Sunday, March 04, 2018

Vivaldi's Birthday



Today is the 340th birthday of one of my favorite composers, Antonio Vivaldi.

Vivaldi is best known for his composition "The Four Seasons," which paid homage to the seasons of the year and inspired one of my favorite movies from the '80s.

My very favorite composer is Mozart. I also like Beethoven, Grieg and Bach.

But Vivaldi is regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers. Of those others I mentioned, I suppose Bach is the only one from the Baroque period, and while he is also regarded by many as the greatest composer of all time, much of his work was for keyboards. Vivaldi's primary emphasis was on strings.

Both were great, of course. This isn't a competition, and both gave us soothing music that has survived for centuries.

In fact, Vivaldi's compositions have fared better than he did. Vivaldi died in poverty.