More audiences flocked to see the young performers and filled the Pietà’s coffers. Lasting off and on for much of Vivaldi’s life, his relationship with the Pietà was mutually beneficial: Vivaldi’s brilliant compositions allowed his students to shine and brought yet more fame to the school. It was known for producing lute, cello, and harpsichord virtuosos. The Pietà’s musical performances were a lucrative source of income for the institution. His affliction did not seem to affect his activities as a composer, teacher, and performer, which, by his early 20s, were prodigious. He claimed that poor health prevented him from too much priestly exertion, and on several occasions he was forced to leave the Eucharist halfway through. Vivaldi was appointed to a post that combined his two roles as a priest and musician.Īccounts suggest he was more motivated by music than faith. In Vivaldi’s day, their performances had become famous across Europe. Wards with musical talent were selected and trained to perform in the school’s choir and orchestra. He may well have stayed an amateur musician-priest all his life had it not been for a serendipitous job offer from the city’s Ospedaledella Pietà in 1703.įounded in the 14th century, the Pietà was a convent school for orphaned or abandoned girls. His red hair and sacred role earned him the nickname il prete rosso (the red priest), a name that suggests a colorful personality and quick temper. Vivaldi senior was almost certainly his son’s first teacher using his own contacts in the Venetian music world, he may well have secured Antonio lessons with some of the city’s best musicians.Īt the same time, young Vivaldi proceeded with his theology studies and took Holy Orders in his early 20s. It had not escaped his father’s attention, however, that Antonio was a sensationally gifted violinist. In his teens, Antonio began preparing for the priesthood, one of the few career options open to him. ( Inside the decadence of Casanova’s Venice.) He grew up a social outsider his mother was a tailor’s daughter, and his father, while recognized as an eminent violinist in the orchestra of St. From the cradle, he suffered from a lung ailment, “a tight chest,” as he described it, likely to have been bronchial asthma. The Red Priestīorn in Venice in 1678, Antonio Lucio Vivaldi’s life was marked from the outset by poor health. He died a pauper, and his name and his music slipped into obscurity-only to be resurrected centuries later. Before he died in 1741, Vivaldi’s music had fallen out of favor, and he descended into poverty. Written for instruments like the harpsichord and violin, baroque sound is characterized by complex harmonies and passionate melodies that allow soloists the chance to fully display the range of their talents. (How Beethoven went from Napoleon’s biggest fan to his worst critic.)ĭerived from the Portuguese word for “flawed pearl,” the term baroque was, at first, an insult for this new style of music before it became popular. Like his contemporaries Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel, Vivaldi was a shining light of baroque music. His restless genius produced more than 40 operas and hundreds of concertos performed throughout Europe. Vivaldi was famous, lionized across Italy, Germany, France, and England as a virtuoso violinist and composer.
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