The genesis of "The Four Seasons" and the life of Antonio Vivaldi: scandals, teaching, and musical genius.
- Milton Ribeiro
- 4 days ago
- 9 min read
The composer Antonio Vivaldi, the celebrated Venetian "Red Priest," lived a life of conflict between religious obligations, dedication to his female disciples, and a vast musical output—and it was in this environment that "The Four Seasons" was born.
In this article, cultural journalist Milton Ribeiro comments with lightness and erudition on Vivaldi's trajectory, his work at the Ospedale della Pietà, and the musical context that shaped the celebrated set of concertos for violin and orchestra, which would become one of the most recognizable works in the Baroque repertoire.
Are you curious to hear "The Four Seasons" performed live on a Baroque-era instrument? The Bach Society Brazil presents the work on December 16, 2025, in Porto Alegre . Learn more here .
The life of Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was born in Venice in 1678. He was the eldest of seven siblings. His father was a barber and also a talented violinist—some even considered him a virtuoso of the instrument. It was his father who introduced his eldest son to music, enrolling him, while still young, in the Ducal Chapel of St. Mark's in order to improve his musical knowledge and encouraging him to study Theology.
In 1703, at the age of 25, Vivaldi was ordained a priest . But a year later he abandoned saying Mass to dedicate himself solely to music. He remained a priest, working for the church, but he didn't say Mass. The reason given was his health. Let's talk a little about it.
Asthma, lovers, and denunciation.
Vivaldi lived for 63 years, until 1741, and claimed to suffer terribly from asthma . There is controversy. Some enemies accused him of feigning illness to avoid wasting time preparing and conducting masses, dedicating himself solely to music. Vivaldi stated that he often had to withdraw from concerts as well due to frequent asthma attacks.
But, since no one witnessed these events, he ended up being denounced by the composer Benedetto Marcello, his enemy , who went so far as to write a pamphlet against Vivaldi, claiming that he was a hypocrite who not only wasn't ill but also had lovers—which was indeed public knowledge. All of Venice knew that he was not at all a follower of the vow of chastity. Again, in 1737, a priest attacked him for not officiating masses and for his, shall we say, lifestyle.
Vivaldi responded in writing:
"I haven't said Mass for 25 years and I don't intend to do it again, not because of any prohibition or ordinance, but of my own free will, because of an illness I've suffered from since childhood and which still haunts me. After being ordained a priest, I said Mass for a year, but then I decided to stop because on three consecutive days I had to leave the altar before the final celebration because of my illness. For this reason, I live mainly indoors and never go out except by gondola or carriage, since I cannot walk without pain or tightness in my chest. No gentleman invites me to his house, not even our prince, because everyone knows of my weakness." I take a walk after dinner, but I never go for a stroll. That's why I never attend Mass.
Benedetto Marcello was a renowned composer in his time; his Oboe Concerto has become a classic in the oboist repertoire, performed by the Bach Society of Brazil on period instruments.
Learn more about his life and work by watching our program " The Art of Transcription ".
The love life of Father Redhead
The fact is that not much is known about Vivaldi's biography. We know that he was a great violin virtuoso, a remarkable music teacher, and, according to contemporaries, he rarely interrupted a solo to cough. Furthermore, as we have said, Il Prete Rosso —the Red Priest, as he was known for his red hair —was healthy enough for several love affairs, one of which was with one of his most famous students, the contralto Anna Giraud (or Anna Girò) . The affair was scandalous and public. Anna was the inspiration for many of his operas and, according to some biographers, the cause of great torment. It was known that Vivaldi did everything she asked, even adapting several opera arias, chosen by her, for her voice. He also traveled with her on tours.
Well, let's not offend the memory of our subject. We are not moralists and, as you will see below, Vivaldi was a human being endowed with enormous compassion.
The impact of his work
Vivaldi created a great body of work. He wrote 770 compositions , including approximately 477 concertos and 46 operas. His work was forgotten for about two hundred years after his death. Its rediscovery only occurred around 1940, through musicologists, when his music began to be disseminated again. In fact, in the 1940s and 50s, there was a Vivaldi boom.
At the time, Stravinsky coined a very famous phrase : "Vivaldi didn't write 477 concertos, he wrote the same concerto 477 times." But it's just a catchy phrase; we can't agree with the Russian. Stravinsky's phrase is brilliant because it contains both offense and explanation. This is because Vivaldi is unmistakable and original, even though his concertos always have the same structure. So, from a modern point of view, perhaps it's reasonable to say that he always performed the same concerto differently. 477 times.
The Ospedale della Pietá orphanage
Well, when he stopped saying Mass, always in Venice and composing, Vivaldi took up the coveted position of violin teacher at the Ospedale della Pietà , a religious institution that provided shelter and musical training for underprivileged boys. It was in this respected conservatory that he composed and presented the best of his work for kings and queens. It was there that he gained international prestige and fame.
At the orphanage, he performed various activities. He arrived there in 1704 as a teacher. In 1713, he became responsible for all musical instruction at the Ospedale and, in 1716, he became the orchestra's conductor. He only left the Ospedale in 1740, 36 years after joining and one year before his death. Even when traveling, he sent at least two new concertos monthly for the girls to perform. He worked far beyond what was expected.
But who were these girls? The Ospedale della Pietà is a house founded in 1346 by the Venetian government to receive orphaned or abandoned girls , who often remained there for life if they were not adopted. Boys were only accepted temporarily, having to leave at age 16 after learning simple trades such as carpentry.
