Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was born on March 4, 1678, and died on July 28, 1741. He was an Italian composer, expert violinist, and manager of Baroque music events. He was considered one of the greatest composers of the Baroque period. His music was widely admired across Europe during his lifetime, inspiring many musicians to copy his style. Vivaldi made important contributions to music, including new ways to arrange orchestras, improve violin techniques, and create music that tells stories or describes scenes. He helped shape the structure of concertos, especially the solo concerto, into a popular and widely used style.
Vivaldi wrote many instrumental concertos for the violin and other instruments, as well as sacred choral music and over fifty operas. His most famous work is a set of four violin concertos called The Four Seasons. Many of his compositions were created for the Ospedale della Pietà, an all-female music group in Venice, Italy, which cared for children who had been abandoned. Vivaldi began training to become a Catholic priest at age 15 and was ordained at 25. However, he was allowed to stop saying public Masses due to a health issue. His operas were performed in cities like Venice, Mantua, and Vienna, often with expensive productions. After meeting Emperor Charles VI, Vivaldi moved to Vienna, hoping to gain royal support. However, the Emperor died shortly after Vivaldi’s arrival, and Vivaldi died in poverty less than a year later.
For almost two hundred years after his death, Vivaldi’s music was not widely known. In the early 1900s, scholars began studying his work, leading to a revival of his reputation. Many of his compositions, once thought lost, have been found again—some as recently as 2015. Today, Vivaldi’s music is still widely performed and enjoyed around the world.
Early life
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was born on 4 March 1678 in Venice, which was then the capital of the Republic of Venice. He was the son of Giovanni Battista Vivaldi and Camilla Calicchio, as recorded in the register of San Giovanni in Bragora.
He was baptized at his home by the midwife shortly after his birth. The reason for this is unknown and has led to speculation. It was likely because of his poor health. A false story claims an earthquake struck Venice on the day of his birth. This rumor may have come from an actual earthquake that occurred on 17 April 1688. The baptismal ceremonies that were missed were later completed two months after his birth.
Vivaldi had five known siblings: Bonaventura Tomaso, Margarita Gabriela, Cecilia Maria, Francesco Gaetano, and Zanetta Anna. His health was often poor. One of his symptoms, called "tightness of the chest," has been linked to a type of asthma. This did not stop him from learning to play the violin, composing music, or participating in musical activities, though it prevented him from playing wind instruments.
His father, Giovanni Battista, was a barber before becoming a professional violinist. He was one of the founders of the Sovvegno dei musicisti di Santa Cecilia, a group of musicians. He taught Antonio to play the violin and later performed with his young son in Venice. Antonio likely began learning music at an early age, as shown by his deep musical knowledge by the age of 24. At that time, he began working at the Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage in Venice.
Giovanni Legrenzi, the president of the Sovvegno, was an early Baroque composer and the maestro di cappella at St Mark's Basilica. It is possible that Legrenzi taught Antonio how to compose music. Vivaldi’s father may have also been a composer. In 1689, an opera called La Fedeltà sfortunata was written by a man named Giovanni Battista Rossi, the name Vivaldi’s father used when joining the Sovvegno di Santa Cecilia.
In 1693, at the age of 15, Vivaldi began training to become a priest. He was ordained in 1703, when he was 25, and was soon nicknamed il Prete Rosso, or "The Red Priest." The nickname "Rosso" refers to the color of his hair, a family trait.
Career
Antonio Vivaldi is best known as a composer, but he was also highly skilled as a violinist. A German architect named Johann Friedrich Armand von Uffenbach wrote in his diary that Vivaldi was both a famous composer and violinist. He described how Vivaldi played a solo piece beautifully and then added an improvised musical section that amazed him. In September 1703, at age 24, Vivaldi became the master of violin at the Ospedale della Pietà, a school for orphaned children in Venice. His violin skills likely helped him get the job, but he soon became a respected music teacher there.
For the next 30 years, Vivaldi composed most of his important works while working at the Ospedale. Venice had four similar institutions that cared for children without families or support. Boys learned trades and left at 15, while girls received musical training. The most talented girls stayed to join the school’s orchestra and choir.
