Vivaldi’s Greatest Student: Anna Maria dal Violin

Vivaldi taught and wrote music for a young woman, Anna Maria dal Violin. "Young Woman Playing a Violin," 1624, by Orazio Gentileschi. Public Domain

Childhood was not always a time for fun and games. In prior centuries, the outlook was bleak for those born out of wedlock. Abandoned boys and girls were left to fend for themselves on the streets, surviving by banding together in gangs. Even when foundling homes expanded in the 18th century, living conditions were abysmal and mortality rates high. (The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, renowned for his idealistic theories of education, sent his five children off to die this way.)

For female orphans in Venice at this time, though, there was a small chance that illegitimacy could pave the way to international stardom. The Ospedale della Pietà, one of four orphanages supported by the Venetian Republic, was renowned throughout Europe for both its charitable work and for training its best and brightest girls to be virtuoso singers and musicians. The Pietà is remembered today mainly because of its resident music director, Antonio Vivaldi. But there is at least one other name associated with the institution that deserves to be saved from oblivion: his student, Anna Maria.

Ospedale della Pietà. Public Domain

Talented Orphans

Anna Maria, like all the girls at the orphanage, was anonymously passed through a small revolving window when she was a baby. At the time Vivaldi was music director, she was one of a thousand orphans at the Pietà. The girls were examined early and sorted into one of two groups. Those without musical skills, the “figlie di comun,” or commoners, received a general education. But for the 50 girls lucky enough to be sorted into the elite “figlie di coro” group, fame beckoned.

Portrait of Antonio Vivaldi, circa 1723. Public Domain

At this time, Venice was the opera capital of the world and a destination for music-loving travelers. European tourists crowded into the Pietà’s chapel every Sunday and holiday to hear the “coro” ensemble perform. One impressed French politician, Charles de Brosses, wrote that they “play the violin, the recorder, the organ, the oboe, the cello, the bassoon; in short, there is no instrument large enough to frighten them!” Another visitor described the girls as being “set in a gallery above” the chapel and hid from view “by a lattice of ironwork.” Tourists commented on the scandal of their simple habits that left their necks and shoulders visible. One shocked observer compared their manner of dress to “the Roman costumes of our actresses.” Rousseau—our aforementioned foundling-home donor—described feeling “a tremor of love” upon being invited to snack with them once, despite many being “blemished” by some prior medical condition.

Since the girls bore no family names, they were referred to by the names of their preferred instrument or vocal type. Anna Maria mastered more than half a dozen instruments, and existing records of her bear the surnames of all of them. She was most commonly known, however, by her most familiar instrument: “Anna Maria dal Violin.”

Antonio Vivaldi trained her himself. Male music teachers held precarious positions at the Pietà and were often let go after a female student became competent enough to assume the responsibility. But Vivaldi, as the overall music director, was more secure. He also conducted the orchestra and led performances of his own compositions. While he wrote works in every musical genre, he is most remembered for his concertos.

The Concerto

Vivaldi more or less invented the concerto form as we know it today. While there were other contributors, like Tomaso Albinoni, “the red priest” (so named because of his curly red hair) did the most to establish the genre’s boundaries.

Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni. Public Domain

Vivaldi introduced three innovations. First, he established the concerto’s standard three-movement structure: a fast opening and closing performance, punctuated by a slow middle section. Second, he gave more prominent roles to individual performers within the orchestra. Tailoring his compositions to the skills of his students, he wrote solo parts that were unparalleled in difficulty up to that time.

Third, Vivaldi developed the “ritornello” form. Meaning literally “the little thing that returns,” ritornello is when a musical passage is repeated by the orchestra while a soloist performs dazzling displays of skill in-between these statements. Electric guitar players in rock bands today, like Eddie Van Halen, have continued this tradition virtually unchanged—while remaining largely unaware of their debt to Vivaldi.

Vivaldi wrote around three dozen violin concertos for Anna Maria. Several of them are inscribed with her name in the title. In two of these pieces, the otherwise unmemorably catalogued RV 393 and RV 397, Vivaldi cleverly concealed her. The pieces are inscribed with the word “amore,” but spelled “AMore’—a reference to Anna Maria. (As an ordained priest, his affection for her was platonic.)

The red priest parted ways with the Ospedale in 1740 after years of recurrent feuds with its governors. (His moody personality made enemies who sometimes voted to not re-appoint him as director). He died the following year, impoverished. Anna Maria, though, remained at the orphanage and flourished for another 40 years. She rose to become a teacher, and visitors flocked to see Maestra Anna Maria of the Pietà give celebrated performances until she died at the ripe age of 86. Her life has experienced a revival of interest in recent years, inspiring numerous works of fiction.

‘New’ Compositions

A manuscript known as “Anna Maria’s Partbook” has survived, containing the solo violin parts for 31 concertos. Of the 26 written by Vivaldi, 20 also occur in other sources. The remaining six are incomplete, meaning that these solo violin parts are all that are left from the original concertos.

Until recently. The Italian conductor, composer, and musicologist Federico Maria Sardelli has reconstructed these concertos. How was he able to do this? Essentially, Vivaldi was a prolific (and overworked) composer who recycled a good deal of his own material. By cross-referencing different sources from the period, Sardelli’s reconstructions persuasively approximate the most likely way that these six concertos were originally performed.

Federico M. Sardelli's Catalogue of Vivaldi's musical concordances. Federico M. Sardelli/CC BY-SA 4.0

Now, it is possible to listen to these “new” Vivaldi pieces for the first time in three centuries. Sardelli, conducting an ensemble of leading Baroque interpreters that includes the violinist Federico Guglielmo, released a recording of them titled “Lost Concertos for Anna Maria.”

The opening piece, RV 772, is perhaps the best of the bunch. Given Vivaldi’s frequent re-use of his own content, the orchestral ritornello sections display similarities to other works. The solo part originally played by Anna Maria, however, stands out and makes for a highly enjoyable listen. The very slow (“grave”) second movement, especially, exhibits the poetic lyricism for which Vivaldi is so justly celebrated. As one listens, one can almost imagine Anna Maria dressed in her mildly scandalous white habit, stringing her bow along as viewers below strain to glimpse her through the iron latticework of the Pietà’s chapel gallery.

Sardelli’s reconstruction project exemplifies how Vivaldi and Anna Maria are not really “dead,” in a sense, but are still with us. The great composers (and their virtuoso students) are part of a living tradition that continues to evolve, expand, and delight.

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