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. Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741) For such an outstanding composer, relatively little is known about Vivaldi's life beyond the fact that he was born and raised in Venice. This is ironic, considering this great Baroque composer's close association in the public's mind with everything Venetian – an association only bettered by Canaletto. Antonio Vivaldi The Four Seasons Full HD (Italian: Le quattro stagioni) is a set of four violin concertos by Antonio Vivaldi Full Concert. Composed in 1723. He was born on 4 March 1678 in Venice with the full name Antonio Lucio Vivaldi. He was passed away on 28 July 1741. Due to his wonderful skill and works, he had influenced the next generation of musicians in the world. Find out more facts about Vivaldi below.
Let me show you Facts about Antonio Vivaldi if you want to know the Italian Baroque teacher, virtuoso violinist, composer and cleric. He was born on 4 March 1678 in Venice with the full name Antonio Lucio Vivaldi. He was passed away on 28 July 1741. Due to his wonderful skill and works, he had influenced the next generation of musicians in the world. Find out more facts about Vivaldi below:
Facts about Antonio Vivaldi 1: the famous works
There are many types of works that that Vivaldi created during his life. There were many instrument concertos that he made for the violin. He also worked for 40 operas and sacred choral works. The Four Seasons is the famous series of his violin concertos.
Facts about Antonio Vivaldi 2: Ospedale della Pietà
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi Biografia
Ospedale Della Pietà was a home for the abandoned children. In 1703 till 1715 and 1723 till 1740, Vivaldi was employed in the home and he was ordained as a Catholic Priest there.
Antonio Vivaldi Image
Facts about Antonio Vivaldi 3: the success
Vivaldi was a successful composer. His operas were performed not only in Venice but also in Vienna and Mantua. He wished to get the preferment after he moved to Vienna and had a meeting with Emperor Charles VI. Get facts about Amy Beach here.
Facts about Antonio Vivaldi 4: poverty
It was very surprising to know that he was not rich. He had to live in poverty less than a year after his arrival in Vienna. The preferment from the emperor was not realized since Charles VI died soon after the arrival of Vivaldi.
Facts about Antonio Vivaldi 5: the music
His music was in the darkness after his death. But in the 20th century, his music came into the light. Now he is considered as one of the most popular baroque composers in the world. Some people consider Vivaldi as the second greatest composers after Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach stated that most of his works were inspired by the works of Vivaldi. Find out another musician in Antonin Dvorak facts.
Facts about Antonio Vivaldi 6: parents
Let’s find out the parents of Vivaldi. He was the son of Giovanni Battista Vivaldi and Camilla Calicchio. At first, his father worked as a barber before he became a professional violinist.
Facts about Antonio Vivaldi 7: learning to play violinist
Vivaldi was taught by his father to play violin. He often took him for a tour to Venice to play this musical instrument. Due to his wonderful skill and musical knowledge, he could work at Ospedale Della Pietà when he was 24 years old.
Facts about Antonio Vivaldi 8: death
Vivaldi died on the night of 27 or 28 July 1741 due to an internal infection at the age of 63.
Facts about Antonio Vivaldi
What do you think on facts about Antonio Vivaldi?
Article
![Antonio lucio vivaldi wikipedia Antonio lucio vivaldi wikipedia](/uploads/1/3/7/2/137289993/128102047.jpg)
Please select which sections you would like to print:
While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.
Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.
Join Who Was Antonio Vivaldi
Britannica's Publishing Partner Program and our community of experts to gain a global audience for your work!Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.
William V. PorterSee All ContributorsAntonio Lucio Vivaldi Wikipedia
Emeritus Professor of Musicology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.
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.
Quiz: Who Composed It?
Match the sonata, concerto, or opera to its composer.
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).
Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now
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.
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi Concerto In E Major
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.
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
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi Famous Works
- born
- March 4, 1678
Venice, Italy
- died
- July 28, 1741 (aged 63)
Vienna, Austria
- notable works
- movement / style