Venetian instrumental music of the late Baroque is dominated by three names: Vivaldi, Marcello and Albinoni. These three composers had very contrasting artistic personalities that derived in part from their different social origins. The father of Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) was an accomplished violinist who, like Leopold Mozart two generations later, was able to pass on a great deal of professional know-how to his even more gifted son and introduce him to the challenging worlds of church music and the operatic stage. Benedetto Marcello (1686–1739) was a member of a prominent patrician family, a noble dilettante for whom music was a passionate leisure-time pursuit but not a means of earning a livelihood.