The Hospital had what was called the Wheel of the Exposed or Wheel of the Abandoned . These mechanisms were located on the facades of religious institutions, embedded in the wall, facing the street. They consisted of mechanisms used to abandon unwanted newborns, who then came under the care of the institution. The mechanism was a cylindrical box that rotated on a vertical axis with a small door or just an opening. Those wishing to abandon a newborn would place their child inside and rotate the cylinder, turning it halfway around. In this way, the person abandoning the child was not seen by the person receiving it.
The wheels also served as places where pious people could anonymously offer food and medicine to such institutions. The children were usually the offspring of poor people, for whom it would be a burden to receive another mouth to feed, or the children of single mothers, noble or bourgeois, who did not wish to have their pregnancies discovered. Many mothers who gave their children to such institutions later offered themselves as wet nurses and perhaps even breastfed their own daughter or son.
Girls were abandoned in greater numbers than boys. The reason is quite obvious. Boys represented a future productive workforce and potential for profit, while the idea of females as an investment or source of profit did not exist. Such institutions were planned as temporary housing, but frequently became permanent residences. In the orphanage, food, education, and a bed were guaranteed.
The fame of Vivaldi's female disciples
Since the Ospedale della Pietà was a convent, orphanage, and music school for women, it housed an orchestra. The girls' orchestra was immensely famous , and its popular concerts were attended by Venetian and foreign aristocracy. There was a certain mystery surrounding it, as the concerts were held behind a screen that prevented the audience from seeing the performers. Jean-Jacques Rousseau , passing through Venice, described his impression of the concerts and the performers as follows. I ask you to forgive the lack of political correctness in Rousseau's paragraph.
“I cannot conceive of anything more voluptuous, nothing more exciting than this music. I longed to see who these exiled girls were, whose music alone pierced the bars, which surely concealed lovely angels. One day I mentioned this in the house of a wealthy Venetian gentleman. 'If you are so curious to see these young ladies, I can easily satisfy your wish. I am one of the administrators of the house, and I invite you to have lunch with them,' he told me. As I went with him to the room that housed the desired beauties, I felt such an agitation of love as I had never experienced before. My guide introduced me, one after another, to those famous singers and instrumentalists, whose voices, sounds, and names were all already known to me. 'Come, Sofia'... She was hideous. 'Come, Cattina'... She was blind in one eye. 'Come, Bettina'... Smallpox had disfigured her. There would hardly be one or two without some considerable defect. Two or three were presentable. I remained "I was devastated. During the meeting, they cheered up. I found charm in some of them. Finally, my way of looking at them changed so much that I almost fell in love with those misshapen girls."
Yes, of course, families also placed some of their children who had been born with some physical deformity in the Foundling Wheel, but the most important thing to emphasize is the fact that Vivaldi, our subject, designed and provided special instruments so that these girls could play them.
Moreover, Vivaldi took great care in the education of his female students, often ordering large sums of money for the purchase of fine instruments for them, some of them from illustrious makers such as Antonio Stradivari, Nicolò Amati, and Andrea Guarneri.
Many, of course, did not have family names, being known by the instrument they played, such as Anna Maria dal Violin and Meneghina dalla Viola. At least two of them became composers of some prestige: Anna Bon and Vincenta Da Ponte .
The composition of "The Four Seasons"
But let's turn to The Four Seasons . After all, Vivaldi became known to the general public mainly for these four concertos for violin and orchestra, composed in 1723.
Unlike most of his concertos, these four have a clear program: they describe the four seasons of the year and are accompanied by illustrative sonnets printed on the first violin part, each on the theme of the respective season. The origin or authorship of these poems is unknown, but it is speculated that Vivaldi himself wrote them.
It is also unknown which came first, the music or the sonnets. The fact is that, since The Four Seasons were published in Amsterdam in 1725, the concertos have been accompanied by four sonnets that very well describe the music of each of the seasons.
Examining the dedication of Op. 8, called The Dialogue Between Harmony and Creativity (Il Cimento dell'Armonia e dell'Invenzione) , in which the first four concertos are The Four Seasons , two things become clear: (1) the concertos were already known before they were published, and (2) the sonnets came later . What is not known is who wrote them.
The scores for the four concertos contain indications here and there of what the music would be depicting, so that the musicians themselves could know that a certain passage depicted "birds," "dog," a "horrifying wind," and so on.
Before Vivaldi, there was no single model for the solo concerto , and each composer wrote according to their own style. The most common forms were the sonata da chiesa (alternating slow and fast movements, sometimes including a fugue) or the sonata da camera (prelude and dance sequence). Vivaldi followed Albinoni's model with a central slow movement and two fast movements at the extremes, and this fast-slow-fast scheme eventually caught on and became definitive in concertos.
More than just a succession of concertos, The Four Seasons is a complete journey through nature and—why not?—through the human soul itself. Vivaldi not only describes the landscape, but invites our imagination to hear the birdsong in spring, feel the oppressive heat of summer, dance at the autumn harvest, and tremble before the winter ice. It is this narrative genius, this power to transform notes into lived experience, that keeps the work, centuries later, not as a relic, but as an ever-new mirror of the changes and cycles we all go through. In the end, this group of concertos is the music that reminds us that life, like the seasons, is made up of ever-beautiful and constantly transforming cycles. Vivaldi's great triumph was transforming the obvious—the passage of time—into a vivid and moving sonic experience.
Milton Ribeiro is a cultural journalist and bookseller, and owner of the Bamboletras Bookstore. More about the author: https://miltonribeiro.ars.blog.br/about/
Comments