Vivaldi's Cello Concerto in D Major

Author: (Italian) Vivaldi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-04-01
Features: Vivaldi, an Italian composer. Born on March 4, 1678, in Venice. His father was a violinist in the orchestra of St. Mark's Basilica in Venice. He began studying the violin and composition from a young age. In 1703, he became a priest and soon after took a position as a music teacher at the Ospedale della Pietà, a girls' orphanage in Venice, where he taught violin and other musical knowledge. The female students often performed at concerts, and musical performances were part of their education. Vivaldi not only directed their performances but also composed music for their concerts. These events helped raise significant funds for the orphanage. Vivaldi worked at this orphanage for 40 years until the year before his death in 1740. Vivaldi began composing in 1704, and his first published work in 1705 was a set of 12 trio sonatas. In 1713, he completed his opera Ottone in Villa. From then on, he considered himself an opera composer, though many still regarded him as a violinist. He composed nearly 50 operas in his lifetime, only 21 of which survive, and many of them are incomplete. However, he wrote the most of concertos, and it is widely recognized that he made significant contributions to the development of the concerto. He composed hundreds of such works, most of them violin concertos. The most famous is Op. 8, the first four of which are widely known as The Four Seasons and are often performed separately. The fifth Storm at Sea, the sixth Joy, and the tenth Hunt are also highly regarded, filled with the distinctive Baroque style.