Antonio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741) - Spring from 4 seasons

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Musicologie presents tonight Spring to celebrate Vivaldi's instrumental works. Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741), nicknamed il Prete Rosso ("The Red Priest") because of his red hair, was an Italian Baroque composer, Catholic priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. 

Recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe. Vivaldi is known mainly for composing instrumental concertos, especially for the violin, as well as sacred choral works and over forty operas. 

His best known work is a series of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons. Many of his compositions were written for the female music ensemble of the Ospedale della Pietà, a home for abandoned children where Vivaldi had been employed from 1703 to 1715 and from 1723 to 1740. 

Vivaldi also had some success with stagings of his operas in Venice, Mantua and Vienna. After meeting the Emperor Charles VI, Vivaldi moved to Vienna, hoping for preferment. However, the Emperor died soon after Vivaldi's arrival and Vivaldi himself died less than a year later. 

Though Vivaldi's music was well received during his lifetime, it later declined in popularity until its vigorous revival in the first half of the 20th century. Today, Vivaldi ranks among the most popular and widely recorded of Baroque composers.

• Read more on wikipedia.org 

Instrumental Works Cross-Reference

Being a great admirer of Vivaldi's instrumental works, I've always wished I had a comprehensive and complete listing of all the master's works with the assigned catalog numbers by the various catalogers structured in such a way as to allow easy searching, sorting and translation between the catalog numbers. 

A fairly thorough search turned up no such resource, so I decided to create a database of Vivaldi's works that could be used to create cross-reference lists including any and all information usually included in the various works lists. These lists are generated from that database.

• Read  more on classical.net