5 Things You (Probably) Didn’t Know About Vivaldi 23 July 2019

1.  An earthquake shook Venice the day Vivaldi was born, March 4, 1687, so he literally came into the world with a bang!
2. Vivaldi was ginger. Although it is difficult to tell from the lack of colour photography and the fact that he often wore a powdered wig, he was in fact a natural red-head.
3. Vivaldi hand-wrote poetry on the manuscript of his well-known work The Four Seasons.  No one is sure exactly who wrote the poetry, but it could have been Vivaldi himself.  He also provided handwritten instructions throughout the piece, including ‘The barking dog’ in Spring, ‘Languor caused by the heat’ in Summer and ‘the drunkards have fallen asleep’ in Autumn.
4. Some of Vivaldi’s compositions were quite controversial at the time. For example, his opera, Arsilda, regina di Ponto, told the story of two women who fall in love while one pretends to be a man.  The opera was immediately censored, but Vivaldi still managed to stage the work a year after completion.
5. Vivaldi wrote over 500 musical works in his lifetime.  Although much of his music has since been lost or hidden, it is gradually being rediscovered.  A flute concerto was recently rediscovered in 2010 in Scotland, and an original manuscript of his opera Orlando Furioso was just found in July 2012.