Born Antonio Lucio Vivaldi on March 4 1678 in Venice, Italy, Vivaldi was an Italian composer who made his mark on the late Baroque style of the concerto. He is described by Oxford music as “The most original and influential Italian composer of his generation,” with a musical language so distinctive that, “no brief description can do justice to the variety of form, scoring, and imaginative conception in Vivaldi’s 500-odd concertos”. Mainly taught violin by his father, Giovanni Battista, the “Red Priest” (called this due to his red hair) first played with his father in the basilica. Soon after he was ordained a Priest on March 23, 1703, having trained at S Geminiano and S Giovanni in Oleo, he was forced to give up celebrating mass due to his bronchial asthma. In September 1703 Vivaldi obtained his first official post, becoming maestro di Violino at Pio Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, a music school for orphaned and abandoned girls. He later made his debut as a sacred vocal music composer in 1713, and composed operas, sonatas, sacred compositions, cantas, and instrumental works. Vivaldi mastered the three movement concerto and is believed to be the first composer to use ritornello form regularly. He used instruments to illustrate a scene, especially notable in The Four Seasons (Opus 8, no. 1–4), cycles of violin concerti, depicting a different season of the year. In his “Spring” concerto, we are able to hear a sleeping shepherd (solo violin), a sheepdog (viola), and a rippling brook (orchestral violins). After a decline in popularity in 1739, it is believed that he died in poverty (as his funeral on July 28, 1741, would suggest). Vivaldi will be remembered as a “pioneer of orchestral programme music”, his autographed musical manuscripts bound in 27 volumes still with us today. (299)

Sources:

“Antonio Vivaldi.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/biography/Antonio-Vivaldi. 

“Vivaldi, Antonio.” Grove Music Online, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592....