Volkswagen

Volkswagen is a German automaker whose headquarters are in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony.

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HISTORY

Austrian Ferdinand Porsche was a well-known designer for high-end vehicles and race cars. In 1934 Adolf Hitler asked his fellow Austrian to dream up a basic vehicle able to transport two adults and three children. The car needed to be able to travel at least 100 km/h, or about 60 mph, and use no more than 7 liters of gasoline for 100 kilometers (about 40 mpg). It would be available to citizens of the Third Reich through a savings plan at 990 Reichsmark ($396 in 1930s U.S. dollars).

Volkswagen ("people's car" in German) was established on May 28, 1937 by the German Labour Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront) in Berlin.

The result was the Volkswagen Beetle, which was designed by Ferdinand Porsche and a team of engineers. A handful were made, but by the time the Wolfsburg factory was finished in 1938, World War II was starting and the company concentrated on making military vehicles instead.

Volkswagen was sued by the Czechoslovakian car maker Tatra before World War II because the original Beetle was so similar to the Tatra 97. Porsche was willing to settle but Hitler cancelled their proposals saying he would "would settle the matter." After Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, T97 production was stopped. After the Second World War Tatra resumed its lawsuit. In 1965 Volkswagen settled it by paying Tatra 1,000,000 DM in compensation

During World War II, a bomb landed, but didn't explode, inside the German Volkswagen factory. If it had exploded, the post-war Beetles that we commonly see would have never existed.

Mass production of the Volkswagen Beetle did not actually begin in Germany until after the war in 1945 when the United Kingdom army reopened the Wolfsburg factory.

1949 Volkswagen "split rear window" Sedan

Originally known as the Volkswagen Type 1, the car’s curves and rounded top led to its being nicknamed the 'Bug.' Volkswagen themselves started referring to the car as the VW Beetle in the late 1960s.

Americans shunned the Beetle when it was introduced in the States in 1949: Only two were sold in the first year. But after that, sales grew quickly. After six years of selling cars in the United States, the German automaker founded Volkswagen of America in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey in 1955 to standardize its dealer and service network.  By the 1960s, Beetlemania had taken off as hundreds of thousands of Bugs were sold every year, topping out at 570,000 in 1970.

Iin 1963 a VW Beetle donated by the manufacturer became the first car in the Antarctic. It proved so good for Antarctic use, being able to withstand temperatures below -50°C and winds above 150 km/h, that it was nicknamed "Red Terror" by the users.

By February 17, 1972, more than 15 million Volkswagen Beetle cars had been sold exceeding those of the Ford Model-T making it the world's most popular model.

The original Volkswagen Beetle would temporarily float on water because of a sealed steel bottom with nothing exposed beneath it. Volkswagen even created a 1972 TV ad which demonstrated its ability to float.

The last Volkswagen Beetle made in Germany left Volkswagen 's plant in Emden in 1978. Beetle production in Latin America continues until 2003.

Volkswagen presented the first-generation Golf in May 1974 as a modern front-wheel-drive, long-range replacement for the Volkswagen Beetle.

Volkswagen Golf 3-door (Europe)By Rudolf Stricker - Own work,

The Volkswagen Golf GTI debuted in 1976 a couple of years after the Golf was launched. With a souped-up engine and go-faster stripes, it became the car of choice for teens, who were soon "pimping" their rides with under-lighting and racing seats. It spawned a generation of imitators, from the Fiat Uno Turbo to the Suzuki Swift Sport.

Historically, the Golf is Volkswagen's best-selling model and is among the world's top three best-selling models, with more than 30 million built by June 2013.

When the small sedan segment started to grow in the United States at the end of the 1970s, Volkswagen realized that the hatchback body style lacked some of the appeal to those who preferred the traditional three-box configuration. Their solution was to borrow the Golf's platform, slap on a trunk, and offer it as both a coupe and a four-door sedan. The result was the 1981 MK1 Jetta, which, like its hatch sibling, was designed by Girogetto Giugiaro.

The classic Volkswagen Beetle was produced in Mexico from 1955 where it was used as a taxi. The last 'old style' Volkswagen Beetle rolled off the assembly line in Mexico in 2003. The Mexican government effectively ended the Beetle's production because street gangs would often raid two-door cars as the passenger in the back couldn't escape.

