Antonio Vivaldi
Violinist and composer nicknamed “the red priest” for the color of his hair and because he took vows at a very young age, but never officiated mass, perhaps for health reasons. Despite his fame, he died in poverty in Vienna, and his music fell into oblivion until the Second World War.
The National University Library of Turin possesses the most important collection of autographed scores by Vivaldi thanks to two patrons, Roberto Foa and Filippo Giordano, respectively a stockbroker and an industrialist, who invested a significant capital to create the Vivaldi collection in the 1930s.
He lived and worked in Venice, at the Ospedale della Pietà, teaching for over 30 years. This was a convent, orphanage, and conservatory in Venice that welcomed orphans and invested in them with a top-level musical education.
Boundless production: 329 concertos for solo instrument and strings: 220 for violin, 37 for bassoon, 27 for cello, 19 for oboe, 13 for transverse flute, 2 for straight flute, 3 for piccolo, one for mandolin, and 7 for viola d’amore. 40 concertos for two instruments and strings, 32 multiple concertos, about 60 "concerti ripieni" (concertos for strings without soloist). 45 operas.
In the show In fila per 6 col resto di 2 you listened to Antonio Vivaldi's Winter from The Four Seasons and the Concerto for strings Alla Rustica.
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Perhaps not everyone knows that District 6 hosts as many as 42 streets and squares named after great musicians, composers, and Italian conductors, giving rise to a very particular toponymic context.
If we really want to proceed with a non-discriminatory project towards great musicians, we need to take a few more steps towards the center until Via Giuseppe Verdi and Via Gioacchino Rossini... being stars of the international opera, we risk seriously offending them.
In these years we will discover together the 44 great musicians who bring to life a special neighborhood in Turin, they are all neighbors!
Let's start with Antonio Vivaldi, Amilcare Ponchielli, Niccolò Paganini, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Alessandro Scarlatti, Giacomo Puccini.
The project is realized thanks to the City of Turin.