Over the years he poured out more than 500 concertos for various solo instruments. He wrote with astonishing speed, once boasting that he could write a concerto faster than it could be copied. As one 18 th-century visitor wrote, “They sing like angels, play the violin, the recorder, the organ, the oboe, the cello, the bassoon in fact, there is no instrument large enough to frighten them.”įoreign visitors flocked to the Pietà’s weekend concerts, for which, week after week, Vivaldi supplied music. The most musically talented girls were trained as singers and instrumentalists, who then became members of a celebrated choir and orchestra. Early on, he abandoned priestly duties in order to teach at and compose for an unusual institution: Ospedale della Pietà, a charitable home for orphaned children, many of whom were most likely the illegitimate offspring of Venetian noblemen. Although he studied for the priesthood, his passion always was music. His output was enormous, his innovations widely influential, his work admired and popular throughout Western Europe. Eighteenth-century Venice was a musical mecca, and for many years no star shone brighter than Vivaldi’s.
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