Thomas Albinoni. Quiz game on the most famous works
Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni (Italian: Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni, June 8, 1671, Venice, Republic of Venice - January 17, 1751, Venice) - Venetian composer and violinist of the Baroque era.
During his lifetime, he was known mainly as the author of numerous operas, but at present he is famous and mainly his instrumental music is regularly performed.
It is noteworthy that the most famous work - Adagio in G minor for string instruments and organ, known as Adagio Albinoni - belongs not to Albinoni, but to Remo Giazotto.
Adagio Albinoni
The Adagio in G minor for strings and organ, known as Albinoni's Adagio, is a work by Remo Giazotto, first published in 1958.
According to Giazotto, the play is a reconstruction based on a fragment from the music of Tomaso Albinoni, found in the ruins of the Saxon State Library in Dresden, destroyed during the Allied air raids at the end of World War II.
The play, from the point of view of criticism, is stylistically different from the undoubted works of the Baroque in general and Albinoni in particular. In 1998, the well-known musicologist and music educator, professor at the University of Lüneburg, Wulf Dieter Lugert, in collaboration with Volker Schütz, published in the journal Praxis des Musikunterrichts a review of the Adagio authorship problem, including fragments of letters from the Saxon State Library, which claim that such a musical fragment is from Albinoni's legacy is not in the library collection and has never been found in it, so the work as a whole is an unconditional hoax of Giazotto.
Thomas Albinoni. Major works (1)
The most famous works are presented. If you did not find a famous song in the list, please indicate it in the comments so that we can add the work to the list.
The works are ordered by popularity (recognizability) - from the most popular to the least popular. For the purpose of familiarization, the most famous fragment of each melody is offered.
🙂 Greetings to new guests of the site and regular readers! The article "Tomaso Albinoni: Biography" contains brief information about the life of the Venetian composer and violinist of the Baroque era.
Tomaso Albinoni
Tomaso was born into a wealthy merchant family, the patrician Antonio in 1671. In his time he was a popular opera composer. Nowadays, his instrumental compositions can often be heard at classical music concerts.
The biography of this remarkable master, unfortunately, has not been studied enough. However, there are records to whom specifically Albinoni dedicated his works.
Dear friend, leave your affairs for 5 minutes and listen to "Adagio" ↓
And it is also known that his father, who loved music and did not miss a single theatrical premiere, sent his son to study with the most famous Venetian violinist at that time, whose name history has not preserved.
In parallel, he took vocal lessons, as he loved to sing from an early age. Teaching was easy for him. Gradually, he began to surprise his teacher with a truly virtuoso violin. And three years later the teacher became the first listener and connoisseur of the works of his student.
His career developed rapidly. Twenty-three-year-old Tomaso ventured to dedicate Opus No. 1 to Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, who was known as a generous philanthropist and patron of young musicians, incl. Corelli.
In 1700, the young musician entered Duke F. Carlo as a court violinist. As recorded in archival documents, Opus No. 2 and several instrumental pieces were dedicated to the duke.
The following year, Albinoni writes Opus No. 3, the most famous and popular among music lovers, and dedicates it to Ferdinand III, Duke of Tuscany.
Composer's personal life
Tomaso married when he was already 34 years old, Margherita Raimondi. His close friend Antonino Biffi, the bandmaster of St. Mark's Cathedral, was invited to the wedding.
Venice. St. Mark's Cathedral in St. Mark's Square, next to the Doge's Palace.
At this time, Albinoni had already gained fame not only in his homeland, but also in European cities. He composes not only music for operas, but also sonatas, concertos for violin or oboe. Maximilian II, Elector of Bavaria, invites the composer as a conductor to the premiere of his opera.
For a long time, the popular composer of music, after the death of his wife, lived alone in his native Venice. He hardly talked to anyone. The composer died in 1751, when he was almost 80 years old, presumably from a diabetic crisis.
Tomaso Albinoni created 48 operas. Many of them saw the light on the Venetian theater stage. The rest have not survived to this day (the handwritten scores in Dresden burned down in a fire in 1944).
I. Bach liked his music, he wrote fugues on the themes of Albinoni. Bach offered his bass parts to his students, developing in them a sense of beautiful harmony.