The last original Beetle, #21,529,464 was assembled and immediately retired on July 31, 2003, in Puebla, Mexico, at the Volkswagen de Mexico manufacturing plant. It can now be found at Volkswagen's AutoMuseum.

The Type 1 Beetle was in production between 1938 and 2003, a whopping 65 years, the longest a vehicle has been produced in history. 

In 1998 Volkswagen introduced the "New Beetle", built on the contemporary Golf platform with styling recalling the original Type 1. It was succeeded in 2011 by the Beetle (A5), the last variant of the Beetle. Production ceased altogether by 2019.

In September 2015, Volkswagen admitted to illegally using installed software to change emissions test results for 11 million of its diesel engine cars sold between 2009 and 2015. This resulted in engines passing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards and having vehicles emitting up to 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen oxides. It also brought into question whether VW diesel engines were actually cleaner for the environment than regular gasoline engines.

FUN VOLKSWAGEN FACTS

Many of Volkswagen's most famous models are named after winds: The Golf refers to the Gulf Stream, Passat means "trade wind," Jetta is German for "jet stream." 

Between 1973 and 1975 Volkswagen produced the Jeans Beetle, which had all-denim trim.

Children's TV presenter Peter Duncan attempted to ‘drive' over the Irish Sea in an amphibious Volkswagen Beetle for his new show Duncan Dares on March 9, 1985, but broke down and was towed to safety.

The record number of people crammed into a 1998 Volkswagen Bug and still able to close all doors is 18. They were college students.

Volkswagen owns Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, SEAT, Skoda, Ducati, MAN, and Scania.

Volkswagen was the world's largest automaker by worldwide sales in 2016 and 2017. The group's main market is in China, which delivers 40% of its sales and profits.

Sources, The Independent, Autoguide, MentalFloss

Vole

The vole is a rodent of the family Crictidae, which is widely distributed over Europe, Asia and North America, and also includes the hamster and lemmings. There are about 155 species of voles.

They are sometimes known as meadow mice or field mice in North America and Australia.

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The body of a vole is stout and entirely covered with fur. Depending on the habitat the color of the fur can be grey, brown or white.

Voles are often confused with brown rats, but can be distinguished by their neat small ears, smaller eyes, a slightly rounder head, furry tail and blunt nose. Their legs are also short.

Adult voles, depending on the species, are 7.5 to 17.5 centimetres (three to seven inches) long.

Most species of vole are herbivorous, feeding on a variety of grasses, seeds, bulbs, and tubers. They eat bark and roots of trees, usually in fall or winter. Voles store seeds and other plant matter in underground chambers. Some species also eat insects.

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The prairie vole is notable for its monogamous sexual fidelity, since the male is usually faithful to the female, and shares in the raising of pups. The woodland vole is also usually monogamous.

Voles embark on epic treks of more than nine miles in their search for a mate – but only 10 per cent succeed.

Many animals hunt voles, for example owls, hawks, coyotes, cats, foxes, weasels and snakes.

10,000 voles must be caught by a pair of barn owls each year to feed their hungry young.

Voles dig vast, multi-storey burrows in the banks of rivers and streams that include underwater entrances and emergency exits for attacks.

Despite a cute appearance, males get aggressive if another invades their territory. Rivalry erupts into loud fights in which they rip off chunks of fur and emit high-pitched shrieks.

The water vole makes a distinctive rasping squeak when frightened and a high, shrill squeak when under attack.

Voles comfort each other when mistreated, spending more time grooming a mistreated vole. This type of empathetic behavior is unusual and prior to its discovery in a 2016 study, it was previously thought to only occur in animals with advanced cognition, such as humans, apes, and elephants.

As many as 88% of voles die during the first month of life.

The average life of the smaller vole species is three to six months. These voles rarely live longer than 12 months.

Larger species, such as the European water vole Arvicola, live longer. They usually die during their second winter.

A Mediterranean pine vole, which was captured twice at intervals of 33 months, is believed to exhibit the maximum life span ever recorded for a vole.