After Vivaldi began working at the Ospedale, the children’s music gained attention beyond Venice. Vivaldi wrote concertos, cantatas, and sacred music for them. These sacred works, more than 60 in total, included solo songs and large choral pieces. In 1704, he also taught the viola all’inglese. His role as choir director required him to compose music for religious festivals and teach the orphans music theory and instrument playing.
Vivaldi’s relationship with the Ospedale’s board was sometimes difficult. The board voted each year on whether to keep teachers. In 1709, Vivaldi’s vote was 7 to 6 against him. However, after a year away, he was brought back in 1711 with unanimous support. In 1716, he became the music director and was required to write two concertos each month.
In 1705, his first collection of works, Opus 1, was published. It included 12 sonatas for two violins and bass. In 1709, a second collection of 12 sonatas for violin and bass was published (Opus 2). His most famous early work was L’estro armonico (Opus 3), published in 1711. This collection of concertos for violins and strings became very popular across Europe. A later collection, La stravaganza (Opus 4), was dedicated to one of his former students.
In 1711, Vivaldi and his father traveled to Brescia, where he performed his Stabat Mater, a religious work. Though written quickly and with some repeated sections, it is considered one of his early masterpieces.
Despite traveling frequently, Vivaldi was paid by the Ospedale to write two concertos a month and rehearse with the orchestra. Records show he wrote 140 concertos between 1723 and 1733.
In 18th-century Venice, opera was the most popular music. Vivaldi wrote operas as a side job. His first opera, Ottone in villa, was performed in Vicenza in 1713. Later, he became the manager of the Teatro San Angelo in Venice, where his opera Orlando finto pazzo was performed. Though it was not well-received, he later created Arsilda, regina di Ponto, which was initially blocked by censors but later became a success.
The Ospedale also commissioned sacred works, including Juditha triumphans, which celebrated Venice’s victory over the Turks. This oratorio featured girls from the school singing all roles, with solo instruments like recorders and violas d’amore.
Vivaldi wrote and produced several operas, including L’incoronazione di Dario and La costanza trionfante. One of his operas, Artabano re dei Parti, was performed in Prague in 1732. His operatic style sometimes caused conflict with more traditional musicians, such as Benedetto Marcello, who criticized him in a pamphlet.
In a 1737 letter, Vivaldi mentioned writing 94 operas. Only about 50 have been found, but it is possible he wrote or oversaw many more during his long career. Though he composed many operas, he did not achieve the same fame as other composers like Handel or Scarlatti.
Death
Antonio Vivaldi likely moved to Vienna to perform operas, especially after he lived near the Kärntnertortheater. Soon after arriving in Vienna, Emperor Charles VI died, which left Vivaldi without support from the emperor or a stable income. Soon after, Vivaldi became very poor and died on the night of July 27–28, 1741, at the age of 63, from an illness called "internal infection" in a house owned by the widow of a Viennese saddlemaker.
On July 28, Vivaldi’s funeral took place at St. Stephen’s Cathedral. This is not true: the young Joseph Haydn, who was part of the cathedral choir at the time, had no role in the burial, as no music was played during the ceremony. The funeral was carried out by six pall-bearers and six choir boys (Kuttenbuben) at a low cost of 19 florins and 45 kreuzer. Only a small peal of bells (Kleingeläut), the lowest level of bell ringing, was used, costing 2 florins and 36 kreuzer.
Vivaldi was buried in a simple grave at the Bürgerspital-Gottesacker cemetery, which was owned by the public hospital fund. This cemetery, located near St. Charles Church (a Baroque-style church), is now part of the site of TU Wien university. The cemetery existed until 1807. The house where Vivaldi lived in Vienna was later destroyed, and the Hotel Sacher now stands on part of the site. Memorial plaques are placed at both locations, as well as a Vivaldi "star" in the Viennese Musikmeile and a monument at Rooseveltplatz.
