Antonio Vivaldi
A priest short of breath, yet on the page of a score he raced ahead faster than anyone.
At a glance 🔭💭
Some coordinates adapted from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0) · Pleiades (CC BY 3.0)
Those around him ⏳🌊
- FamilyGiovanni Battista Vivaldi
A barber turned violinist, his father gave him his first violin lessons and later became his partner in the opera business.
- TeacherGiovanni Legrenzi
Maestro di cappella of St. Mark's Basilica, under whom the young Vivaldi is said to have studied composition, though no firm evidence survives.
- InfluenceJohann Sebastian Bach
Captivated by his 'L'estro armonico', he arranged several of its concertos as solo works for harpsichord and organ, studying their form.
- PupilJohann Georg Pisendel
A Saxon court violinist who came to Venice to study, he became his favorite pupil and lifelong friend, and received the dedication of several concertos.
- FriendshipAnna Girò
A soprano he met in Mantua and taught to sing, she took the leading role in each of his operas and was always at his side.
- PatronageCharles VI
The Holy Roman Emperor met him in Trieste and took him into his favor, paving the way for his move to Vienna in his final years.
I. Son of San Marco · 1678–1703 (age 0–25)
(Birth) He was born in March 1678 in Venice, Italy. Records show that within hours of his birth the midwife, judging the infant's life to be in danger, baptized him hastily at home without waiting for the formal rite. A story has it that his mother, Camilla, later vowed in the wake of that day's crisis to dedicate her son to God. (Family) His father, Giovanni Battista Vivaldi, had been a barber before turning to the violin, and he played in the orchestra of St. Mark's Basilica. He was the eldest son of Giovanni Battista and his wife, Camilla Calicchio, and five younger siblings followed. His father would later become a partner in his son's opera ventures, helping with the accounts and the copying of parts. (Illness) What followed him from birth to the end of his life was a 'tightness of the chest' (strettezza di petto). Thought to have been close to what we now call asthma or angina, the condition often left him short of breath, obliged him to ride in a carriage rather than walk, and even in later years kept him from any strenuous exertion. (Training) He learned the violin from his father, who took the boy along to play at the basilica so that he could gain practical experience. Some biographers say that as a child he studied composition with Giovanni Legrenzi, maestro di cappella at San Marco, but since Legrenzi died in 1690, when he was twelve, there is no firm evidence for this. (Priesthood) He was ordained a priest in 1703. His red hair would later earn him the nickname 'the Red Priest' (il prete rosso). But from the year after his ordination his illness grew worse, and he often left the altar before Mass was finished; in the end he gave up celebrating Mass regularly. For years afterward the episode kept tongues wagging about him.
His first published work, issued soon after his ordination, it shows him beginning to put his own stamp on the fashionable dance forms and variation.
- The last of the 12 is a set of more than twenty variations on 'La Folia,' a theme widely used in its day, and its high point comes as the two violins chase each other, ever faster and more brilliant.
- As the variations accumulate, passages of short, bouncing strokes alternate with long, sustained bowing, making the piece famous as a proving ground for the player's command of the bow.
- In the modest scoring of two violins and basso continuo (a bass accompaniment in which only the harmonies are notated and the players improvise the rest), trading lines as if in conversation, one can already sense the rhythmic flair that would later drive his concertos.
II. Maestro of the Pietà · 1703–1717 (age 25–39)
(Appointment) In 1703 he was appointed violin teacher at the Ospedale della Pietà, a charitable orphanage in Venice. The institution took in girls who had been abandoned or born out of wedlock, raising them and teaching them music, and the ensemble playing of its well-trained girls was already one of the city's attractions. (The Pietà) The girls performed behind a screen and never showed their faces, but their skill was the talk of travelers from across Europe. He poured out concertos and sacred music for this orchestra of girls, and several of his pupils made names for themselves as outstanding soloists. (Insecurity) Yet his position was never secure. The board of governors voted each year on whether to reappoint him; in 1709 he lost the vote and was dismissed, and he was not reinstated until 1711. In 1716 he was promoted to maestro de' concerti, responsible for all the concertos, but whatever his fame, his standing always lay in the board's hands. (Speed) He was famous for composing faster than anyone else. According to one anecdote, he boasted that he could finish a concerto in less time than it took a copyist to write it out. This prolific output was tied directly to the Pietà girls' constant need for new music. (Bach) The concerto collection 'The Harmonic Inspiration' (L'estro armonico), published in Amsterdam in 1711, carried his name across the Alps. Johann Sebastian Bach, then organist at the Weimar court, was so captivated by the collection that he arranged several of its pieces as solo works for harpsichord and organ, studying their ritornello form.