This video has more information
Tomasso Giovanni Albinoni(1671-1750) - Venetian composer and violinist of the Baroque era.
short biography
Albinoni, along with A. Vivaldi, is the largest representative of the Venetian school of the late Baroque. Born in Venice in a wealthy bourgeois family. From his youth he studied violin, singing, counterpoint. Albinoni initially gained fame as an enlightened music lover (he signed his compositions as a "Venetian dilettante"). Later, his activities acquired a professional character, since 1711, on the title pages of Albinoni's work, it is indicated - "violinist musician".
Albinoni is the author of more than 50 operas that were performed on the stages of Venetian theaters, and cantatas (now completely forgotten). Albinoni's instrumental work is of primary importance. His symphonies, violin concertos, sonatas and trio sonatas are notable for their polyphonic mastery and plasticity in the development of thematic material. In symphonies and concertos, he anticipated some of the stylistic features of the classical symphony. J. S. Bach, who highly appreciated the works of Albinoni, made adaptations of 2 fugues from the collection of trio sonatas (Nos. 3 and 8).
Artworks:
operas:"Griselda" (1703)
"Abandoned Dido" (1725)
"Artamena" (1740)
collections of trio sonatas
symphonies
concerts
sonatas
Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni (Italian: Tommaso Giovanni Albinoni, June 8, 1671, Venice, Republic of Venice - January 17, 1751, Venice) was an Italian composer of the Baroque era. During his lifetime, he was known mainly as the author of numerous operas, but at present he enjoys fame and is regularly performed, mainly his instrumental music. The so-called Adagio Albinoni in G Minor, often attributed to him, and one of the most frequently performed and recorded pieces of music, is actually a work by the 20th-century Italian composer Remo Giazotto.
Biography
Born to Antonio Albinoni (1634-1709), a wealthy merchant and Venetian patrician, he studied violin and singing. Relatively little is known about his life, especially considering the position of the composer and the rather small number of surviving documents from his era. In 1694, he dedicated his Opus 1 to fellow Venetian Pietro, Cardinal Ottoboni (great-nephew of Pope Alexander VIII. Ottoboni was an influential patron in Rome of several composers, notably Corelli. In 1700, Albinoni entered the service of the Duke of Mantua, Fernando Carlo, as to whom he dedicated his Opus 2, a collection of instrumental pieces, in 1701 he wrote Opus 3, which became very popular, and dedicated it to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand III.
In 1705 he married Antonino Biffi, Kapellmeister of St. Mark in Venice was his witness and, apparently, his friend. Apparently, Albinoni had no other connections with the most important musical institutions in Venice. At the same time, he achieved his initial fame as an opera composer in many Italian cities such as Venice, Genoa, Bologna, Mantua, Udine, Piacenza and Naples. At the same time, he created a large number of instrumental music. Until 1705, he wrote mainly trio sonatas and violin concertos, later, until 1719, he composed solo sonatas and oboe concertos.
Unlike most composers of the time, as far as is known, he never aspired to a position in the court or the church, but had his own means and the opportunity to compose music independently.
In 1722, Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria, to whom Albinoni dedicated a cycle of 12 sonatas, invited him to direct his opera.
In 1742, Albinoni's collection of violin sonatas was published in France as a posthumous edition, so researchers have long believed that Albinoni was dead by that time. Later it turned out, however, that he lived in Venice in obscurity: a record from the parish of St. Barnabas, where he was born, states that Tommaso Albinoni died in 1751 from diabetes.
Music and influence on contemporaries
He wrote about 50 operas, 28 of which were staged in Venice between 1723 and 1740, but today he is best known for instrumental music, especially oboe concertos.
His instrumental music came to the serious attention of Johann Sebastian Bach, who wrote at least two fugues on Albinoni's themes and constantly used his bass lines to practice his students in harmony.
A significant part of Albinoni's heritage was lost during World War II with the destruction of the Dresden State Library, so little is known about his life and music after the mid-1720s.
The story of one melody known as Adagio Tomaso Albinoni
(material taken from the Internet)
Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni (Italian: Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni, June 8, 1671, Venice, Republic of Venice - January 17, 1751, Venice) was an Italian composer of the Baroque era. During his lifetime, he was known mainly as the author of numerous operas, but at present he enjoys fame and is regularly performed, mainly his instrumental music.
His Adagio in G minor, (actually a late reconstruction) is one of the most frequently recorded.
Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni, unlike most composers of that time, as researchers suggest, never sought to get a position at court or church, but had his own means and the opportunity to compose music independently. He came from a bourgeois environment and from childhood had the opportunity to learn singing and playing the violin.
He lived at the same time and in the same place as Antonio Vivaldi. Albinoni himself very modestly assessed his composing abilities and signed his works as a "Venetian amateur" - "dilettante venete".
Albinoni's instrumental compositions found due appreciation from Johann Sebastian Bach. He used them in his work.
Widely known during his lifetime, after the death of Albinoni he was quickly forgotten, repeating the fate of Vivaldi and Bach. Albinoni's work for a long time remained known only to a narrow circle of musicologists and connoisseurs of early music. This situation continued until the middle of the last century.
In 1945
In the preface to Tomaso Albinoni's 1958 edition of Adagio in g-moll, Remo Giazotto claimed to have restored the work from a small fragment he found in the Milan Library in the early forties.
There was simply no one to check the musicologist, the greatest expert on the composer's work. And even nowhere - a significant part of Albinoni's heritage was lost during the Second World War with the death of the Dresden State Library.
In 1992, Remo Giazotto wrote to a German journalist that, while preparing a biography of Tomaso Albinoni, at the beginning of 1940, he discovered four bars of music for the violin and a general bass for them (bass general - basso numerato - was used by Italian composers starting from the XVI c. to insure against plagiarists).
However, no one has ever seen the full score of the bass general. True, the assistant Remo Giazotto kept a photocopy of six measures and the part of the general bass, but musicologists doubt that the music recorded there is from the Baroque era.
The authority of the professor of music history at the University of Florence, the author of biographies of many famous Italian composers, was so high that he was believed unconditionally. Now, few doubt that the author of Adagio is Remo Giazotto himself.
The Venetian baroque composer Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni (1671 - 1751) became famous throughout the world for a work he did not compose.
In 1998, the well-known musicologist and music educator, professor at the University of Lüneburg, Wulf Dieter Lugert, in collaboration with Volker Schütz, published fragments of letters from the Saxon State Library, stating that such a musical fragment from the Albinoni heritage is not in the library collection and has never been found in it , so that the work as a whole is an absolute hoax by Remo Giazotto.
Like it or not, time will tell. Let the experts figure it out. Music is important to us! And it is such that there are a huge number of transcriptions, arrangements, interpretations of this amazing masterpiece, both orchestral and vocal.
How many performers then recorded this melody, do not count. And how many independent songs were created on its basis.
Here are just some of the performers of this melody from the collection of Andrey Malygin, who lives in Milan - Udo Yorgants (Germany) - adagio, Lara Fabian - adagio Albinoni, Demis Roussos - adagio, B. Eifman staged the ballet "Cognition" for V. Mikhailovsky and also considers that this music belongs to Albinoni, the melody of the romance of the great Russian composer G. Sviridov from "A. S. Pushkin's Snowstorm" is also in tune with Albinoni's Adagio.
How are all these tunes similar? And they are similar in the emotions that arise from listening to them. Sadness, like and light, but tearing the heart. Sobbing to such music, and nothing more. And when the music "penetrates" so strongly emotionally, then sometimes the melodic and harmonic contours in the memory are leveled, there remains a certain collective image, or something ....
Some say that the Adagio is undoubtedly a "fake of Giazotto" and no fragments of Albinoni's works have ever been found in the Saxon Library.
"Fake" is too strong a statement. Remo Giazotto himself never, in fact, claimed that the work belongs to Albinoni - only that his "Adagio" is a reconstruction based on found fragments, with a total duration of only six (!) bars.
Yes, and the original title of the work sounded like this: "Remo Giazotto. Adagio in G minor for strings and organ based on two fragments of the theme and a digital bass by Tomaso Albinoni."
But, either Giazotto's desire to wishful thinking (probably, he did find fragments of the work, but the fact that they belonged to Albinoni, judging by subsequent research, is unlikely), or some combination of circumstances, played a cruel joke with him. The popularity of Giazotto himself is rather dubious, but his work became known throughout the world under the authorship of Albinoni, at the same time gaining considerable popularity for Albinoni himself.
Professor of Music History Remo Giazotto (1910 - 1998) took with him to the grave the secret of the creation of the work of the composer, before whom he bowed.
