Antonio Vivaldi: biography, interesting facts, creativity

Antonio Vivaldi

Refined luxury, pomp and bizarre aesthetics of the Baroque era are fully embodied in the works of the famous Venetian Antonio Vivaldi. It is called the "Italian Bach", and for good reason: in 63 years of his life, the musician wrote about 800 works, including operas, choral works, over 500 concerts for various instruments and an orchestra. A talented innovative composer, virtuoso violinist, brilliant conductor and teacher, he left behind not only the richest creative legacy, but also so many mysteries that many of them have not yet been revealed. Even the exact place of his repose is unknown to descendants. But the extraordinary music of Vivaldi, over whose magnetism time is not powerful, has been preserved in its original form and today occupies an honorable place among the greatest treasures of world music art.

A brief biography of Antonio Vivaldi and many interesting facts about the composer can be found on our page.

Short biography of Vivaldi

In 1678 in Venice, the son of Antonio was born into the family of the barber Giovanni Batista Vivaldi. At the end of the 17th century, Venice was recognized as the capital of entertainment, a holiday city, where all life passed to the sound of music, and the future composer’s house was not an exception in this sense. The head of the Vivaldi family so skillfully mastered the skill of playing the violin that he was invited to perform as part of the orchestra of the Cathedral of St. Mark.

Antonio suffered from physical illness from birth - a form of asthma. But of all the six children of Vivaldi, he was the most like his father - not only the fiery red hair that was rare for Venice residents, but also the ability to hear and feel music. The musical talent of Antonio Vivaldi manifested itself from early childhood. He quickly mastered playing the violin and, at the age of 10, often performed in the cathedral orchestra instead of his father. And at age 13, the boy first tried to compose his own music.

The biography of Vivaldi says that at the age of 15, Antonio's life took a sharp turn - at the insistence of his parents, he chose a career as a priest and spent the next 10 years of his life studying church sciences. However, he did not give up music lessons and by 1703 not only received the clergy, but also became famous as a virtuoso violinist. He was nicknamed “the red priest” for his hair color, but Vivaldi did not perform church duties for long. Very quickly, he refused to lead a mass - according to one of the versions, because of the fact that his health did not allow, on the other - again, because of his addiction to music.

Almost immediately after receiving the dignity, Vivaldi began working at one of the Venice schools “Ospedale della Pieta” - this was the name of the orphanage at the monastery for orphans. Ospedale della Pieta has become a real cradle for Vivaldi’s creativity. In the status of a violin teacher and choirmaster, he has acquired a unique opportunity to implement the most daring and diverse creative ideas. On duty, he had to write for the pupils of the school a lot of music, both spiritual and secular - cantatas, chorals, oratorios, vocal and symphonic compositions, concerts. The results of such vigorous and diverse activities quickly made themselves felt - the school was considered to be the best in the city among connoisseurs and music lovers.

For the Pietas orchestra, Vivaldi composed more than 450 concerts and often performed solo violin parts. Venice has never heard such a violin that supposedly gave birth to sounds from the depths of the human soul.

Very quickly, the popularity of the young composer stepped far beyond the borders of his native city. Every distinguished guest coming to Venice considered it his duty to attend Antonio Vivaldi's performances. In 1705 and 1709, the sonatas of the musician were published in separate collections.

But Antonio was already keen on another idea - to become an opera composer. At that time, the opera was considered the most sought-after genre by the audience, and Vivaldi, with his characteristic sense of purpose and indomitable temperament, plunged into a new kind of creativity for him. His operatic debut entitled "Otto in the Villa", staged in 1713, was a great success. Vivaldi begins to work in a crazy rhythm - he manages to create 3-4 operas per year. His fame as an opera composer is growing, and Antonio receives an invitation from the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, a fine connoisseur of musical art, who occupies the post of governor of Mantua, to become a conductor at his court.

In the years 1721-22, Vivaldi works in Milan and Rome, continuing to compose new operas.

In his declining years, the composer’s affairs were greatly shaken. He decided to return to Venice, hoping to find peace of mind in his hometown, which had applauded him for nearly 40 years. But he was disappointed. The music composed by him did not arouse the former delight, the public had new idols. Even in his native conservatory, with which he was tied 38 years of fruitful work, he was given to understand that they did not really need his services.

According to Vivaldi's biography, in 1740, in search of a way out of the situation, the composer went to Vienna, to the court of Emperor Charles VI, his long-time and powerful admirer, in the hope that his talent would be in demand there. But fate prepared Vivaldi another blow - he did not have time to come to Vienna, as Charles VI died. The composer survived his failed patron quite a bit. He died on July 28, 1741 and was buried in Vienna in a tomb for the poor.