The first of his concerto collections to be printed and circulated internationally, it gathers the fruits of the years he wrote prolifically for the girls of the Pietà, and it is also the work Bach studied by arranging it.
- The tenth, the concerto for four violins (RV580), has a distinctive opening in which the four solo parts enter one after another like steps on a staircase, and its structure was striking enough that Bach later reworked it as his concerto for four harpsichords (BWV 1065).
- The first movement of the sixth concerto (RV356) opens with a short, decisive theme and is still widely used today as an examination piece for beginning violinists.
- The ritornello form, in which the full ensemble returns like a refrain with solo passages slipping in between, comes through clearly, letting you hear the framework of the concerto as a genre being set in place.
Sacred music written with the Pietà's girls' choir and orchestra in mind, it lets us imagine even today the voices of those who sang without showing their faces.
- The opening chorus blends a bright oboe melody with the vigorous rhythm of the strings to create a festive atmosphere.
- In the 'Domine Deus,' which sings of the 'Lord God,' the solo soprano and the oboe pass the melody back and forth as if chasing each other, to tender, wistful effect.
- Since it was written for the Pietà choir, made up only of women and girls, it is worth listening with the thought that the high registers, rather than low male voices, come to the fore.
III. A name in print · 1711–1725 (age 33–47)
(Publishing) Through the Amsterdam publisher Estienne Roger, his concerto collections spread one after another across Europe. In an age when hand-copied scores passed between courts and churches, printed music carried his name to players in unfamiliar cities far beyond Italy. (Form) He established the three-movement fast-slow-fast concerto as the standard, sharply contrasting passages in which the solo instrument shows off its virtuosity with passages in which the ensemble returns. This lucid structure went on to become the framework of the concerto as a genre. (Pisendel) Around 1716 the Saxon court violinist Johann Georg Pisendel came to Venice to study. He cherished Pisendel as both pupil and friend, writing a number of concertos for him and inscribing his name on the scores. According to a later anecdote, when the Venetian authorities mistook Pisendel for someone who resembled him and had him followed, he kept Pisendel at his house and looked into the matter himself. (The Four Seasons) In 1725 he published 'Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione' (Op.8), a collection of twelve concertos. The four pieces at its head, Spring·Summer·Autumn·Winter, are the ones known today as 'The Four Seasons.' Each is prefaced by a sonnet depicting birdsong and thunderstorms, harvest and hunt, so that listeners could guess what the music portrays. (Paradox) That a man who lived all his life with an illness that made even breathing a struggle could conjure storms, gallops and sheer vitality on the page offers yet another key to hearing his music.
It is the work that most vividly reveals the irony of a man who lived all his life with an illness that made even breathing a struggle, yet painted storms, thunder and joyous dances.
- The opening of the first movement of 'Spring' depicts birdsong, following the sonnet that accompanies it: the violins imitate the chirping with trills, rapidly repeating the same notes in short, quivering bursts.
- The third movement of 'Summer' depicts the 'thunderstorm' named in the sonnet; the whole string section surges up and down at speed, and it is counted as the moment that most tests the solo violin's virtuosity.
- The second movement of 'Autumn' is said to portray the slow breathing of peasants asleep in drink, through chords in the low strings that seem always about to break off yet carry on.
- In the second movement of 'Winter', the strings imitate the raindrops outside the window with pizzicato, a technique of plucking the strings with the fingers, while the solo violin sings a tranquil melody by the fireside.
IV. The impresario of the stage · 1718–1737 (age 40–59)
(Turning point) In 1718 he moved to Mantua as maestro di cappella to the court of Landgrave Philip of Hesse-Darmstadt, who governed the city, and threw himself in earnest into opera. From then until his death he wrote some fifty operas, and for many of them he went so far as to act as impresario, renting theaters himself to put them on the stage. (Encounter) In Mantua he met the young singer Anna Girò. He brought her to Venice and taught her to sing, and from the mid-1720s she became the prima donna who took the leading role in opera after opera of his. (Companions) Anna and her older sister Paolina always followed him, sharing his travels. Paolina is said to have nursed him through his chronic illness. The sight of a celibate priest constantly in the company of a young woman naturally set tongues wagging. (Protest) In letters to his patron, Marquis Bentivoglio of Ferrara, he explained again and again that his relationship with Anna was pure friendship and that, because of his health, her help was indispensable. His unbending defense of his own innocence reveals a proud man who did not know how to back down. (Finances) The opera business sometimes brought in great sums, but its risks were just as great. Theater rents, singers' fees and quarrels with rival houses forced him to swallow losses more than once, and for all his glittering fame, his household fortunes always hung on the success or failure of the venture.
