The Four Seasons

I've always wondered what women were doing in the past, since what's been passed down is largely the accomplishments of men. Learning that one of the great orchestras of seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe was all-female—and largely foundlings and orphans to boot—was a true thrill for me.

A priest by profession, in his mid-twenties Antonio Vivaldi was renowned in Venice primarily as a superb violinist. In fact, he had barely begun to compose music when he was hired to be the violin teacher for the top soloists at the foundling hospital, cloister, and musical academy known as the Ospedale della Pieta. Vivaldi might never have reached his full potential as a composer if he had not had the coro of the Pieta, a disciplined and skilled ensemble of instrumentalists and vocalists, to work with, and I think it is fair to say that to a significant degree the musicians of the Pieta allowed Vivaldi to become Vivaldi.

As a professor of Humanities, a woman, and a writer, I found the story of composer Antonio Vivaldi's involvement with the Pieta endlessly fascinating, and I wrote The Four Seasons to share it with you.

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