Antonio Vivaldi

Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741), nicknamed the Red Priest, was a Venetian Baroque composer and violinist. Ordained in 1703, he was excused from saying Mass through ill health and instead worked at Venice's Ospedale della Pietà, where he taught violin and composed concertos for its orchestra of orphaned girls.

He consolidated the solo concerto form in hundreds of works, above all The Four Seasons. In 1740 he followed his patron Emperor Charles VI to Vienna, but the emperor died and Vivaldi died in poverty in 1741.