Interesting Facts:

• After 1840, many handwritten versions of Vivaldi's writings were lost and disappeared from people for a long time. Some notes fell into the hands of his fellow composers, as well as close relatives.

• Vivaldi owes his "second birth" to Italian musicologist Alberto Gentili, who was actively searching for the works of the composer. In the 20s of the 20th century, a rumor reached him about the sale of hand-written musical scores, which were kept at the monastery college in San Martino. Among them, Gentili discovered 14 volumes of Vivaldi's compositions, which until now remained unknown to the public - 19 operas, more than 300 concerts, many spiritual and secular vocalizations.
• The search for the lost writings of Vivaldi is still underway. In 2010, his Concerto with a flute was found in Scotland. In 2012, the world recognized his unknown opera "Orlando Furioso".
• Admirers of Vivaldi art were famous contemporaries of the musician. Among his listeners were King of Denmark Frederick IV and Pope Benedict.
• In the Venetian guidebook for foreigners, dated 1713, the father and son of Vivaldi are mentioned as the most skillful violinists among the musicians of Venice.

• The most popular depiction of the composer is the canvas of the French portrait painter Francois Morelon de la Cave. For the portrait, Antonio had to wear a white wig - the etiquette of those times did not allow men to appear in the light without a wig.
• Vivaldi's “business card” - the series of violin concerts “The Seasons” - in the original version is called “Four Seasons” “Le quattro stagioni”.
• Only 40 operas out of 90 mentioned by the composer managed to confirm his authorship.
• Epigraphs to the concerts that make up the cycle "The Seasons", put sonnets. Their author is unknown, but they assume that they also belong to Vivaldi.
• In 1939, the Gloria was revived. It sounded in Siena as part of the Vivaldi Week, organized by the Italian Alfredo Casella.
• The Siena Institute is named after Vivaldi.
• The building of the former school "Ospedale della Pieta" is currently a restaurant and hotel complex.
• Vivaldi and Mozart are buried in the same cemetery in Vienna, where they buried some of the poorest members of the population.

• “To the music of Vivaldi” is the name of the song of the luminaries of the author's song by V. Berkovsky and S. Nikitin to the lyrics of A. Velichansky. Vivaldi's music in this song text is a symbol of the spiritual harmony of the lyrical hero.
• One of the open craters on the planet Mercury is named after the composer.
• "Vivaldi Orchestra" is the name of the group, which was created in 1989 by violinist and conductor Svetlana Bezrodnaya. Its uniqueness is that only women are its members. This is such a kind of "remake" of the orchestra of pupils, organized by Vivaldi at the Ospedale della Pieta school at the beginning of the XVIII century.
• In the famous film "Pretty Woman", Vivaldi's music, as conceived by the directors, became one of the illustrations of the world of high society. Vivaldi's "The Seasons" is played in the tape - three out of four concerts.

• Vivaldi owns the catch phrase: "When one violin is enough, do not use two."
• About three years ago Italian scientists made a startling discovery - they revealed the so-called "Vivaldi effect". They conducted an experiment, as a result of which it turned out that periodic listening to the "Seasons" strengthens the memory of the elderly.
• Swiss figure skater Stefan Lambiel won the silver medal at the Turin Olympiad in 2006, riding the Vivaldi "Seasons".

"A friend of a red priest"

In the biography of the composer a lot of "white spots", and personal life is no exception. His name is closely associated with only one woman - singer Anna Giro. The musician met with Anna during his work in Mantua. He came back to Venice with her. The famous Venetian playwright C. Goldoni mentions that Vivaldi introduced Anna Giraud to him, calling her his student. But the evil tongues quickly dubbed the young singer "the girlfriend of the red priest," and not without reason. The composer obviously favored her, from the moment of their acquaintance he wrote operas especially for her, and it was Anna Vivaldi who owes her fame to the opera singer. In addition, Anna, along with her sister Paolina, was part of his inner circle, accompanied the composer on all trips, and this gave rise to a lot of misinterpretations about the fact that the composer leads a lifestyle that is not fitting to a clergyman.