An opera that launched Anna Girò, whom he had met in Mantua, as a triumphant prima donna, and that shows well his instincts as an impresario.
- The aria with which the sorceress Alcina first appears is written in coloratura, a style that flaunts virtuosity through rapid, ornamented runs of notes, and it lays bare her dangerous allure.
- In the scene where Orlando is driven mad by lost love, sudden shifts of key follow one after another, which is read as a translation of the character's mental turmoil into music.
- Since the role was written with Anna Girò's voice and skill in mind, you can listen for the dazzling passages that were likely tailored to her.
V. Turned away at the gate · 1737–1740 (age 59–62)
(Banishment) In 1737 Cardinal Ruffo, the papal legate in Ferrara, barred him from entering the city. The stated grounds were that, though a priest, he did not say Mass, and that he traveled with Anna Girò. The opera performances he had contracted for collapsed when he could not be there in person, leaving him with a heavy financial loss. (Anger) In a letter to Marquis Bentivoglio he made no attempt to hide his sense of injustice and his fury. Staking his faith and his reputation, he protested that there was nothing improper in his relationship with Anna, but the cardinal's decision was not reversed. (The emperor) Earlier, in 1728, he had been received by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI on the emperor's visit to Trieste. The emperor was so delighted by their conversation that word went around he had talked more with him in a matter of weeks than with his own ministers. A year before that, he had published the concerto collection 'La cetra' (Op.9) with a dedication to the emperor. (Decline) Yet Venetian audiences were gradually turning to operas in a newer taste, and his music, once the voice of the city, began to be seen as old-fashioned. Amid that shift, the Ferrara affair shook his standing still further. (Resolve) In 1740, staking his last hope on the emperor's favor, he resolved to leave for Vienna. To raise money for the journey he sold off the concerto scores that remained at the Pietà for a pittance, and he never set foot in Venice again.
A concerto collection dedicated to Emperor Charles VI, whose restrained elegance, suited to courtly taste, contrasts with earlier works in the vein of 'The Four Seasons'.
- As befits music offered to an emperor, its contrapuntal texture, in which several melodies interweave independently, is more intricate than in his earlier concertos.
- In several pieces the solo violin's multiple stopping, sounding two or three notes at once, stands out, and the set is counted as the collection that best displays the player's left-hand technique.
- Rather than depicting nature as 'The Four Seasons' does, it puts forward a restrained elegance fit for the court, and in this you can hear traces of a composer tuning himself to his patron's taste.
VI. A last breath in Vienna · 1740–1741 (age 62–63)
(Arrival) He reached Vienna in 1740. But Emperor Charles VI, on whom he had believed he could rely, died that October, and as the War of the Austrian Succession broke out soon after, the court, in mourning, closed its theaters. No new door of patronage opened. (Poverty) Far from his Venetian connections and sources of income, he suffered want in a strange city. Having already sold off most of his scores, he had little left to fall back on. (Death) On July 28, 1741, he died in Vienna. The cause was recorded only as 'internal inflammation,' which was likely not unrelated to the chest ailment that had plagued him all his life. The funeral was a modest affair, and he was buried among the poor in the cemetery attached to the city hospital. (Legend) A story has it that boy choristers sang at his funeral, and that among them was the young Joseph Haydn. It is true that Haydn was then a choirboy at St. Stephen's Cathedral, but whether he was actually there that day cannot be confirmed. (Rediscovery) After his death his name was all but forgotten for nearly two centuries. Then, in the 1920s–30s, a vast trove of his autograph scores was discovered in a library in Turin, and his reappraisal began. Today 'The Four Seasons' is so widely loved that even people who have never heard of him can hum it.
