Posted on 03/04/2010 7:34:04 AM PST by Pyro7480
Today is the 332nd birthday of revered Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, most famous for his 1723 composition The Four Seasons, a violin 'concerti'.
Vivaldi was writer of nearly 500 concertos of various types, composing at least 50 operas and a plethora of other vocal and instrumental pieces.
His work has been described as one of the strongest influences on the development of modern violin technique, being a primary influence on Johann Sebastian Bach.
While a prolific composer, Vivaldi was also an incredibly talented technical violinist having been trained by his professional violinist father.
In 1703, at the age of 25 Vivaldi was ordained as a priest, having begun his initial training in 1693, aged just 15.
It was this training, alongside his bright red hair, that gave Vivaldi is nickname Il Prete Rosso (The Red Priest).
Like Mozart, Vivaldi died in abject poverty in 1741, being buried in an unmarked grave.
The Italian composer is being honoured by Google in a special Google Doodle on the search engine's homepage....
(Excerpt) Read more at gear4music.com ...
Beautiful piece. My wife and I went to a guitar/lute concert in the Chiesa della Pieta in Venice, Vivaldi's church. I think that was one of the pieces they played, but it was many years ago and I don't remember exactly. The inside of the church made you feel like you were on the inside of a white wedding cake.
Once of my first Vivaldi acquisitions was a similar piece, the Concerto in C Major for Diverse Instruments (with Mandolins). Here is a mandolin orchestra version of it: Mandolin version Concerto in C Major
Speaking of YouTube versions of old baroque music, here is one of my favorites, a ballet by an amateur dance class set to music from Les Indes Galantes by Rameau: Les Indes Galantes
That’s the one!
Since I don’t have a Lute, it gets played on my Les Paul.
:-)
You are correct about how it needs to be played...just RIGHT or not at all!
Sorry, I ran out of composers. You win!
I have a CD of some of his arias. I don’t normally like operatic music, but I really like those works.
I thought it quite beautiful, all that wonderful rococo and it's such a wide space. You'd never know it walking by on the outside. One choral group I was in sang a concert of vespers pieces there and you could tell the music was written for that space.
DON’T LIKE OPERA????????? Oh, I think I’m going to swoon. Opera is really meant to be seen and heard at the same time and some are better than others. My recommendation is to start with the comedies from the classical period and branch out. From the Baroque era, the Intermezzi are the comedies. Light stuff and very entertaining.
Ah, I had the wrong Concerto in C Major for Diverse instruments. Here is the one I was looking for. It sold me on Vivaldi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn5ltEO99HI
It's a nice restaurant, but why would anyone write a piece of music about it?
The food is a rhapsody for the palate?
I finally determined today that that particular Vivaldi concerto was RV 558. I’ve now ordered a Trevor Pinnock version of it.
The 50 year old vinyl recording from which I first learned about the piece apparently predated the use of RV numbers — anyway, it did not list any RV numbers. And to make it more difficult to find, the old vinyl recording used a somewhat different title for the piece.
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