There is no direct evidence of their romantic connection. Moreover, Vivaldi fiercely defended the honor of Anna, explaining to everyone that because of health problems, he needed help, and Anna and Paolina, who was a nurse, were only caring for him. In a letter to his patron, Bentivollo, dated November 16, 1737, he explained that only friendship and professional cooperation were connected with Anna. The only hint that Anna nevertheless was the muse of the composer and the lady of his heart is magical music, written by him after meeting her. It was then that the Seasons cycle which immortalized his name, the Night concerts, the masterpiece of sacred music Gloria appeared.

No matter who Anna is for Vivaldi, she must be given her due - she did not leave the composer at a difficult time for him and was his loyal companion and girlfriend until his last breath.

The role of Vivaldi in the development of world music art

Vivaldi's influence on the development of musical art extends to a wide range of musical activities, which confirms the uniqueness of the creative personality of a talented composer and virtuoso violinist.

• It was thanks to Vivaldi that the uniquely dramatic technique of the performance, called “Lombard”, was strengthened, when the duration of the first note was shortened and the next one became rhythmically supporting.
• The composer's genius Vivaldi owned the idea of ​​a new genre of solo instrumental concert.
• He put on a new stage of development, the popular genre of Italian ensemble-orchestra concert in Italy, which he assigned to a three-part form and, instead of a group of soloists, singled out a separate solo instrument, endowing the orchestra with an accompaniment function.
• Vivaldi's enormous contribution to the evolution of orchestration art - he was the first to introduce into the orchestral composition of oboes, French horn, bassoons and other instruments as independent.
• Vivaldi’s undoubted achievement is that he embodied a special kind of concerts on the stage - for orchestra and violin and another version - for two and four violins. In total, there are about two dozen such concerts in his artistic heritage, among them the only concert in the world for two mandolins.

Vivaldi's writings had a great influence on the most famous representative of the musical art of the Baroque era - Johann Sebastian Bach. He seriously enjoyed and studied in detail the works of Vivaldi, actively used the techniques of musical language and the symbolism of his predecessor, making their meaning more profound. Some musicologists in the most famous mass of Bach's h-moll find undoubted echoes of the works of the Italian master of composition. Subsequently, Bach shifted 6 clavier for Vivaldi for violin, 2 more converted into organ concerts and one adapted for 4 claviers. Ironically, these musical masterpieces for more than 150 years were considered penned by Bach.

At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, the Austrian composer and musician Fritz Kreisler, an acknowledged master of stylization, writes the Concerto for violin and orchestra in C major, to which puts the subtitle "In Vivaldi Style". The tremendous success that accompanied this bright creation of Kreisler, by inertia, aroused interest in the works of Vivaldi, which were forgotten almost completely forgotten. Thus began the victorious return of the famous Venetian and his masterpieces to the musical Olympus. Today Vivaldi's music is one of the most beloved violinists of the whole world.

Great and famous about the work of Vivaldi

• Vladimir Spivakov, the violinist and conductor, poetically called "The Seasons" "a fresco of human life", since man has to overcome the same path as nature - from birth to death.
• According to the Austrian scholar W. Collender, Vivaldi was several decades ahead of the development of European music in terms of using the dynamics and purely technical methods of playing the violin.
• Vivaldi's ability to write an infinite number of variations on the same musical theme became the basis for I. Stravinsky's sarcastic remarks, who called Vivaldi "a bore that could compose the same concert six hundred times in a row."
• “Vivaldi is an instrumental music festival, a violin extravaganza. He himself was a virtuoso violinist and knew better than anyone how to show the most effective violin sound,” said Dmitry Sinkovsky about the work of the great maestro, contemporary violinist, Brugge.

Biography films:

The composer’s identity has always attracted the attention of filmmakers who, based on Vivaldi’s biography, shot several pictures that tell about the life of a musician.

• Documentary film "4" (2007)
• "Viva, Vivaldi" (France, 2000)
• "Vivaldi in Vienna" (1979)
• "Vivaldi, Prince of Venice" (France, 2006)
• "Vivaldi, the red priest" (Great Britain, Italy, 2009)
• "Antonio Vivaldi" (USA, Belgium, 2016)

Music Vivaldi in movies

The work of Antonio Vivaldi became the quintessence of all the best features and outstanding successes of the Italian music school. But the fate of the maestro is a vivid illustration that glory and oblivion in human life go hand in hand. Only 30 years after his death, mention of Vivaldi, even in passing, is not found in any official sources, unlike other Italian composers. And only at the beginning of the 20th century, Vivaldi's music returned to us, touching the souls with its sincerity and melody. Today it adorns the repertoires of the most famous orchestras. It took almost two centuries for the world to rediscover the music of the great Venetian and appreciate its magnificence.