The Venice Vivialdi heard and loved

Everyone else comes to Venice for its canals, its architecture, its museums and monuments. I come in search of Antonio Vivaldi, considered by many to be the greatest baroque composer. The first to effectively capture the sound of weather in his great concerto, "The Four Seasons," Vivaldi lived and worked in Venice all his life.

His city vibrates with the melodic tones of the Italian language, the sloshing noises coming from the canals, the eerie grunts and groans of a land slowly sinking, and the everyday noises of living. Vivaldi captured all of this in his music, effectively painting pictures with his notes.

His violin compositions express a wide range of emotions. A music lover who doesn't know the finer points of the score can still identify the time changes in "The Four Seasons": the freezing chill of winter overcome by lighthearted notes of spring; the vibrant rhythm of autumn harvests conquering the sultry tones of summer.

Vivaldi's music envelops the listener in sadness, happiness, or joy - whatever emotion the maestro desired.

As a boy, Vivaldi was taught to play the violin by his father, but eventually he studied to be a priest. Ordained when he was 25 years old, the "Red Priest" (so nicknamed because of his flame-colored hair) gave up saying Mass pretty quickly, claiming the incense aggravated his asthma.

He was also known to leave in the middle of a Mass to scribble down a few musical notes dancing in his head.

A visitor on a budget, I board a vaporetto (water bus) to explore Vivaldi's watery home, because a gondola - while romantic and appealing - is much more expensive. The Grand Canal, the main highway of the city, has a grid of lesser canals that form side "streets." The vaporetto slices through the water creating diamond-tipped waves that first slap against the buildings and then swish back.

A gondolier in a striped black-and-white jersey plays a melancholy "O Sole Mio" on his accordion. From the sleek gondola gliding in the other direction comes the hearty tenor of the man who is poling and singing "Santa Lucia" at the same time. The sweet notes of a contralto accompanied by a piano drift from an upstairs window. A boy sits outside a glass shop, upturned cap at his feet. He plays his violin with great enthusiasm, undeterred by the string quartet entertaining customers at the cafe next door.

Was it like this in Vivaldi's day?

The lilting strains of the local dialect fill the air as a signora argues with a produce vendor; a construction boss yells orders; a child wails about something.

Venice is awash in sound - at every street corner, cafe, hotel lobby, and boat dock. It sounds to me like a glorious symphony carefully nurtured and cultivated. I wonder how much these everyday sounds influenced Vivaldi's music.

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