Only two, possibly three, original portraits of Vivaldi are known to survive: an engraving, an ink sketch, and an oil painting. The engraving, created in 1725 by François Morellon de La Cave for the first edition of Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione, shows Vivaldi holding a sheet of music. The ink sketch, a caricature made in 1723 by Ghezzi, shows Vivaldi’s head and shoulders in profile. It exists in two versions: one in the Vatican Library and a less-known, more detailed copy recently found in Moscow. The oil painting, displayed at the International Museum and Library of Music in Bologna, is by an unknown artist and is believed to depict Vivaldi because it closely resembles the La Cave engraving.
During his lifetime, Vivaldi was popular in many European countries, including France. However, after his death, his popularity declined. After the Baroque period ended, Vivaldi’s published concertos were largely forgotten and ignored. Even his most famous work, The Four Seasons, was unknown in its original edition during the Classical and Romantic periods. Vivaldi’s music was rediscovered in the 20th century.
Works
A composition by Vivaldi is identified by an RV number, which refers to its place in the "Ryom-Verzeichnis" or "Répertoire des œuvres d'Antonio Vivaldi," a catalog created in the 20th century by the music scholar Peter Ryom.
Le quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons) of 1723 is his most famous work. The first four of the 12 concertos, titled Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione ("The Contest between Harmony and Invention"), show moods and scenes from each of the four seasons. This work has been described as an outstanding example of pre-19th-century program music. Vivaldi's other notable sets of 12 violin concertos include La stravaganza (The Eccentricity), L'estro armonico (The Harmonic Inspiration), and La cetra (The Lyre).
Vivaldi wrote more than 500 concertos. About 350 of these are for a solo instrument and strings, of which 230 are for violin; the others are for bassoon, cello, oboe, flute, viola d'amore, recorder, lute, or mandolin. About forty concertos are for two instruments and strings, and about thirty are for three or more instruments and strings.
In addition to about 46 operas, Vivaldi composed a large body of sacred choral music, such as the Gloria, RV 589; Nisi Dominus, RV 608; Magnificat, RV 610; and Stabat Mater, RV 621. The Gloria, RV 589, remains one of Vivaldi's more popular sacred works. Other works include sinfonias, about 90 sonatas, and chamber music.
Some sonatas for flute, published as Il Pastor Fido, have been incorrectly credited to Vivaldi, but were actually composed by Nicolas Chédeville.
Vivaldi's works attracted cataloging efforts befitting a major composer. Scholarly work intended to increase the accuracy and variety of Vivaldi performances also supported new discoveries that made older catalogs incomplete. Works still in circulation today might be numbered under several different systems (some earlier catalogs are mentioned here).
Because the simply consecutive Complete Edition (CE) numbers did not reflect the individual works (Opus numbers) into which compositions were grouped, numbers assigned by Antonio Fanna were often used in conjunction with CE numbers. Combined Complete Edition (CE)/Fanna numbering was especially common in the work of Italian groups driving the mid-20th-century revival of Vivaldi, such as Gli Accademici di Milano under Piero Santi. For example, the Bassoon Concerto in B♭ major, "La Notte," RV 501, became CE 12, F. VIII,1.
Despite the awkwardness of having to overlay Fanna numbers onto the Complete Edition number for meaningful grouping of Vivaldi's oeuvre, these numbers replaced the older Pincherle numbers as the (re-)discovery of more manuscripts had rendered older catalogs obsolete.
This cataloging work was led by the Istituto Italiano Antonio Vivaldi, where Gian Francesco Malipiero was both the director and the editor of the published scores (Edizioni G. Ricordi). His work built on that of Antonio Fanna, a Venetian businessman and the institute's founder, and thus formed a bridge to the scholarly catalog dominant today.
Compositions by Vivaldi are identified today by RV number, the number assigned by Danish music scholar Peter Ryom in works published mostly in the 1970s, such as the "Ryom-Verzeichnis" or "Répertoire des œuvres d'Antonio Vivaldi." Like the Complete Edition before it, the RV does not typically assign its single, consecutive numbers to "adjacent" works that occupy one of the composer's single opus numbers. Its goal as a modern catalog is to index the manuscripts and sources that establish the existence and nature of all known works.
The German scholar Walter Kolneder has noted the influence of Legrenzi's style in Vivaldi's early liturgical work Laetatus sum (RV Anh 31), written in 1691 at the age of thirteen.