In most of Europe they are seen as an agricultural pest, and in Russia they are killed for their fur. It takes hundreds to make a single coat.

Source Daily Mail

Volcano

A volcano is a vent on the Earth or another celestial body’s surface from which hot gases, ash and magma (molten rock) are ejected. Magma emerges as lava.

The word “volcano” comes from the name of the Roman God of Fire, Vulcan.

New Zealand volcano Pixiebay

VOLCANIC FEATURES

A volcano has enough power to shoot ash as high as 50 kilometers (31 miles) into the atmosphere.

Volcanoes are needed to constantly replenish the atmosphere with nitrogen and carbon dioxide. They also create wonderfully fertile soil, which is why so many people choose to live next to sleeping volcanoes.

Supervolcanos usually have a large caldera and can produce devastation on an enormous, sometimes continental, scale.  Examples include Yellowstone Caldera in Yellowstone National Park, USA, Lake Taupo in New Zealand and  Mount Tambor in Indonesia. The 1815 eruption of Mount Tambor was the last eruption of a supervolcano.

Stratovolcanoes or composite volcanoes are tall conical mountains composed of lava flows and other ejecta in alternate layers, The Volcán de Fuego in Guatemala is a stratovolcano, mountainous with a towering peak. The gases in a stratovolcano build up to exert massive pressure and violent eruption.

October 1974 eruption of Volcán de Fuego

Shield volcanoes, so named for their broad, shield-like profiles generally do not explode.  catastrophically. Kilauea volcano in Hawaii is a "shield volcano" flat and wide like a huge shield lying on the ground. The lava from shield volcanoes move more slowly than from a stratovolcano.

FAMOUS VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS

Volcanoes were much more volatile and dangerous before humans populated this planet. They had to be violent in order to kick start our atmosphere and soil for plants and animals to thrive on.

Mount Vesuvius is a volcano located on the Gulf of Naples in Campania, Italy, about 9 km (5.6 mi) east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. An eruption in AD 79 destroyed the Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum killing over 1,000 people.

The eruption of Mount Vesuvius was described in such accurate and useful detail by Pliny The Younger, that vulcanologists now call eruptions of its kind "Plinian eruptions."

Vesuvius erupting. Brooklyn Museum Archives, Goodyear Archival Collection

The 1257 Samalas eruption was a major volcanic eruption of the Samalas volcano, next to Mount Rinjani on the island of Lombok, Indonesia. It may have triggered the Little Ice Age and famines in Europe. Geologists rank it as the most powerful eruption of the last 7,000 years. 

The largest  volcanic eruption in recent history in South America was recorded on February 19, 1600 when Peru’s Huaynaputina exploded. It belched 12 cubic kilometres of ash in the air for two weeks. This had a global impact, causing some of Europe’s coldest winters and a devastating famine in Russia.

Mount Tambora, a volcano located on the island of Sumbawa in present-day Indonesia, began one of the most violent volcanic eruptions in recorded history on April 10, 1815, killing at least 71,000 people. The eruption continued for several days, with the most explosive phase occurring on April 15, 1815. The eruption sent huge plumes of ash, gas, and debris into the atmosphere, which caused global climate anomalies and led to a "year without a summer" in many parts of the world in 1816. 

Another of the most powerful volcanic eruption in recorded history happened on August 26, 1883 on Krakatoa, a small, volcanic island west of Sumatra in Indonesia. Heard 3,000 miles (4,828 kms) away, the explosions threw five cubic miles of earth 50 miles (80 kns) into the air, created 120-foot tsunamis and killed 36,000 people.

The sound made by the eruption of Krakatoa was so loud that if it was to happen in Ireland, it would sound like cannon fire in New York City.

An 1888 lithograph of the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa.

Martinique's Mount Pelée begun the deadliest volcanic eruption of the 20th century on May 7, 1902. It completely destroyed St. Pierre, killing 30,000 people, wiping the city off the map.

Ludger Sylbaris, a man thrown into solitary confinement after a bar brawl, survived the Mount Pelée eruption because his cell was bombproof and poorly ventilated. He became one of only three known survivors of the event, and his prison cell still stands today.

