AllMovie

The classical music documentary The Great Composers: Antonio Vivaldi sets a fifty-five minute overview of the Venetian composer's life to music, specifically his pieces Concerto for Oboe, RV447 and Concerto for Two Violins and Cello, RV 565 as performed by the I Musici de Montréal Orchestra. Visually, it's an impressionist tour of Vivaldi's world, that closely examines the path his life took, from his birth in 1678, through his ordination, his period at the Pio Ospedale della Pieta orphanage (which covered the composition of many of his works), the composition of his concertos, and his death in 1741. While covering these events, the program carries viewers to elaborate recreations of the composer's various haunts in seventeenth and eighteenth century Italy, including the Carnival and commedia dell'arte in Venice.