The son of a card maker, he had studied music as an amateur but soon had to devote himself to it as a professional as the economic conditions of the patema firm changed. He was in Florence in 1703 and then again in 1722, in Munich in 1722 but he spent most of his life in Venice, where for some time he played the violin in the theater orchestra; he became friends with Vivaldi and in the operatic field he was considered a fearsome rival of Francesco Gasparini. He was a very fertile composer (he wrote about fifty plays until 1740, of which only a few arias remain today, and a large copy of symphonies, concertos, sonatas, and other instrumental music), but from around 1740 he had abandoned all activities. skilled and, as such, enters with a specific function in the history of the flourishing Italian violin school of the eighteenth century. He deeply "feels" the spirit of the stringed instruments and this is perhaps why his most inspired and significant compositions are precisely the instrumental ones, where he was able to lavish his rich musical gifts. The typical representative of the Italian Baroque, he has a precise and subtle taste for the wide melodic bow, for the refined harmony, for, accurate instrumentation. Its rhythms are elastic and light, the speech is always noble and expressive, the orchestra merges into a single body capable of very different colors, preluding at some point to the developments of the Mannheim school, to the crescendo, and to meticulous attention to dynamics. With the introduction in op. 7 and 9 of wind instruments (oboes), he lays the foundations for an expansion of the orchestra, teaching how to blend the sonority of winds with that of strings. Furthermore, he identifies with greater clarity than that of his contemporary predecessors the concept of "symphony", understood as an instrumental piece in which all the instruments of the orchestra concur in equal measure to give life to the musical discourse, unlike the concert where the fragmentation was accentuated of the discourse between the "solos" and the orchestral "all". It is symptomatic that Bach studied in-depth, together with those of Vivaldi, the compositions of Albinoni, a musician whom he placed on the same level as the "Red Priest": and it was from Albinoni's compositions that Bach learned many tricks which remained typical throughout his most important production. It is not possible for Albinoni, as it is not for many other Italian and foreign Baroque authors, to go into the details of the individual compositions. His production is vast and it cannot be said that up to now there are pieces that have attracted the attention of the public in a particular way; nor among the collections of music he has published is there any that excels in a particular way over the others. The stylistic characteristics mentioned in the introductory part apply to his entire production. It should be borne in mind that many of Albinoni's compositions have remained handwritten, and are gradually resurrected by the love of some musicologists who are passionate about ancient Italian production.
Concerto in C major for two oboes, strings, and continuo, op. 9 n. 9
The oboe, introduced in Italy from France towards the end of the 17th century, was first used as a reinforcement of the arches. Àlbinoni was among the first Italian composers, together with the virtuoso oboist Giuseppe Sammartini, Alessandro Marcello,, and Vivaldi, to write solo concerts for this instrument, which at that time only had two or three keys. Of the "Venetian amateur, violin musician", as Albinoni himself liked to define himself, there remain 16 original compositions for oboe, equally distributed in op. 7 and in op. 9. The two collections, published in Amsterdam respectively by Roger in 1715 and by Le Cene in 1722, are symmetrically divided into four violin concertos (for strings in op. 7), four for oboe and four for two oboes. In these works the author demonstrates that he is fully acquainted with the technical and expressive possibilities of the instrument, which was introduced in San Marco in 1698 and at the Pietà around 1706, and that he did not limit himself to simply replacing the violin with the oboe.
Albinoni decided to dedicate the op. 9 to Maximilian Emmanuel II of Bavaria because he probably had heard of the skill of the oboists active in that court. The concerts were probably well-received since the "Venetian amateur" was subsequently invited to Munich to organize musical parties on the occasion of the wedding of Elector Charles Albert of Bavaria with Maria Amalia, the youngest daughter of Joseph I.
The Concerto in C major for two oboes, strings, and continuo op. 9 n. 9 is the penultimate of the "double" concerts in the collection, which generally includes more elaborate compositions than the models offered by op. 7. The key of C major is present in four of Albinoni's eight concertos for two oboes (of the remaining four, two are in D major and two in F and G major). This derives from the fact that often in the eighteenth century the oboe was assimilated for functions and sounds to the trumpet, whose natural tonalities were precisely those of C and D major.