1902 eruption

The largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century took place on June 6, 1912 on the Alaska Peninsula. The 60-hour-long Novarupta eruption expelled 3.1 to 3.6 cubic miles (13 to 15 km3) of ash, thirty times as much as the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens and created the Novarupta lava dome.

On May 18, 1980, a major volcanic eruption occurred at Mount St. Helens, a volcano located in Skamania County, in the U.S. state of Washington. It was the deadliest and most economically destructive volcanic event in U.S. history. The eruptions lasted nine hours, leaving a one-mile-wide crater where its peak had been. 57 people were killed; 250 homes, 47 bridges, 15 miles (24 km) of railways, and 185 miles (298 km) of highway were destroyed. More than 6 million trees were uprooted or flattened by the blast.

The volcanologist David Johnson had fought to keep the summit Mt St Helens and Spirit Lake visitor-free for two months before the cataclysm. Instead of 1000 deaths there was 57; him among them. Johnson radioed "...Vancouver, this is it" seconds before he was incinerated.

Harry Glicken was devastated when his mentor David Johnson died during the eruption of Mt St Helens in 1980. Glicken met the same fate 11 years later during the eruption of Mt Unzen in Japan. Glicken and Johnson are the only American volcanologists to have died in volcanic eruptions.

LOCATIONS 

Of the world's volcanic activity, 90 per cent takes place in its oceans. The South Pacific has the largest concentration of active volcanoes, with 1,133 volcanic cones identified in an area the size of New York State.

The chief volcanic regions on land are the central Andes (Chile): New Zealand's North Island: Hawaii: Japan and Antarctica.

Around five per cent of the world’s population live within the danger zones of active volcanoes.

The 25 tallest volcanoes in the world are all in South America.

Mount Erebus in Antarctica is the southernmost active volcano in the world. Located on Ross Island it spews metallic, crystallized gold into the atmosphere every single day.  

Mount Erebus By Ehquionest - Own work

The only continent without an active volcano is Australia.

The last volcanic eruption in Britain was in the Scottish Highlands around 55 million years ago.

Ben Nevis is an extinct volcano.

VOLCANOES ON OTHER CELESTIAL BODIES

Jupiter's moon Io is the most volcanically active body in our solar system with hundreds of volcanoes and volcanic geysers. Active volcanoes constantly spew material onto Io's surface. Its volcanic eruptions are so powerful that they can be seen with large telescopes on Earth.

The highest volcanic eruption detected in our solar system was a 310-mile (500 km) plume emerging from Io, in 2001 by NASA's Galileo spacecraft.

Picture below is active lava flows in the Io volcanic region Tvashtar Paterae (blank region represents saturated areas in the original data). Images taken by Galileo in November 1999 and February 2000.

The largest known volcano in the Solar System, at 88,000ft (26,822 metres) is Olympus Mons on Mars. At 16 miles high (26 kms) and 374 miles (602 kms) wide, is so heavy that it sits in a depression caused by the volcano's weight pressing down on the crust in the area.

Olympus Mons has such a gradual slope that someone standing at the base wouldn't be able to see the summit because it's beyond the horizon.

FUN VOLCANO FACTS 

The Stromboli Volcano in Italy is the world's most active volcano and has been in a near-constant state of eruption for around 2,000 years.

In 1935 the U.S. 23rd Bomb Squadron dropped twenty 600-pound bombs in the path of a volcano's lava flow, thus saving the city of Hilo, Hawaii by diverting the lava away from the city.

On April 1, 1974 a local prankster Oliver "Porky" Bickar took 70 tires to the top of Mt. Edgecumbe, a volcano located at the southern end of Kruzof Island, Alaska. and lit them on fire. The locals thought the 400-year dormant volcano was erupting and a helicopter was sent up to check it out. When the helicopter arrived, the pilot found the words "APRIL FOOL" spray painted on the snow.

Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi had a volcano built at his 148 acre estate in Porto Rotondo, Sardinia, in 2006. With fireworks and a small earthquake, it was intended as a surprise at a party. Neighbors, unaware, rang the fire brigade.

Fine-grained volcanic ash can be found as an ingredient in some toothpastes.

Source Daily Express

Voice

Ancient Sanskrit poets believed that chewing on mango buds helped to sweeten the voice.

