The hereditary musician pursued music… in his spare time. At just 9 years old, the young violinist became the principal violin of the cathedral, and by 15, he donned a cassock: he received the keys to the church as a teenager and, after a year of conducting masses, chose notes over prayers.
The virtuoso experimenter created the genre of instrumental concertos and was the first to introduce wind instruments into the orchestra, which had previously been inaccessible to him due to illness and were only used in military marches.
A clergyman by profession, he taught music and singing to orphaned children, spent nearly 40 years composing music for girls, and despite his vow of celibacy, lived “in joy and sorrow” under one roof with two women simultaneously.
Famed for his four violin concertos representing the seasons (one of the modern recordings of this cycle became a global bestseller in classical music), the author of 800 classical works, a conservatory director, a renowned conductor, a theatrical director, and an acquaintance of European aristocrats and monarchs died in poverty, and his name was forgotten for 200 years. The fascinating facts of Antonio Vivaldi’s biography are as striking as his remarkable cultural legacy.
Prelude to Genius
The creator of a partially lost legacy of 90 operas and over 500 orchestral, choral, and chamber compositions was born prematurely on the day of an earthquake in Venice on March 4, 1678. His mother began experiencing contractions in the seventh month of pregnancy, and the life of the physically weak firstborn, diagnosed with strettezza di petto (which Italians in ancient times referred to as asthma), hung by a thread for two months. Like the prematurely born future English mathematician Isaac Newton, who entered the world 35 years before Vivaldi, the underweight Antonio was immediately baptized out of fear that he wouldn’t survive long (the official baptism record was made two months later). Despite grim predictions, Giovanni Battista and Camilla Calicchio’s eldest son survived, although he suffered from breathing problems, weakness, and asthma attacks throughout his life.
The Church of St. John in Venice, where Antonio Vivaldi was baptized in 1678
In this family, six children were born, evenly split between girls and boys, who followed in their father’s footsteps. All three professional roles of their father, who was a barber, musician, and priest, found continuation in his children. Antonio Lucio inherited not only his father’s red hair, hidden under a fashionable wig in formal portraits, but also his passion for music. It is believed that his father was Antonio’s first music teacher, teaching him to play the violin. This instrument allowed the boy to join the church service early: from the age of 10, between 1689 and 1692, the heir fully substituted for the principal violinist in the St. Mark’s Cathedral chapel. At 13, the young musician composed his first piece, Laetatus sum (“We Will Rejoice”).
In 1693, 15-year-old Antonio Vivaldi had his head shaved as a sign of belonging to the clergy: in Catholicism, this is known as tonsure. Along with it, the teenager received the status of “porter” – a lower degree of priesthood that granted him the authority to open the church doors. Subsequently, the young man accepted further ordinations that allowed him to serve mass. In 1703, Vivaldi was ordained and earned the nickname Il Prete Rosso (The Red Priest). Until the completion of his theological education, music was merely a hobby for the “Red Priest,” but this “pastime” was destined to become his main occupation: alongside his vow of chastity, the young priest gained fame as a virtuoso violinist. Just a year later, the musician “renounced” his mass duties under the pretext of poor health: it was due to physical issues that the maestro himself explained his release from burdensome obligations.
“Don’t Be Afraid of Fast Tempo”
At 25, Vivaldi received an invitation to become a music instructor at the Venetian conservatory Pio Ospedale della Pietà – a de facto refuge for orphans and abandoned children. There were four such state-funded institutions in the Venetian Republic. Graduates left the school at the age of 15. Boys were taught trades, while girls were taught music. The most talented female students were kept to play and sing in the orchestra and choir at the Ospedale, where Antonio Vivaldi’s teaching talent flourished. For nearly four decades, he taught the students both sacred and secular music, composed concertos for them, and conducted the orchestra. In addition to the violin, he also taught viola. In 1716, Vivaldi became the musical director of the Ospedale and, in this capacity, was introduced to Danish King Frederick IV, to whom he dedicated 12 violin sonatas.
A portrait by an unknown artist, considered by many experts to be a portrait of Vivaldi.
