Vivaldi's numerous concertos were mainly written for the pupils of the Ospedale della Pietà, a girls' orphanage in Venice where he taught music, and whose orchestra was famous throughout Europe.
Performer Biography
The Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble, founded in 1971 by Lars Brolin, performs on period instruments and is named after Drottningholm Palace, the residence of the Swedish King and Queen.
Compositional Technique
For the first published edition of The Four Seasons, Vivaldi included sonnets describing characteristic features of each season, making it pure programme music.
Composition History
In 1926, an astonishing collection of Vivaldi's manuscripts was found in the Collegio San Carlo in northern Italy, revealing he wrote some 500 concertos.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Vivaldi's musical vocabulary is often simple, sometimes breaking harmonic 'rules', and uses relatively simple thematic material, yet creates atmospheric and direct music.
Compositional Technique
Vivaldi's Opus 8, titled 'Il cimento dell' armonia e dell' inventione' (The Trial of Harmony and Invention), shows him taking playful and inspired liberties with harmonies, especially in The Four Seasons.
Critical Reception
Vivaldi's music was not always popular; during his last years, it was considered old-fashioned and disappeared from concert platforms, with his name scarcely appearing in musical dictionaries of the late 18th century.
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