |
Life |
Though ordained a priest in 1703, according to his own account, within a year of being ordained Antonio Vivaldi no longer wished to celebrate mass because of physical complaints ('tightness of the chest') which pointed to angina pectoris, asthmatic bronchitis, or a nervous disorder. It is also possible that Vivaldi was simulating illness - there is a story that he sometimes left the altar in order to quickly jot down a musical idea in the sacristy.... In any event he had become a priest against his own will, perhaps because in his day training for the priesthood was often the only possible way for a poor family to obtain free schooling.
Though he wrote many fine and memorable concertos, such as the Four Seasons and the Op. 3 for example, he also wrote many works which sound like five-finger exercises for students. And this is precisely what they were. Vivaldi was employed for most of his working life by the Ospedale della Pietà. Often termed an 'orphanage', this Ospedale was in fact a home for the female offspring of noblemen and their numerous dalliances with their mistresses. The Ospedale was thus well endowed by the 'anonymous' fathers; its furnishings bordered on the opulent, the young ladies were well looked-after, and the musical standards among the highest in Venice. Many of Vivaldi's concerti were indeed exercises which he would play with his many talented pupils.
Antonio Vivaldi's relationship with the Ospedale began right after his ordination in 1703, when he was named as violin teacher there. Until 1709, Vivaldi's appointment was renewed every year and again after 1711. Between 1709 and 1711 Vivaldi was not attached to the Ospedale. Perhaps in this period he was already working for the Teatro Sant' Angelo, an opera theater. He also remained active as a composer - in 1711 twelve concertos he had written were published in Amsterdam by the music publisher Estienne Roger under the title l'Estro armonico (Harmonic Inspiration).
In 1713, Vivaldi was given a month's leave from the Ospedale della Pietà in order to stage his first opera, Ottone in villa, in Vicenza. In the 1713-1714 season he was once again attached to the Teatro Sant' Angelo, where he produced an opera by the composer Giovanni Alberto Rostori (1692-1753).
As far as his theatrical activities were concerned, the end of 1716 was a high point for Vivaldi. In November, he managed to have the Ospedale della Pietà perform his first great oratorio, Juditha Triumphans devicta Holofernis barbaric. This work was an allegorical description of the victory of the Venetians (the Christians) over the Turks (the barbarians) in August 1716.
At the end of 1717 A. Vivaldi moved to Mantua for two years in order to take up his post as Chamber Capellmeister at the court of Landgrave Philips van Hessen-Darmstadt. His task there was to provide operas, cantatas, and perhaps concert music, too. His opera Armida had already been performed earlier in Mantua and in 1719 Teuzzone and Tito Manlio followed. On the score of the latter are the words: 'music by Vivaldi, made in 5 days.' Furthermore, in 1720 La Conduce o siano Li veri amici was performed.
In 1720 Antonio Vivaldi returned to Venice where he again staged new operas written by himself in the Teatro Sant' Angelo. In Mantua he had made the acquaintance of the singer Anna Giraud (or Giro), and she had moved in to live with him. Vivaldi maintained that she was no more than a housekeeper and good friend, just like Anna's sister, Paolina, who also shared his house.
In his Memoires, the Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni gave the following portrait of Vivaldi and Giraud: 'This priest, an excellent violinist but a mediocre composer, has trained Miss Giraud to be a singer. She was young, born in Venice, but the daughter of a French wigmaker. She was not beautiful, though she was elegant, small in stature, with beautiful eyes and a fascinating mouth. She had a small voice, but many languages in which to harangue.' Vivaldi stayed together with her until his death.
Antonio Vivaldi also wrote works on commission from foreign rulers, such as the French king, Louis XV - the serenade La Sena festeggiante (Festival on the Seine), for example. This work cannot be dated precisely, but it was certainly written after 1720. In Rome Vivaldi found a patron in the person of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, a great music lover, who earlier had been the patron of Arcangelo Corelli. And if we can believe Vivaldi himself, the Pope asked him to come and play the violin for him at a private audience.
Earlier, in the 1660's, musical life in Rome had been enormously stimulated by the presence of Christina of Sweden in the city. The 'Pallas of the North,' as she was called, abdicated from the Swedish throne in 1654. A few years later she moved to Rome and took up residence in the Palazzo Riario. There she organized musical events that were attended by composers such as A. Corelli and Scarlatti. Other composers, too, such as Geminiani and Georg Frideric Handel worked in Rome for periods of time. Like them, Vivaldi profited from the favorable cultural climate in the city.