Vivaldi was also influenced by the composer Arcangelo Corelli.
Johann Sebastian Bach was deeply influenced by Vivaldi's concertos and arias (as seen in his St John Passion, St Matthew Passion, and cantatas). Bach transcribed six of Vivaldi's concertos for solo keyboard, a further three for organ, and one for four harpsichords, strings, and basso continuo (BWV 1065) based upon the concerto for four violins, two violas, cello, and basso continuo (RV 580).
Legacy
In the early 1900s, Fritz Kreisler's Concerto in C, in the Style of Vivaldi (which he claimed was an original work by Vivaldi) helped restore Vivaldi's reputation. Kreisler's concerto inspired Marc Pincherle, a French scholar, to study Vivaldi's body of work. Many of Vivaldi's manuscripts were rediscovered and collected by the Turin National University Library, thanks to the support of Turinese businessmen Roberto Foa and Filippo Giordano, who honored their sons' memory. This led to renewed interest in Vivaldi by people such as Mario Rinaldi, Alfredo Casella, Ezra Pound, Olga Rudge, Desmond Chute, Arturo Toscanini, Arnold Schering, and Louis Kaufman, all of whom played key roles in reviving Vivaldi's music throughout the 20th century.
In 1926, researchers in a monastery in Piedmont found fourteen bound volumes of Vivaldi's work (later found to be fifteen), which had been thought lost during the Napoleonic Wars. Some missing books from the set were discovered in the collections of the descendants of Grand Duke Durazzo, who had owned the monastery in the 18th century. The volumes included 300 concertos, 19 operas, and over 100 vocal-instrumental works.
The rediscovery of Vivaldi's unpublished works in the 20th century was greatly helped by Alfredo Casella, who in 1939 organized the historic Vivaldi Week, during which the rediscovered Gloria (RV 589) and l'Olimpiade were performed again. Since World War II, Vivaldi's compositions have become widely popular. Performances that use original instruments have further increased Vivaldi's fame.
Recent rediscoveries of Vivaldi's works include two psalm settings: Psalm 127, Nisi Dominus RV 803 (in eight movements), and Psalm 110, Dixit Dominus RV 807 (in eleven movements). These were identified in 2003 and 2005, respectively, by Australian scholar Janice Stockigt. Vivaldi expert Michael Talbot called RV 807 "arguably the best nonoperatic work from Vivaldi's pen to come to light since the 1920s."
In February 2002, musicologist Steffen Voss discovered 70% of the music for the opera Motezuma (RV 723) in the archives of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin. Long thought lost, the work was described by Dutch musicologist Kees Vlaardingerbroek as "the most important Vivaldi discovery in 75 years." One of the earliest operas set in the Americas, versions of it were performed in Düsseldorf in 2005 and Long Beach in 2009.
Vivaldi's 1730 opera, Argippo (RV 697), which had also been considered lost, was rediscovered in 2006 by harpsichordist and conductor Ondřej Macek. His Hofmusici orchestra performed the work at Prague Castle on May 3, 2008—its first performance since 1730.
Modern portrayals of Vivaldi's life include a 2005 radio play, commissioned by ABC Radio National and written by Sean Riley. Titled The Angel and the Red Priest, the play was later adapted for the stage and performed at the Adelaide Festival of the Arts. Films about Vivaldi include: Red Venice (1989), an Italian-French co-production directed by Étienne Périer; Antonio Vivaldi, a Prince in Venice (2006), an Italian-French co-production directed by Jean-Louis Guillermou; and Vivaldi, the Red Priest (2009), an Italian film directed by Liana Marabini, loosely based on Vivaldi's life as both a priest and composer.
In 2010, Google celebrated the 332nd anniversary of Vivaldi's birth with a Google Doodle showing four violins inspired by The Four Seasons.
In 2016, Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite premiered her ballet The Seasons' Canon, based on The Four Seasons, with the Paris Opera Ballet at the Palais Garnier. The piece later toured with the Royal Ballet in London and won Pite the Prix Benois de la Danse for Best Choreographer.