Lesser-known stories
Behind the brilliance of the famous “The Four Seasons” lay the money troubles that in fact dominated his later years. What scholars point to is that a good many of his surviving letters are not about the art of music but practical complaints over box-office takings and losses and the settling of theater rents. As an impresario he was less a successful composer than a businessman forever worrying over funds for the next production, and because this side of him sits ill with the romanticized image of “Il Prete Rosso,” it long went unremarked. Another lesser-known fact is that, for some of the girl musicians of the Pietà, he wrote in the score the name of the player each piece was meant for. Some, like Anna Maria, were so gifted that their names found their way into the journals of European travelers, but because of the custom of performing behind a screen, they remained faceless mysteries to their audiences, and later generations, dazzled by the myth of Vivaldi himself, relegated these girls' contributions to little more than footnotes. The vast trove of autograph scores found in Turin has an intriguing backstory of its own. Originally sold off as two separate collections, the manuscripts passed through different owners until their very existence was forgotten, and only after the two bundles were found separately in the 1920s and '30s did scholars confirm that they had once been one. Had the discovery come only a little later, many of his concertos would have been lost forever, so his fame today owes much to a chance survival.
Notes on terms 📚🔎
Ritornello form
(Meaning of the word) Ritornello comes from the Italian ritornare, 'to return.' The idea of coming back again and again is written right into the name. (In music) It refers to a structure in a concerto in which the passage played by the full orchestra recurs several times like a refrain, alternating with passages in which the soloist plays brilliantly alone. Picture a school recital where everyone sings the chorus together again and again, and between choruses one child at a time steps forward to sing a solo. Vivaldi refined this structure and made it the standard for the concertos that followed.
Basso continuo
(Meaning of the word) The Korean term, tongjujeoeum, is written in Chinese characters as 通奏低音: tong (通, 'to pass through')·ju (奏, 'to play')·jeo (低, 'low')·eum (音, 'sound'). It means a low part that keeps playing through the piece from beginning to end. (In music) It is the bass part for which the score gives only the bass line and figures indicating the harmony, and a harpsichordist or organist reads them and fills in the chords on the spot to create an accompaniment. It is much like an accompanist improvising harmonies from a sheet with only chord symbols written on it. It served as the framework that held up Baroque chamber music and concertos from below.
Coloratura
(Meaning of the word) It comes from the Italian colorare, 'to color.' The name carries the idea of painting the voice in brilliant colors. (In music) It is a style of singing in which the singer shows off virtuosity to the full through very rapid, ornamented runs of notes. Just as the anchor of a relay race captures the crowd with an all-out sprint, coloratura is the passage where the singer seizes the audience's attention with the most dazzling technique. It was often used in opera to portray forceful characters.
Counterpoint
(Meaning of the word) The Latin punctus contra punctum, the root of the English counterpoint, means 'point against point,' and here a point means a note. The idea of pairing one melody with another, point against point, and building them up is already contained in the name. (In music) It is a way of composing in which several independent melodies proceed at once while fitting well together. Imagine two people each clapping a different rhythm yet staying perfectly in time. By weaving melodies together in this way, it creates complex and intricate textures.
Pizzicato
(Meaning of the word) It comes from the Italian pizzicare, 'to pinch, to pluck.' The idea of plucking a string with the fingers as if pinching it became the name itself. (In music) It is a technique on string instruments such as the violin in which, instead of using the bow, the player plucks the string with a finger to produce a short, bouncing sound. It is much like the short, springy sound of a rubber band flicked with a finger. In 'Winter' from 'The Four Seasons', it is used to paint raindrops and the sound of scurrying on frozen feet.
Trill
(Meaning of the word) One theory holds that the Italian trillare is a word imitating birdsong. Indeed, the trill is most often used to depict the song of birds. (In music) It is a technique of alternating very rapidly between two adjacent notes to produce a quivering sound. Imagine singing “ah-ah-ah-ah” with your voice trembling very fast. In 'Spring' from 'The Four Seasons', this technique imitates the twittering of birds.
Sonnet
(Meaning of the word) The Italian sonetto comes from the sense of 'a little sound.' It first referred to a short song sung to instrumental accompaniment, and later came to mean a fixed poetic form of 14 lines. (In music) In 'The Four Seasons', it refers to the short poem attached to each concerto, telling you in advance what the piece depicts. Just as you watch a trailer before seeing a film, reading the sonnet first lets you guess whether a piece paints birdsong on a spring day or a summer thunderstorm. (Elsewhere) Sonnet is a word more widely used in literature than in music, referring to the 14-line fixed verse form favored by poets such as Shakespeare.