Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (1678 – 1741) was an Italian Baroque musical composer, virtuoso violinist, teacher, and priest. Born in Venice, the capital of the Venetian Republic, he is regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread across Europe. He composed many instrumental concertos, for the violin and a variety of other instruments, as well as sacred choral works and more than forty operas. His best-known work is a series of violin concertos known as the Four Seasons.

One of the greatest challenges faced by scholars of the music of Antonio Vivaldi is the dating of his works; he published little of his voluminous music and left many of his manuscripts undated. The Concerto in G minor, RV 106, is one of several composed during Vivaldi's long tenure at the Ospedale della Pietà; its date of composition can be narrowed only to the 13-year span between 1728, when the transverse flute was first introduced into the school's music program, and 1741, the year of the composer's death. And even this dating is not entirely firm since Vivaldi's score allows for alternate instrumentation: in addition to the continuo part and a notated violin line, Vivaldi calls for either a bassoon or a cello, and a flute or additional violin. Certainly the use of winds better articulates the piece's structure and character. One of only 23 so-called chamber concertos, the G minor concerto underscores the four featured instruments with a continuo part, rather than the standard ripieno orchestral forces. Like the other concertos of its type, the Concerto, RV 106, uses the full ensemble for ritornello passages and smaller combinations for the intervening episodes. While Vivaldi's music sometimes endures complaints of predictability, one observes in the first movement of the G minor concerto a wealth of distinctive melodic ideas in the ritornello alone. The opening theme, with its plaintive downward slope, passes between the flute and violin, its final descent lingering into the second section with its exchange of falling lines, repeated trills, and quick repeated notes; a third melodic section places the two voices in serene parallel motion. This expansive opening ritornello section returns only in piecemeal fashion: the first episode, a nimble duet between flute and bassoon, is answered by a brief recollection of the trill exchanges; the opening melody returns only after the second flute/bassoon episode and in condensed form; the final woodwind duet leads to another exchange of repeated notes and a return of the lush parallel-motion melody from the ritornello's close. The slow central movement, in the standard binary form and the relative major key of B flat, maintains a spare, porous surface with a simple "oom-pah" texture in the bassoon and violin (the continuo rests) quietly underscoring the flute's elegant melody. This sets off the rhythmic vitality and quick triple-meter pace of the closing ritornello-form movement.

Source: AllMusic (https://www.allmusic.com/composition/chamber-concerto- for-flute-or-violin-violin-bassoon-or-cello-continuo-in -g-minor-rv-106-mc0002377089 ).

Although originally created for Flute or Violin, Violin, Bassoon or Cello & Basso Continuo, I created this Arrangement of the Concerto in G Minor (RV 106) for Winds (Flute, Oboe & Bassoon) & Strings (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).