Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist, and impresario of Baroque music, born 4 March 1678 in Venice and died 28 July 1741 in Vienna. Trained partly by his violinist father at St. Mark’s Basilica, he was ordained a priest in 1703 (earning the nickname ‘Il Prete Rosso,’ the Red Priest, for his red hair) but soon received dispensation from saying Mass due to a chronic ailment. From 1703 he had a long association with the Ospedale della Pietà, a Venetian home for foundling girls with a renowned musical training program, for which he composed much of his instrumental output. He wrote more than 500 concertos, over fifty operas, and numerous sacred vocal works; his best-known work, The Four Seasons, is a set of programmatic violin concertos.

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Vivaldi consolidated the emerging concerto form, especially the solo concerto, into the dominant instrumental idiom of the late Baroque, and his crisp ritornello structures and virtuosic solo writing were widely imitated across Europe, influencing composers including J.S. Bach, who transcribed several of his concertos. He was also an early and influential figure in programmatic instrumental music. After a decline in fame during the 18th and 19th centuries, his reputation underwent a major 20th-century revival following the rediscovery of his manuscripts, and he is now regarded as one of the most significant and widely performed Baroque composers.

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Sources:

• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Antonio-Vivaldi