Despite his stay in Rome and other cities, Antonio Vivaldi remained in the service of the Ospedale della Pietà, which nominated him 'Maestro di concerti.' He was required only to send two concertos per month to Venice (transport costs were to the account of the client) for which he received a ducat per concerto. His presence was never required. He also remained director of the Teatro Sant' Angelo, as he did in the 1726, 7 and 8 seasons.
Between 1725 and 1728 some eight operas were premiered in Venice and Florence. Abbot Conti wrote of his contemporary, Vivaldi: 'In less than three months Vivaldi has composed three operas, two for Venice and a third for Florence; the last has given something of a boost to the name of the theater of that city and he has earned a great deal of money.'
During these years Vivaldi was also extremely active in the field of concertos. In 1725 the publication Il Cimento dell' Armenia e dell'invenzione (The trial of harmony and invention), Op. 8, appeared in Amsterdam. This consisted of twelve concertos, seven of which were descriptive: The Four Seasons, Storm at Sea, Pleasure and The Hunt. Vivaldi transformed the tradition of descriptive music into a typically Italian musical style with its unmistakable timbre in which the strings play a major role.
These concertos were enormously successful, particularly in France. In the second half of the 18th century there even appeared some remarkable adaptations of the Spring concerto: Michel Corrette (1709-1795) based his motet Laudate Dominum de coelis of 1765 on this concerto and, in 1775, Jean-Jacques Rousseau reworked it into a version for solo flute. 'Spring' was also a firm favorite of King Louis XV, who would order it to be performed at the most unexpected moments, and Vivaldi received various commissions for further compositions from the court at Versailles.
In 1730 Antonio Vivaldi, his father, and Anna Giraud traveled to Prague. In this music-loving city (half a century later Mozart would celebrate his first operatic triumphs there) Vivaldi met a Venetian opera company which between 1724 and 1734 staged some sixty operas in the theater of Count Franz Anton von Sporck (for whom incidentally, J.S. Bach produced his Four Lutheran Masses BWV 233-236). In the 1730-1731 season, two new operas by Vivaldi were premiered there after the previous season had with his opera Farnace, a work the composer often used as his showpiece.
At the end of 1731 Vivaldi returned to Venice, but at the beginning of 1732 he left again for Mantua and Verona. In Mantua, Vivaldi's opera Semimmide was performed and in Verona, on the occasion of the opening of the new Teatro Filarmonico, La fida Ninfa, with a libretto by the Veronese poet and man of letters, Scipione Maffei, was staged.
After his stay in Prague, Antonio Vivaldi concentrated mainly on operas. No further collections of instrumental music were published. However Vivaldi continued to write instrumental music, although it was only to sell the manuscripts to private persons or to the Ospedale della Pietà, which after 1735 paid him a fixed honorarium of 100 ducats a year. In 1733 he met the English traveler, Edward Holdsworth, who had been commissioned to purchase a few of Vivaldi's compositions for the man of letters, Charles Jennens, author of texts for oratorios by G.F. Handel. Holdsworth wrote to Jennens: 'I spoke with your friend Vivaldi today. He told me that he had decided to publish no more concertos because otherwise he can no longer sell his handwritten compositions. He earns more with these, he said, and since he charges one guinea per piece, that must be true if he finds a goodly number of buyers.'
In 1738 Antonio Vivaldi was in Amsterdam where he conducted a festive opening concert for the 100th Anniversary of the Schouwburg Theater. Returning to Venice, which was at that time suffering a severe economic downturn, he resigned from the Ospedale in 1740, planning to move to Vienna under the patronage of his admirer Charles VI. His stay in Vienna was to be shortlived however, for he died on July 28, 1741 'of internal fire' (probably the asthmatic bronchitis from which he suffered all his life) and, like Mozart fifty years later, received a modest burial. Anna Giraud returned to Venice, where she died in 1750. |
Works |
See: Antonio Vivaldi - Works |
J.S. Bach Connection |
Antonio Vivaldi's concertos confirmed the three-movement scheme as standard. They also pioneered ritornello form, which became the normal structure used for the fast movements of concertos.
