Albinoni Adagio

Tomaso Albinoni Adagio in G Minor Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni born on 8 June 1671 and died on 17 January 1751. Albioni was an Italian Baroque composer. His output includes operas concertos sonatas for one to six instruments sinfonias and solo cantatas. While famous in his day as an opera composer he is known today for his instrumental music especially his concertos. He is also remembered today for a work called Adagio in G minor attributed to him but said to be written by Remo Giazotto a 20th century musicologist and composer who was a cataloger of the works of Albinoni. Born in Venice Republic of Venice to Antonio Albinoni a wealthy paper merchant he studied violin and singing. Relatively little is known about his life which is surprising considering his contemporary stature as a composer and the comparatively welldocumented period in which he lived. In 1694 he dedicated his Opus 1 to the fellowVenetian Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni grandnephew of Pope Alexander VIII. His first opera Zenobia regina de Palmireni was produced in Venice in 1694. Albinoni was possibly employed in 1700 as a violinist to Charles IV Duke of Mantua to whom he dedicated his Opus 2 collection of instrumental pieces. In 1701 he wrote his hugely popular suites Opus 3 and dedicated that collection to Ferdinando demedici Grand prince of Tuscany. In 1705 he married Margherita Rimondi Antonino Biffi the maestro di cappella of San Marco was a witness and evidently was a friend of Albinoni. Albinoni seems to have no other connection with that primary musical establishment in Venice however and achieved his early fame as an opera composer at many cities in Italy including Venice Genoa Bologna Mantua Udine Piacenza and Naples. During this time he was also composing instrumental music in abundance: prior to 1705 he mostly wrote trio sonatas and violin concertos but between then and 1719 he wrote solo sonatas and concertos for oboe. Unlike most contemporary composers he appears never to have sought a post at either a church or noble court but then he had independent means and could afford to compose music independently. In 1722 Maximilian II Emanuel Elector of Bavaria to whom Albinoni had dedicated a set of twelve concertos invited him to direct two of his operas in Munich. Around 1740 a collection of Albinonis violin sonatas was published in France as a posthumous work and scholars long presumed that meant that Albinoni had died by that time. However it appears he lived on in Venice in obscurity a record from the parish of San Barnaba indicates Tomaso Albinoni died in Venice in 1751 of diabetes mellitus. Enjoy!,

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