In the same year he was ordained, Vivaldi also became maestro di violino (master of violin) at the Pio Ospedale della Pietà orphanage in Venice. The Conservatorio dell'Ospedale della PietàĪlthough he is most highly regarded for being a remarkable composer, Vivaldi was also an exceptional technical violinist. Within the church, he was given the nickname il Prete Rosso, meaning The Red Priest, which referred to the colour of his hair. He was ordained at age 25, but just one year later was given a dispensation from celebrating Mass due to ill health. By the time he was 15, Vivaldi moved away from music and began studying to become a priest. Although this didn’t prevent him from playing the violin or composing music, it did make playing wind instruments impossible. One of his many problems was a constant tightness of the chest. Vivaldi suffered from bad health his whole life.

However, it’s also likely that his father passed on his composition knowledge, since he composed the opera La Fedeltà sfortunata in 1689. It’s possible that he gave young Vivaldi his first composition lessons - Luxembourg scholar Walter Kolneder claims there’s evidence of Legrenzi’s style in Vivaldi’s early liturgical piece Laetatus sum (RV Anh 31) which he wrote when he was just 13 in 1691. The president of Sovvegno dei musicisti di Santa Cecilia was Giovanni Legrenzi, an early Baroque composer and the maestro di cappella at St Mark's Basilica. Although we can’t say for sure at what age Vivaldi began to learn how to play or compose, the extensive musical knowledge he’d obtained by the time he was 24 and being the son of the founder of the Sovvegno dei musicisti di Santa Cecilia (an association of musicians) suggests he must have been very young. His father, Giovanni Battista Vivaldi taught his son how to play the violin and the pair toured Venice together. Vivaldi showed musical prowess right from the very beginning. He was born in Venice, Italy on March 4th 1678 and went on to have an incredibly successful career during which he composed numerous violin concertos, sacred choral works and over 40 operas. Antonio Lucio Vivaldi is considered to be one of the best Baroque composers of all time, with a great influence that spread throughout Europe over the course of his life.

Vivaldi red priest