In the first movement (Allegro, 4/4), the interventions of the orchestra are divided into three or four motifs, variously recomposed and elaborated in the repetitions of all. The solos have no thematic value but are limited to a melodic formulary, mainly for parallel thirds, made up of scales, arpeggios, rapid passages in sixteenth notes, or short cuts repeated or separated by a quaver rest.
In the central movement (Adagio, A minor) the ample lyrical breath of the oboes is embellished by the imitations between the soloists and the strings. It is important to note that here, as in the other slow tempos of Op. 9, Albinoni prefers to use a more elaborate musical texture, unlike the fashion of the time to simplify this movement to allow the free improvisation of the performer.
The refrained structure reappears in the last movement (Allegro, 3/8) which with the initial one shares not only the same formal structure but also an identical harmonic path: C major - G major - A minor - E minor - C major. The most evident difference between the two movements is constituted, in addition to the rhythm, by the behavior of the solos which, unlike the first movement, have a thematic character and develop frequent imitations.
Group: 2 oboes, 2 violins, violet, cello, continuo
Composition: about 1721 - 1722
Edition: Michel Charles Le Cene, Amsterdam, 1722
Dedication: Massimiliano Emanuele, Duke of Bavaria
Symphony in A major, for strings and continuo, op. 2 n. 5
Seven years older than Vivaldi, Tomaso Albinoni preceded him by thirteen in the publication of his first collection of Symphonies and Concerts in five op. 2, released in Venice from the presses of the Sala printer in 1700 (as is known, the twelve Concerts of Vivaldi's Estro Armonico saw the light in Amsterdam in 1713). The fundamental Albinonian opera also preceded Corelli's famous opera Vi by a good fourteen years, although it is confirmed by numerous testimonies that musical Europe did not have to wait for the posthumous publication (1714) of those masterpieces to admire and adopt them as models the terse architecture, since handwritten copies of the large Corellian Concerts had been circulating in the music halls and in the patrician archives since the last decade of the 17th century. Chronological milestones aside, Albinoni has the merit (obviously, not exclusive) of having defined, in the context of the Venetian musical civilization, the structures of the Baroque Concerto in the two "genres" of church and chamber: the first of these belongs to beautiful Symphony in A major, which, although it retains the old name dear to the Po Valley instrumentality of the late seventeenth century, must, in reality, be considered as a real big Concerto, divided into four typical movements, with episodic cuts of the solos against the mass of "all" . The composition opens with a Grave characterized by figurations, in pointed rhythm, closely imitated between the two violins, on the background of the two violas and the bass. This is followed by an Allegro fugato with two subjects that play a scenographic polyphony for five voices, from which the first and second violin emerge with short solo interventions. An Adagio to the relative minor, marked by fervid cantability, introduces the final Allegro in jig time, with lively fugue exposure.
Serious
Cheerful
Slowly
Cheerful
Organic: 2 violins, 2 violas, cello, continuo
Composition: 1694
Edition: Giuseppe Sala, Venice, 1700
Dedication: Ferdinando Carlo, Prince of Mantua
Symphony in G minor, for strings and continuo, op. 2 n. 11
Violinist and student of singing problems, Albinoni distinguished himself as a fruitful opera player in Venice, Mantua, Florence and Munich, writing about fifty melodramas largely lost: he also set to music for Metastasio's La Didone Abbata (1725). Together with Vivaldi, of whom he was a friend, he belongs to the glorious Venetian school of music, which in the eighteenth century had great importance and influence for the definition and development of the solo concert in the instrumental field.
Certainly Vivaldi's contribution to this form of musical expression is more universally known and appreciated, but it cannot be denied that Giuseppe Torelli, a Veronese from the instrumental school of Bologna, and Tomaso Albinoni were also important links in the process of transformation of the relationship between " solo "and" tutti ", for the purposes of a more varied and organic orchestral articulation, also to highlight the contribution of the performer in a virtuoso function. In particular, in Albinoni's production of instrumental music, the succession of the three tempos Allegro - Adagio - Allegro, which replaced the usual four tempos of the symphonies, contains three solo periods instead of two, offering examples of broader thematic elaboration.
