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.

Details regarding Vivaldi's early life are few. His father was a violinist in the Catherdral of Venice's orchestra and probably Antonio's first teacher. There is much speculation about other teachers, such as Corelli, but no evidence to support this. Vivaldi studied for the priesthood as a young man and was ordained in 1703. He was known for much of his career as "il prete rosso" (the red-haired priest), but soon after his ordination he declined to take on his ecclesiastical duties. Later in life he cited ill health as the reason, but other motivations have been proposed; perhaps Vivaldi simply wanted to explore new opportunties as a composer. It didn't take him long. Landing a job as a violin teacher at a girls' orphanage in Venice (where he would work in one capacity or another during several stretches of his life), he published a set of trio sonatas and another of violin sonatas. Word of his abilities spread around Europe, and in 1711 an Amsterdam publisher brought out, under the title L'estro armonico (Harmonic Inspiration), a set of Vivaldi's concertos for one or more violins with orchestra. These were best sellers (it was this group of concertos that spurred Bach's transcriptions), and Vivaldi followed them up with several more equally successful concerto sets. Perhaps the most prolific of all the great European composers, he once boasted that he could compose a concerto faster than a copyist could ready the individual parts for the players in the orchestra. He began to compose operas, worked from 1718 to 1720 in the court of the German principality of Hessen-Darmstadt, and traveled in Austria and perhaps Bohemia. Throughout his career, he had his choice of commissions from nobility and the highest members of society, the ability to use the best performers, and enough business savvy to try to control the publication of his works, although due to his popularity, many were published without his consent. Later in life Vivaldi was plagued by rumors of a sexual liaison with one of his vocal students, and he was censured by ecclesiastical authorities. His Italian career on the rocks, he headed for Vienna. He died there and was buried as a pauper in 1741, although at the height of his career his publications had earned a comfortable living.

One of four works composed by Vivaldi to feature the lute, RV 93 is a chamber concerto scored for solo strings and lute. During Vivaldi's lifetime, the lute was nearing the end of a long and distinguished career as a solo instrument, its final glory achieved in the suites of Bach and his fellow German, Silvius Weiss. The D major Concerto, along with the Trios for violin and lute in G minor, RV 63 and C major, RV 85 was composed in Bohemia during the 1730s. In this short, attractive three-movement work, Vivaldi exploits the instrument's timbres and ability to play arpeggios to appealing affect. It opens with an Allegro giusto whose ritornello contrasts a tuneful opening theme with a more lyrical motif in the minor mode. The soloist enters to the same material, which is worked out with typical alternation between soloists and strings. The central Largo is a reflective meditation by the soloist over sustained violin accompaniment and pizzicato bass, with an exquisitely simple shift from triple to duple meter, while the final Allegro brings a return to the high spirits of the first subject of the opening movement and has a bit of tarantella-like feel with its 6/8 rhythms. As with Vivaldi's other lute works, the concerto in D was not published during Vivaldi's lifetime. The autograph manuscript is preserved in the Biblioteca Nazionale, Turin.

Source: AllMusic (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/antonio-vivaldi-mn0000 685058/biography ).

Although originally created for Lute, 2 Violins, Strings & Basso Continuo, I created this Arrangement of the Concerto in D Major (RV 93) for 3 Oboes & Strings (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).