Biography and curiosities of Vivaldi

Antonio Vivaldi , one of the greatest music composers of all time is undoubtedly a leading figure in history so we want to offer you all the data below, including the most curious , about his life.Next, Biography and curiosities of Vivaldi .

Biography and curiosities of Vivaldi

First curious facts

Vivaldi lived between March 4, 1678 and † on July 28, 1741, and was nicknamed il prete rosso (" the red priest ") by to be a priest (Catholic) and a redhead.

The most famous works of Vivaldi

Of the more than 770 works that Vivaldi composed, the most famous are The four seasons, a series of concerts for to violin and orchestra.Work that is part of his opus 8 "Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione".This work made history, since it broke with the paradigm of the Solli Concerto, in which the solo instrument carried the full weight of melody and composition, and the rest of the orchestra was limited to the accompaniment.

But in The four seasons l the orchestra highlights the violin concert , develops the work.This greatly influenced later composers.

Childhood and early career

Antonio Vivaldi was born in Venice, Italy, on March 4, 1678. His first music teacher was his father, Giovanni Battista Vivaldi. The father Vivaldi was a very respected violinist, employed in the church of San Marcos.It is possible, although not proven, that of Nino Antonio also studied with the composer Giovanni Legrenzi (1626-1690).

It is curious to know that Antonio Vivaldi was educated as a small couple to devote himself to religious service , as well as a musical life.First at first the first part since after going through the different stages of initiation, was ordained (authorized) priest in 1703 His active career, however, was dedicated to music. In the fall of 1703 he was appointed violin teacher in the Piela della Ospitale in Venice.A few years later he was appointed conductor of the orchestra in the same institution.Under the direction of Vivaldi, this orchestra gave many brilliant concerts and achieved an international reputation.

Vivaldi remained in the Pieta until 1740 .But throughout In the years he made numerous trips that he took, for professional purposes, to Italian and foreign cities.He went, elsewhere, from Vienna, to Italy, 1729-1730 and to Amsterdam, as well as the Netherlands, from 1737 to 1738 Within Italy I travel to several cities to direct the representations of their operas. I leave Venice for the last time in 1740.I die in Vienna on July 26 or 27 of 1741.

Vivaldi's music

Vivaldi was very productive as a composer in vocal and instrumental music , sacred and secular (non-religious).According to the research that has been done on his life and his work, Vivaldi composed more than seven hundred pieces - from sonatas (instrumental compositions usually with three or four movements) and operas (musical dramas consisting of vocal and instrumental pieces) to concerts (musical compositions for one or two vocal performers established against a complete orchestra).

Vivaldi as composer deopera

Today Vivaldi's vocal music is little known. But in times he was famous and successful as a composer of opera.Most of their operas were written for Venice, but some were performed throughout Italy in Rome, Florence, Verona, Vicenza, Ancona, and Mantua.

Vivaldi was also one of the great virtuosos of the violin of the eighteenth century, or musicians with excellent capacity.This virtuosity is reflected in his music, which made it one of the most demanded in the violin technique.

In his instrumental works, naturally, he favored the violin. He wrote most of his sonatas for one or two violins and bass double bass .Of his concerts, 221 are for solo violin and orchestra. Other concerts are for one variety of solo instruments, including the flute, the clarinet, the trumpet, and the mandolin.

He also wrote several concerts for solo instruments, Grossi concerts, and concerts for full orchestra.The concerto grosso has a small solo instrument group, in contrast to the full orchestra.The orchestra concert has style differences rather than instrument differences.

Vivaldi's orchestral music

The concerts of Vivaldi generally take place in three movements, arranged in the order of fast fast, slow .The two outer movements are in the same key; The central movement is in the same key or in a neighboring tone.Within the movements, the music income at the beginning of the alternation giving way to the alternative solo instrument (s) of conduits for the entire orchestra.

The solo instrument can be extended to the material performed by the orchestra, or it can reproduce material that is very different from the music itself.In any case, the alternation between soloist and orchestra accumulates a tension that can be very dramatic.

The time in Vivaldi's orchestral music is different, of course, depending on a modern music in its size and constitution.Although winds are sometimes used for strings that they constituted the bulk of the instruments. In a Vivaldi concert, the orchestra is essentially a string orchestra , with one or two keys or organs to play the double bass thoroughly.

As are the concerts of Vivaldi

A Some of Vivaldi's concerts are pieces of program music, as they do not give musical descriptions of events or natural scenes.The stations, for example, consist of four concerts representing the four seasons.But in their concerts the « program »does not determine the formal structure of the music.Part of the musical material can mimic the call of a bird or the whisper of the leaves; but it remains in the formal plan of the concert.

Vivaldi's concerts were widely known during and after his life.They were copied and admired by another musician, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) In eighteenth-century musical Europe, Vivaldi was one of the great names.

Curiosities of Vivaldi

Precursor of the radio

Apart from what was said about the fact that he was ordained a priest, Vivaldi also stood out in his musical life for those Short compositions that for many experts would be a kind of radiophonic precursion when the radio had not even been invented.

It was difficult to breathe

On the other hand, several writings of the time Vivaldi noted a "breast constriction", that he had since childhood, and that could be asthma, angina pectoris, or a tr unspecified neurological ascension.

For most of his professional life, he was the musician residing in a Catholic orphanage

The building we now call the Metropole in Venice has a long history. At the time of Vivaldi, already several centuries old, it was used as a shelter for the poor, and had subsequently been reused as the Ospedale della Pieta, where it served simultaneously as an orphanage, convent, hospital and ward of concerts.

Vivaldi was not the first outrageous priest to serve as his music director, but he was undoubtedly the most famous.

He was the victim of identity theft

Nicolas Chedeville, a musician otherwise without any celebration of the time, fraudulently sold part of his own work as a series of original Vivaldi compositions in the late 1730s.of these pieces, "Il Pastor Fido," would eventually become the best known composition of Chedeville.It is still played until today, and yet, from time to time, It is mistakenly attributed to Vivaldi.