It should also be noted that in the various Albinonian collections written for several strings and the solo instrument, whether violin or cello or oboe, the themes entrusted to the "solo" take on a broader and more articulated breath, as if to underline the composer's preference for that type of solo discourse that would have had wide resonance later, starting with Giuseppe Tartini and up to the whole of the nineteenth century. Also in the field of sonatas and concertos for strings, the importance of Albinoni is significant for the essentiality of the melodic motif and the taste for slow movements, charged with a marked lyricism, in a harmonic texture continuously focused on the relationship between tonic and dominant.
An example of Albinoni's musical characteristics can be obtained from listening to the Sonata a cinque in G minor, classified as the sixth of op. 2 first published in Amsterdam in 1695 and then in Venice in 1700 and included in the collection known as "Sinfonie e Concerti a cinque for two violins, alto, tenor, cello and bass". In this case, the term symphony should be understood in the classical sense of the word, as a composition intended for a rather compact instrumental ensemble divided into four movements in which two adagi tempos alternate with two cheerful tempos. The fact remains that these symphonies are stylistically chamber sonatas, with all the violin figures and flourishes of typical Venetian ancestry.
Slowly
Cheerful
Serious
Cheerful
Organic: 2 violins, 2 violas, cello, continuo
Composition: 1694
Edition: Giuseppe Sala, Venice, 1700
Dedication: Ferdinando Carlo, Prince of Mantua
Adagio in G minor for strings and continuo
Albinoni's Adagio in G minor is one of the most popular pieces. Cinema has used it over and over again, its slow pace - and that deep Baroque embroidery of strings - expresses an emotional impact suitable for the most moving scenes. A single quote? "Broken Years", a 1981 film by Peter Weir, but the list could be pages and pages long. But this Adagio is also played in funeral ceremonies, from Enrico Berlinguer to Margaret Thatcher. Yet the story of this masterpiece is more complicated than that. In fact, it would be the biggest fraud in the history of music.
This simple Baroque movement comes from a Venetian composer, Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni (Venice, 1671), who had studied singing and became a violinist, but soon lent his talent to both opera and instrumental composition. Albinoni referred to himself as "a Venetian amateur", but in truth, he made music his profession, until his death (in 1751). Since his works were never published, he was best known for his 99 Sonatas, 59 Concerts, and 9 Symphonies which were, in his time, favorably compared to the productions of his contemporaries Antonio Vivaldi and Arcangelo Corelli.
After Albinoni's death, much of his music went to the Saxon State Library, where it was kept before being completely destroyed in the bombings of 1945. And in that year, the musicologist Remo Giazotto wrote a biography of Albinoni ( the book is titled "Amateur Violin Musician Veneto"), cataloging the remaining works. A few years later, Giazotto claimed to have recovered a fragment of Albinoni's unpublished music from the Dresden Library: a small piece of manuscript, probably of the slow movement of a Sonata in G minor, which consisted only of basso continuo and six bars of melody. . The scholar then claimed to have completed Albinoni's single movement in homage to the composer and published, under the same name, the famous Adagio in G minor in 1958. The piece quickly entered the favor of musicians, classical and not only, and, above all, in those of the public. The Doors reinterpreted it on the 1978 album "An American player" and we could cite other reinterpretations, including those of Rock Progressive. The Adagio is even found in television commercials, all over the world.
According to musicologists, Giazotto's operation remains, in his own way, the testimony of a false historian turned into great success: in the twentieth century, he developed the Albinoni fragment by completing a work according to the rules - and the taste - of the Baroque. The triumph continues into the 21st century, so much so that the song was recently used entirely in the television series "The assassination of Gianni Versace". His melancholy and emotional power keeps his strength intact and I am sure that Albinoni would thank Giazotto for this homage.
