Vivaldi -- his years
with Venice’s
Ospedale della Pieta's orphans
refining lost girls into princesses
of music -- leads tourists to cross oceans,
praising their ensembles. His disheveled
flaming hair tousling as he conducts,
tempts viewers to call him the “Red Priest”. Led
to Vienna for commissions, he’s dubbed
knight by Charles VI. His desire to compose
for Charles’s court fades: the emperor dies.
The next year, so
does the priest (I suppose
as clerics must) in
poverty. Now I
listen to his “Concerto
for Strings”, sure
it shows us the Red
Priest was never poor.
Roger Armbrust
October 14, 2018
