Today on Komposers for Kossacks, we're going for Baroque with "the Red Priest," Antonio Vivaldi.
Komposers for Kossacks is a whenever-I-feel-like-it-published look at some of classical music's most influential and prolific composers, through the eye of a fan of the genre with absolutely no formal training in the area of music or music appreciation.
So let's proceed vivace (meaning "lively"), shall we?
Antonio says: "Yyyyeeeesssss?"
Composer: Antonio Vivaldi
Born: March 4, 1678
Died: July 28, 1741
Nationality: Modern-day Italy (Republic of Venice)
Occupations: Priest, composer, virtuoso violinist
Vivaldi was born nearly a decade before J.S. Bach, and we know precious little about his life. His music, however, speaks for itself. It's the work of a violin virtuoso. If you like strings, you probably love Vivaldi.
When I think of his music, I think of its sharpness and clarity. It's pretty, but also wide in scale. It's stirring, lively stuff no matter what piece you're listening to. Once you've given it a listen, you'll find there's a spirit in it that makes you go, "Ah, that's Vivaldi."
Vivaldi's father was a barber who became a violinist, teaching his son the instrument from a young age. The young composer struggled with a health problem that may have been asthma. It didn't stop him from becoming a maestro di violino, but it probably prevented him from playing wind instruments.
He spent his young life at an "orphanage" in Venice called the Conservatorio dell'Ospedale della Pietà, which was really more of a home for the offspring of the noblemen's multitude dalliances with the noble-ladies.
There, he composed concertos (solos with orchestral accompaniment), cantatas (short vocal compositions) and sacred music and received musical education from the orphanage's well-respected orchestra and choir.
Here's an example of a Vivaldi concerto, Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, nicknamed "La tempesta di mare."
By 1716, he was elected the Ospedale's music director despite some of the internal politics running against him. He began to travel in the next few years, but was still paid by the Ospedale for his musical compositions.
Opera being one of the most popular forms of entertainment at the time and place, Vivaldi continued his career writing numerous operatic pieces. One of them, Arsilda Regina di Ponto, actually got the 18th century Venitian version of an NC-17 rating when the state censor objected to his opera's plot point of a woman falling in love with a woman who is pretending to be a man. How progressive!
Here is an aria from one of Vivaldi's operas, Vedro con mio Diletto. I can't tell you that much more about it because I'm still learning the opera lingo, but the performer is French countertenor Philippe Jaroussky.
Around this time, Vivaldi wrote an oratorio (like an opera, only without as much stage acting) to commemorate the defeat of the Turks by the Republic of Venice. The piece, Juditha Triumphans Devicta Holofernis Barbarie, is considered by some to be the composer's first masterwork.
Vivaldi moved to Mantua, then Rome. Princes, governors and even the Pope were showering praises and promotions upon him for his operas at this point. And it was during this period where Vivaldi penned the compositions he is best known for today, Le Quattro Stagioni, The Four Seasons.
The Four Seasons is a set of four violin concertos that shows the composer's range and depth. It's like a tone poem, but the term had not yet been invented. Even if you don't listen to classical, you've heard some of these movements. I know you've heard Movement 1 from "Spring," so I'll try to point out some lesser-known parts of the work.
Here is the final movement of the "Summer" concerto, which is often nicknamed "Storm." Listen to it and you'll see why.
The movements tend to go fast then soft then fast. Here's a fast one, and one of my personal favorites, Movement No. 3 from "Autumn."
To give you a taste of what the slower movements sound like, have a listen at a movement from "Winter." You can almost hear the ice.
In Vivaldi's late career and life, his renown continued to grow as he raked in commissions and composed pieces for kings and wealthy nobles. Sadly, as was the case with many fine talents of the period, he died a humble death that was marked with dire financial straits. He died of an "internal infection" and was given a pauper's burial. His funeral was held at St. Stephan's Cathedral in Vienna, where a young Joseph Haydn was a choir boy.
Before we close out another Komposers for Kossacks, here's one more piece by Vivaldi, a bit of sacred music called Magnificat.