Adelbert Theodor Wangemann recorded the voice of Helmuth von Moltke, the chief of staff of the Prussian Army for thirty years, in 1889. It is the only known recording of someone born in the 18th century.

Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis' voice became permanently raspy when he yelled at a booking agent two days after having surgery on his vocal chords.

Our vocal folds, commonly known as vocal cords, are composed of twin infoldings of mucous membrane stretched across the larynx.

A labeled anatomical diagram of the vocal folds or cords.

When a boy's voice breaks, it is caused by a growing and thickening of the larynx.

Girl's larynxes grow and thicken, too, but their voices only deepen by a couple of tones.

Other people hear a higher version of your voice than you do because one can hear a sound in two different ways. The first is through vibrating sound waves hitting your eardrum, the way other people hear your voice. The second way is through vibrations inside your skull, set off by your vocal chords.

We tend to dislike the sound of our voice when we hear it in recordings because vibrations in our skulls make our voices sound richer and deeper than they are in reality.

The normal range of the male human voice in still air outdoors is about 180 m (590 ft 6.6 in). The silbo, the whistled language of the Spanish-speaking inhabitants of the Canary Island of La Gomera, is intelligible under ideal conditions at 8 km (5 miles).

The voice of E.T. was done by a chain-smoker, and that was her actual voice.

Cats have about hundred vocal sounds and dogs about ten.

Daily Express

Vodka

Vodka is a strong colorless alcoholic spirit distilled from rye, potatoes, barley or maize. Its name is a diminutive of the Slavic word "voda" meaning "little water".

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HISTORY

Vodka was first produced in Poland in the early Middle Ages. The earliest mention of vodka in Poland was from the Akta Grodzkie recorder of deeds in 1405.

The first mention of a distilled liquor designated by the Russian word vodka was in 1386, when the Genoese ambassadors brought the first aqua vitae ("the water of life") to Moscow and presented it to Grand Duke Dmitry Donskoy.

At first vodka was used as an herbal remedy and was included in a number of pharmaceutical lists as such.

Smirnoff Vodka's creator Pyotr Smirnov launched his brand to quick success in 1864 by giving panhandlers food and drink in return for asking them to fan out around the city of Moscow, demanding Smirnoff Vodka at local bars.

Until 1885, vodka in Russia was usually only sold in buckets of 12.3 litres (13 quarts)

During Soviet times, the sale of vodka was one-third of the Russian government's income.

Russian vodka By Th1234 - Own work,

After a late night banquet, Joseph Stalin typically retired to bed at 4.00 in the morning with a carafe or two of neat vodka.

After hearing on the radio of Germany's surrender on May 9, 1945, the citizens of the Soviet Union partied so hard that they had drunk ALL the vodka in the nation within the next 22 hours. A nationwide hangover began.

Throughout his office the Russian leader Boris Yeltsin treated his mood swings with large doses of vodka. Bill Clinton, the American president at the time, only phoned Yeltsin early in the day, before he became too drunk.

FUN VODKA FACTS

Grain is used to produce the highest grade vodka. Molasses (which comes from the production of sugar) are used to produce the cheapest vodka. Because of the ingredient, this kind usually tastes sweeter than vodka made from grain. Potatoes have also been used for centuries to make the beverage.

Since the 1890s, the standard Eastern European vodkas are 40% alcohol by volume. Meanwhile, the European Union has established a minimum alcohol content of 37.5% for any European vodka to be named as such. Beverages sold as vodka in the United States must have a minimum alcohol content of 40%.

In Russian, "vodka" basically means "lil water." The word for water is "voda," and "ka" is a diminutive ending.

25% of Russian men die before reaching 55, compared with 7% in the UK and less than 1% in the US. Vodka is cited as the cause for low life expectancy.

Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham drank 40 shots of vodka the night he died.

There is a vodka called "Billionaire" that's worth $3.7 million a bottle and uses crushed diamonds in the distilling process.

Ian Fleming's fictional spy James Bond sometimes asked for his vodka Martinis to be "shaken, not stirred," following Harry Craddock's 1930 tome The Savoy Cocktail Book , which prescribes shaking for all its Martini recipes.

