Antonio Vivaldi
1678-1741 Created By Jeremy Ullman
Early Life
Antonio Vivaldi was born into a large family during the Baroque Period. Only seconds after he was born, his mother baptized him because of poor health or because of an earthquake that struck the city that day. He had four brothers and four sisters. His mother was Camilla Calicchio and his father was Giovanni Battista. Not much else is known about Vivaldi, but we do know that his father was an important teacher to Antonio and taught him the violin. He also had "tightening of the chest", or asthma, and studied to become a priest at age 15. However, he was not a priest for that long.
Where He Lived
Antonio Vivaldi was born in Venice on March 4th, 1678. He lived in Venice for almost his entire life because he went to Vienna to work for a former friend, Charles VI. Other than playing for the emperor, he lived in Venice his entire life. After learning to be a priest, he worked for the Ospedale della Pieta in Venice for forty years as a staff member. He taught underprivileged orphan girls to play, hiding them behind a large iron lattice when playing in public. This was because it wasn't considered ok for girls to learn/play music.
Vivaldi's Four Seasons - Spring (Part 1)
Vivaldi's Most Famous Music
Vivaldi has written a lot of music in his lifetime, about 46 operas and over 500 concertos. However, his most famous pieces are the Four Seasons. The Four Seasons are four pieces of music that take the feelings and emotions you feel during each season and putting them into music. For example, the "Spring", has a quick beat that makes you feel happy, like spring should make you feel. These violin concertos are not only his most famous pieces, but they are amongst the most popular and famous pieces ever written by any composer!
Other Known Pieces
- Gloria
- l'Olympiade
- Il Gran Mogol
- Farnace
- La Constanza Trionfante
The Legacy
Antonio Vivaldi was a musical prodigy, from starting out learning the violin from his father, to writing over 800 pieces of music. He was a re-nowned composer when he was alive, writing some of the most famous pieces of music in history, like the Four Seasons. He eventually died in 1741, and sadly people started to forget about his music. It wasn't until 200 years later that his pieces were rediscovered, and his work has re-inspired other people around the world to play music.
Work Cited
Antonio Vivaldi Italian composer. Photograph. Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest. Web. 29 Apr 2016.
<http://quest.eb.com/search/113_912121/1/113_912121/cite>
ClassicalFM.com. Web. 22 Sep. 2015
Italy, Venice, Map of Bologna in 1600, engraving from Theatrum Civitatum et Admirandorum Italiae by Jean Blaeu, Amsterdam, 1663. Photopgraphy.Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest. Web. 29 Apr 2016.
<http://quest.eb.com/search/126_3741161/1/126_3741161/cite>
Kids Music Corner. Web. 22 Sep. 2015.
(1678–1741). Biography.com Editors. The Biography.com website. A&E Television Networks. Web. 22 Sep. 2015
"Vivaldi's Four Seasons- Spring (Part 1)." Youtube. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 May 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LAPFM3dgag>.