Yes, the famous composer was a priest who spent 35 years of his life as a music master in a charity hospital and orphanage. Who was The Red Priest? He was a red-headed priest who is even more famous today as the composer of “The Four Seasons”. The man that deserves credit for the excellence of the music around 1700 was nicknamed The Red Priest. The nuns protected and educated these “orphan” girls to become cultivated young women who often married well and were given a dowry by the convent. Also recall that the Catholic Church is ever the friend of women and you will not be so surprised that the members of the this orphanage’s orchestra and chorus were all women, many of them illegitimate. First recall that, before the Catholic Church stepped in to change history in the 5th century Roman Empire, a significant percentage of girls were killed at birth. The frequent concerts of its sixty member orchestra and large chorus were considered to be among the finest performances in Europe and were attended by everybody that was anybody in Christendom in the 18th Century. The orphans were taught to compose and play instruments. There were many of these for Venice was sometimes a place of loose morals.īut it was not just an orphanage, the Ospedale, improbable as it may seem, was also a world famous music conservatory. Also it was, and still is, a convent and a charitable orphanage for Venice’s many abandoned infants and foundlings. After the crusades it slowly changed into a hospital. It was established during the 11th Century as a hotel and hospital for crusaders. In Venice there still exists a wonderful old hospital, the “Devout Hospital of Mercy”, the Pio Ospedale della Pieta. The joining of two great Catholic traditions, Music and Hospitals, which have no equals anywhere in the world. The Red Priest and His Orphan Girl Orchestra.
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