Applying vodka on your face cleanses the skin, tightens pores and can prevent acne breakouts.

Vodka can be used as bug repellent, hair conditioner and soothe jellyfish stings.

Vladimir the Great

Vladimir the Great (c. 958 – 15 July 15, 1015), was a prince of Novgorod, grand Prince of Kiev, and ruler of Kievan Rus' from 980 to 1015.

Kievan Rus' was a loose federation of East Slavic peoples. During the reign of Vladimir the Great the Kievan Rus' State expanded to around 800,000 km2 (309,000 sq miles). Belarus, Russia and Ukraine all claim Kievan Rus' as their cultural ancestors.

Icon of S.Vladimir by anonymous

Although Christianity had spread in the region under his brother Oleg's rule, Vladimir was a pagan during the early part of his reign, taking eight hundred concubines (along with about seven wives) and participating in idolatrous rites involving human sacrifice.

In around 988 Vladimir decided that he wanted to unite his subjects around one monotheistic religion. According to the Russian Chronicle, Vladimir dispatched envoys to neighboring countries to judge first hand the major religions of the time; Islam, Roman Catholicism, Judaism, and Byzantine Orthodoxy.

The first three religions failed to win over Vladimir but the two envoys he dispatched to Constantinople visited a Mass in the great Cathedral of Hagia Sophia. They were greatly impressed by the Divine Liturgy and reported back to their master that they could not tell whether they were in heaven or on earth.

In 988 Vladimir married Anna Porphyrogenita,  the daughter of Byzantine Emperor Romanos II and the Empress Theophano and the sister of Emperors Basil II Bulgaroktonos and Constantine VIII.. This was a surprise as never before had a Byzantine imperial princess married a barbarian.

Vladimir was impressed by Byzantine religious practices; this factor, along with his marriage to Anna, led to his decision to convert to Eastern Christianity. He also began Christianizing his kingdom.

he Baptism of Saint Prince Vladimir, by Viktor Vasnetsov (1890)

On August 1, 988 Vladimir ordered the entire population of Kiev to gather on the bank of the River Dneiper. He then led them into the water in order that they all might be baptized according to the Orthodox form. The remaining population of Kievan Rus' was slowly converted. Orthodoxy thus became the state religion of Russia, which it was to remain until 1917.

Vladimir ordered that all idols should be destroyed. The great wooden idol Perun was beaten by twelve appointed men with sticks as it is dragged along attached to a horse's tail, in order to cast out the demon, which had fooled the idol worshippers. It is then thrown into the river Dneiper.

During his Christian reign, Vladimir lived out the teachings of the Bible through doing acts of charity. He would hand out food and drink to the poor, and made an effort to go out to the people who could not reach him.

Vladimir established numerous churches, including the Desiatynna in Kiev (designed by Byzantine architects and dedicated about 996) which became the symbol of the Kievan Rus' conversion. He also founded schools, gave aid to the the poor and introduced ecclesiastical courts.

Anna participated actively in the Christianization of Kievan Rus': she acted as the religious adviser of Vladimir and founded a few convents and churches herself.

He was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Churches in the 13th century. Thereafter he was referred to as ‘the holy, equal to the Apostles, grand prince of Kyiv.’

Saint Vladimir of Kiev's feast day, July 15th was first celebrated in 1263.

Antonio Vivaldi

EARLY LIFE 

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was born on March 4, 1678, in Venice, Italy. When he was born he looked so frail that the midwife baptized him immediately.

Probable portrait of Vivaldi, c. 1723

Antonio grew to love the violin and played along with his father at St. Mark's Basilica.

CAREER 

Young Vivaldi studied for the priesthood and was ordained in 1703.

Because of his red hair, Vivaldi became known as "il prete rosso", which means "the red priest."

Vivaldi gave up officiating, and was first appointed violin teacher at a Venetian orphanage Pio Ospedale della Pietà when he was 25. The name means "Devout Hospital of Mercy."

He gave music lessons at the Pio Ospedale della Pieta, to those among the resident orphan girls who showed musical aptitude. Vivaldi also took on the extra job of writing sacred music for the girls' choir.

Vivaldi taught there until 1709, when for financial reasons the school voted not to renew his post, the older girls took over his job.