The painting is housed in the International Museum and Library of Music in Bologna
His growing popularity attracted new students (many of whom were from the families of contemporary powerful figures). Besides his teaching and creative work, Antonio staged productions in various theaters and managed the Sant’Angelo theater. In 1717, Vivaldi took the position of kapellmeister at the court of the governor of Mantua – Prince Philip of Hesse-Darmstadt. This was a fruitful period in the composer’s career, during which he wrote several operas in three years and gifted the world his major cycle, “The Four Seasons,” in 1723. Other luminaries later created their own versions of “The Seasons”: Joseph Haydn named an oratorio after it in 1801, and Pyotr Tchaikovsky in 1876 created a piano cycle of twelve pieces. However, it was Antonio Vivaldi who first realized his own idea. After the publication of his manuscript in Amsterdam in 1725, the “cycle of seasons” revolutionized music.
The “innovator of harmony” captured the sounds of spring streams, summer pastures, autumn storms, and winter calm through musical means. He found a way to play the songs of birds, the barking of dogs, the buzzing of mosquitoes, the calls of shepherds, and the scraping of skates. Each season was illustrated with a sonnet in which the composer described the scenes represented by the music. By betting on virtuosic passages, Antonio Vivaldi embedded the secret of his popularity in dynamic rhythms. “Don’t be afraid of fast tempo,” he told his students. “The audience will never find a high density of flourishes excessive.”
The title page of the collection “Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Invenzione” by Antonio Vivaldi, which includes “The Seasons”
Look for the Woman
Researchers believe that the emergence of female influence helped the composer reach a new level of creativity. In Mantua, Vivaldi met opera singer Anna Giro, who shared his solitary life along with her sister. This unusual alliance sparked numerous rumors and raised questions in the church, but the inspired composer had no intention of changing his lifestyle to appease gossipers. The daughter of a barber was presented by the teacher as his student and he indeed spent a lot of time teaching her singing – just as he did with other opera singers who took lessons from him.
Anna and her sister Paolina did not part from Vivaldi from the moment they met, and after Antonio’s three-year service in Mantua, they all moved to Venice together. Both women lived in Vivaldi’s house and accompanied him on his travels. Paolina had nursing skills and provided assistance to the asthmatic during attacks when necessary. Antonio Vivaldi provided singer Anna with a repertoire: he specifically wrote parts for her voice. The priest-musician denied any connection beyond the creative one and always defended the honor of the women, who never formed their own families. The sisters would share all future trials with Vivaldi (Anna would outlive the maestro by nine years).
From Fame to Oblivion
During one carnival season in 1727, eight new operas by the composer premiered, and a year later, he received a personal invitation to stage an opera in Vienna from Emperor Charles VI, who bestowed the title of knight upon Antonio Vivaldi. However, after a decade of success, fortune turned away from the renowned Italian.
Antonio Vivaldi (engraving by François Morellon de La Cave, from the edition by Michel-Charles Le Cène, 1725)
In 1737, Cardinal Ruffo banned Vivaldi from entering Ferrara (at that time, the city was in the Papal States). The composer understood the reason for this decision: “It’s not only because I don’t serve masses in the clergy, but also due to my connection with singer Giro.” In desperate letters to the bishop, the priest reminded him of his “inherent defect” and reported the high regard for his work from the Pope. Vivaldi wrote that he had stopped conducting church services 25 years ago – after he failed to complete the lengthy ritual three times due to breathing difficulties.
In addition to discrediting him as a priest, the ban on entering Ferrara posed significant financial risks for the opera director, as a disruption of performances could lead to penalties amounting to the fees for 60 operas. Ultimately, permission for the performances was granted, but the scandal affected the public’s perception of Vivaldi: productions in Ferrara were unsuccessful, after which the composer quickly began to lose popularity in other places where he performed.
Such changes prompted Antonio Vivaldi to move to Vienna: the ruler offered him a position at the imperial court. However, shortly after the composer arrived in Austria-Hungary, Charles VI died, and the distribution of the Austrian inheritance began. The musician tried to find work in Dresden but fell ill and was forced to return to Vienna without any plans for the future. Here, the 63-year-old Italian died on July 28, 1741, from “internal inflammation.” This occurred within a year of his move from Venice.
Two friends who were with Antonio in his best and worst days buried the greatest composer of Venice for 19.5 florins in the same Viennese cemetery for the poor where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was laid to rest (both graves have not survived). The following month, a court bailiff described Vivaldi’s property to settle debts, and the Venetians forgot the remarkable name they once took pride in for a full 200 years. Interest in the work of the “lost composer” was revived only in the early 20th century. In 1926, 14 volumes of works that had disappeared during the Napoleonic wars were discovered in a Piedmont monastery. By the end of the last century, Antonio Vivaldi had taken his rightful place in the history of music. His creative energy proved to resonate with the new era, as it was far ahead of its time.