Equally influential was Vivaldi's style, heavily indebted both to the tradition of virtuosity in Italian string music and to the expressive but deliberately simplified musical language of the opera house. Vivaldi is commonly seen as a prime mover in the 'flight from counterpoint' that ushered in the galant style. This view needs qualification, but it remains true that it was the most radically simple features of Vivaldi's concertos that proved influential in their day.
The BG edition of ten Vivaldi concertos in J.S. Bach's transcriptions for solo harpsichord (BWV 972, BWV 973, BWV 975, BWV 976, BWV 978, and BWV 980), solo organ (BWV 593, BWV 594, and BWV 596), and four harpsichords with strings (BWV 1065) launched Vivaldi's own modern revival. J.N. Forkel's belief that J.S. Bach transcribed the works to improve his command of musical form is no longer accepted; far more likely is that he arranged them (leaving aside BWV 1065, a later work) at the behest of his patron Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar. Nor are the small changes made to the original in the course of their transcription to be understood necessarily as 'improvements'; most arose, rather, from a wish to make the concertos effective in their new medium.
The transcriptions for solo keyboard date from about 1713. Five (to be joined later by BWV 1065) came from concertos for one or two violins in Vivaldi's Op. 3; the remaining four were of concertos circulating in manuscript, versions of which later appeared in Op. 4 and Op. 7. J.S. Bach soon began to imitate Vivaldi in his own compositions.
The English Suites (BWV 806-811) of about 1715 contain many Vivaldian features; indeed, the Prelude of the Third Suite is a perfect specimen of ritornello form. J.S. Bach also imported Vivaldian style and structure into other genres, vocal and instrumental. Even the episodes of J.S. Bach's fugues often draw inspiration from the solo portions of Vivaldi's concertos. A great master in his own right, Vivaldi was perhaps the only non-German to leave a strong mark on J.S. Bach as a composer. |
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Source: Baroque Music Website; Wikipedia Website; Malcom Boyd, editor: Oxford Composer Companion J.S. Bach (Oxford University Press, 1999, Article author: Michael Talbot)
Contributed by Aryeh Oron (October 2008) |
Antonio Vivaldi: Short Biography | Works | Antonio Vivaldi & Bach |
Works arranged by J.S. Bach |
Concertos for organ:
Concerto for organ No. 2 in A minor (after A. Vivaldi), BWV 593
Concerto for organ No. 3 in C major (after A. Vivaldi), BWV 594
Concerto for organ No. 5 in D minor (after A. Vivaldi), BWV 596
Concertos for solo keyboard:
Concerto for solo keyboard No. 1 in D major, BWV 972 [after A. Vivaldi Op. 3/9]
Concerto for solo keyboard No. 2 in G major, BWV 973 [after A. Vivaldi Op. 7/2, RV 299]
Concerto for solo keyboard No. 4 in G minor, BWV 975 [after A. Vivaldi Op. 4/6, RV 316]
Concerto for solo keyboard No. 5 in C major, BWV 976 (after A. Vivaldi Op. 3/12, RV 265],
Concerto for solo keyboard No. 7 in F major, BWV 978 [after A. Vivaldi Op. 3/3, RV 310]
Concerto for solo keyboard No. 9 in G major, BWV 980 [after A. Vivaldi Op. 4/1, RV 381]
Concerto for 4 harpsichords, strings & continuo in A minor BWV 1065 [after A. Vivaldi: Concerto for 4 violins in B minor, RV 580 (l'estro armonico op.3 No.10)] |
Links to other Sites |
Antonio Vivaldi (Wikipedia)
Antonio Vivaldi: a detailed informative biography (Baroque Music)
Antonio Vivaldi (Classical Music Pages)
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) (Karadar)
Antonio Vivaldi (IMDB)
Antonio Vivaldi Biography (Naxos)
Antonio Vivaldi (Lesson Tutor)
Antonio Vivaldi - Biography, Discography (Goldberg)
Antonio Vivaldi Baroque Composer (essortment)
Antonio Vivaldi - A Profile (Classical Music)
Antonio Vivaldi (W.W. Norton)
Antonio Vivaldi - The Red Priest: Baroque Composer and Violinist (Classical Composers Suite 101)
Antonio Vivaldi (Britannica Online Encyclopedia)
Antonio Vivaldi (Sojurn)
Classical Net - Basic Repertoire List: Vivaldi
Antonio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741) (Find A Grave Memorial) |
Bibliography |
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