During his break from Vivaldi wrote a large number of works including violin sonatas and concertos which made him famous throughout Europe. Musicians started to come to Venice in order to visit Vivaldi for lessons.

In 1711 Vivaldi was re-appointed at the Pio Ospedale della Pietà. The girls' Sunday concerts, for which Vivaldi composed many orchestral and choral works, gained renown, until no visit to Venice was considered complete without hearing a performance.

He remained as a teacher until 1716, when he was appointed to the higher position of maestro di coro (in charge of all musical events) where he remained with some interruptions for the next two decades. Yet he somehow found time to compose 500 concertos, 90 sonatas and 50 operas.

The Pio Ospedale della Pietà.

In 1718 Vivaldi left Venice and moved to Mantua in Northern Italy, where he became the director of music for the governor, Prince Philip of Hesse-Darmstadt.

In his later years Vivaldi travelled widely and probably performed and composed in Prague, Dresden, and Amsterdam. He often returned to Venice to rehearse his music with the girls.

WORKS

The 12 concertos of L'Estro Armonico (1712) gave Vivaldi a European reputation.

The first of his many operas, Ottone in villa, was performed in 1713. Vivaldi's first oratorio, Juditha Triumphans devicta Holofernis barbaric, was performed by the girls from the Pietà in 1716.

First edition of Juditha triumphans

In 1725 a Dutch publishing house produced as Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione ("The Contest Between Harmony and Invention"), a set of 12 descriptive violin concertos by Vivaldi, four of which - probably written two years prior to publication - depicted the seasons (the others on themes of Storm at Sea, Pleasure and The Hunt).

Each of The Four Seasons concertos describes a season: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. The Four Seasons were an early example of programme music, which is music that paints a scene or tells a story.

Vivaldi’s partners in performing The Four Seasons would have been his young girl pupils.

The Four Seasons was played no more often than any of Vivaldi’s other works during his lifetime.

Title page of "Cimento dell'Armonia e dell'Invenzione", 1727

Early in his life Vivaldi's operas were performed throughout Italy and in Vienna. More than 750 works are known to exist, and researchers have long struggled with the task of identifying and cataloguing them.

Vivaldi's finest work was thought to be his 500 concerti in which virtuoso solo passages alternate with passages for the whole orchestra. He orchestrated in new, unique ways and prepared the way for the late baroque concerto.

Though he was a major influence on the development of the solo concerto, by the end of his life Vivaldi had been musically sidelined. However, his original musical style had wide influence on later composers. Johann Sebastian Bach, for instance, transcribed many of his concertos for the keyboard.

It wasn’t until the 1920s that the gradual rediscovery of Vivaldi's original manuscripts resulted in his recognition as Italy’s greatest-ever instrumental composer.

The first recording of The Four Seasons was made in 1942 by Bernardino Molinari and the St Cecilia Academy. It featured a specially adapted piano.

Vivaldi's operas are seldom heard now, but his orchestral and chamber music are performed frequently, as is his popular sacred 'Gloria'.

PRIVATE LIFE 

A lifelong bachelor, during his time in Mantua, Vivaldi became acquainted with a young opera singer Anna Tessieri Girò, who would become his student and protégée. Anna, along with her older half-sister Paolina, described as his 'nurse.' moved in with Vivaldi and regularly accompanied him on his many travels.

There was speculation as to the nature of Vivaldi's and Girò's relationship, but Vivaldi denied any romantic relationship with Girò in a letter to his patron Bentivoglio dated November 16, 1737.

LAST YEARS AND DEATH 

After meeting the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, Vivaldi moved to Vienna hoping for royal support. However, the Emperor died soon after Vivaldi's arrival and the impoverished Vivaldi had no way to return home.

Vivaldi died a poor man on July 28, 1741, aged 63 of "internal infection", in a house owned by the widow of a Viennese saddlemaker.

He was buried next to Karlskirche, a baroque church in an area which is now part of the site of the TU Wien, in Vienna.

Antonio Vivaldi (engraving by François Morellon de La Cave,)1725)

Sources Europress Encyclopedia, Compton's Encyclopedia, Classic FM magazine