Antonio Vivaldi

Ordained in 1703 and attached for most of his working life to the Ospedale della Pietà, Antonio Vivaldi had at his disposal an orchestra of girls at the charitable institution; the concertos experiment with colour, handing solos to the bassoon, the mandolin, the viola d'amore, paired horns, the chalumeau. He learned the violin from his father, a player in the orchestra of San Marco, and Venice knew him as il prete rosso. Some five hundred concertos survive, along with sacred music and chamber works. He also wrote around fifty operas and helped establish the three-movement concerto and the ritornello design — a model Bach studied closely and transcribed for keyboard. The Four Seasons are four of the twelve concertos of Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione, published in Amsterdam in 1725. He died in Vienna in 1741. Commissions reached him from Louis XV and Charles VI, and Mantua, Rome, Milan, Trieste and Vienna all sought him out. His post at the Pietà was that of maestro di violino, and a contract from 1723 required him to supply two new concertos each month.