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Tomaso Albinoni
Tomaso was born into a wealthy patrician merchant family Antonio in 1671. At one time he was a popular opera composer. Nowadays, his instrumental compositions are often heard at concerts. classical music.
Unfortunately, the biography of this wonderful master has not been sufficiently studied. However, there are records to whom specifically Albinoni dedicated his works.
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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 has not been preserved in history.
In parallel, he took vocal lessons, since with early years loved to sing. Studying was easy for him. Gradually, he began to amaze his teacher with a truly virtuoso mastery of the violin. And three years later, the teacher became the first listener and connoisseur of his student's works.
His career developed rapidly. Twenty-three-year-old Tomaso dared to dedicate Opus No. 1 to Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, who was reputed to be a generous philanthropist and patron of young musicians, incl. Corelli.
In 1700 the young musician entered the court violinist to Duke F. Carlo. 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 the Duke of Tuscany Ferdinand III.
Personal life of the composer
Tomaso married when he was 34 years old, to Margarita Raimondi. His close friend Antonino Biffi, the conductor 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 conductor to the premiere of his opera.
For a long time, the popular music composer lived alone in his native Venice after the death of his wife. He practically did not communicate with anyone. The composer passed away in 1751, when he was almost 80 years old, presumably from a diabetic crisis.
Tomaso Albinoni has created 48 operas. Many of them saw the light of day on the Venetian theatrical stage. The rest have not survived to this day (the handwritten scores located in Dresden burned down in a fire in 1944).
I. Bach liked his music, he wrote fugues on themes of Albinoni. Bach offered his bass parts to his students, developing in them a sense of beautiful harmony.
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Tomaso 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 into a wealthy bourgeois family. FROM youthful years studied violin, singing, counterpoint. Albinoni initially gained fame as an enlightened music lover (he signed his works as a "Venetian dilettante"). Later, his activity acquired a professional character, since 1711 on the title pages of Albinoni's work it is indicated - “musician-violinist”.
Albinoni is the author of more than 50 operas staged on the stages of Venetian theaters and cantatas (now completely forgotten). Albinoni's instrumental creativity is of prime importance. His symphonies, violin concertos, sonatas and trio sonatas are distinguished by their polyphonic skill, plasticity of the development of thematic material. In symphonies and concerts, he anticipated some of the stylistic features of a classical symphony. JS Bach, who highly appreciated the works of Albinoni, made arrangements of 2 fugues from the collection of trio sonatas (Nos. 3 and 8).
Works:
operas:"Griselda" (1703)
"Abandoned Dido" (1725)
Artamena (1740)
collections of trio sonatas
symphonies
concerts
sonatas
Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni (Italian Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni, June 8, 1671, Venice - January 17, 1751, Venice)
Only a few facts are known about the life of T. Albinoni, an Italian violinist and composer. He was born in Venice into a wealthy family of a wealthy merchant and a Venetian patrician and, apparently, could calmly study music, not worrying much about his financial situation. In 1711 he stopped signing his compositions "Venetian dilettante" (delettanta venete) and called himself musico de violino, thereby underlining his transition to the status of a professional. Where and with whom Albinoni studied is unknown. It is believed that J. Lehrenzi. After getting married, the composer moved to Verona. Apparently, for some time he lived in Florence - by at least, there, in 1703. performed one of his operas ("Griselda", libre. A. Zeno). Albinoni visited Germany and, obviously, showed himself there as an outstanding master, since it was he who was given the honor to write and perform in Munich (1722) an opera for the wedding of Prince Carl Albert. Nothing more is known about Albinoni, except that he died in Venice. The composer's works that have come down to us are also few, mostly instrumental concerts and sonatas. However, being a contemporary of A. Vivaldi, J. S. Bach and G. F. Handel, Albinoni did not remain in the ranks of composers whose names are known only to music historians. In the heyday of the Italian instrumental art of the Baroque, against the background of the work of the outstanding masters of the XVII half of the XVIII in. - T. Martini, F. Veracini, G. Tartini, A. Corelli, G. Torelli, A. Vivaldi, etc. - Albinoni said his significant artistic word, which over time was noticed and appreciated by descendants. ... But there is evidence of recognition of his work during his lifetime. In 1718 a collection of 12 concerts of the most famous at that time was published in Amsterdam italian composers... Among them is Albinoni's Concerto in G major, the best in this collection. The great Bach, who carefully studied the music of his contemporaries, singled out Albinoni's sonatas, the plastic beauty of their melodies, and on two of them he wrote his clavier fugues.
Concerto in G major for flute and strings
Allegro
Adagio
Allegro
GRAMATICA Antiveduto St Cecila with Two Angels
Compared to Vivaldi's concerts, their scope, brilliant virtuoso solo parts, contrasts, dynamics and passion, Albinoni's concerts stand out for their restrained severity, exquisite elaboration, and melody. Albinoni wrote about 50 operas, mainly on historical and mythological subjects (more than Handel), on which he worked throughout his life.
The thin, plastic, melodic fabric of Albinoni's instrumental concerts in every voice is attractive to the modern listener with that perfect, strict beauty, devoid of any exaggeration, which is always a sign of high art.
Concerto for two violins in D minor
Allegro
Adagio
Allegro
Quite often, composers who were famous during their lifetime are quickly forgotten after death, and only after many tens and hundreds of years they experience a revival. So it was with Bach, Vivaldi, others now famous composers... However, the discovery of the work of the Italian composer Tomaso Albinoni is especially the fact that the society of the 20th century discovered it thanks to a work that the composer himself would hardly even recognize as his own. This is the famous Adagio for organ and strings, based on a fragment of a manuscript opened in the Dresden State Library after World War II by Remo Giazzotto, a Milanese music researcher who at the time was completing a biography of Albinoni and a catalog of his music. Only the bass part and six bars of the melody have survived, probably from the slower part of the sonata trio. Giazzotto "recreated" the now famous "Adagio" around 1945, based on a surviving fragment. Since he assumed the piece was written for church performance, he added an organ. Ironically, it is thanks to the work, most of which is the creation of the 20th century, that the renaissance of Albinoni's work swept around the world.
Concerto in D minor
Allegro e non presto
Adagio
Allegro
Concerto in G minor
Allegro
Adagio
Allegro
According to Giazzotto, the piece is a reconstruction based on a piece from music Tomaso Albinonifound on the ruins of allied aircraft destroyed in raids at the end of World War II Saxon State Library in Dresden. Remo Giazzotto published the first scientific biography of Albinoni in 1945, in the 1720s. who worked in Germany. The fragment found, according to Giazzotto's preface to the first edition of the Adagio, contained a bass part and two fragments of the first violin part with a total duration of six measures. The first publication of the play was entitled in its entirety: Remo Giazzotto. Adagio in G minor for strings and organ based on two fragments of a theme and digital bass by Tomaso Albinoni (ital. Remo Giazotto: adagio in sol minore per archi e organo su due spunti tematici e su un basso numerato di Tomaso Albinoni).
The play, from the point of view of criticism, stylistically differs from the undoubted works of the Baroque in general and Albinoni in particular. In 1998, the renowned musicologist and music educator, professor at the University of Lüneburg, Wolf Dieter Lugert, in collaboration with Volker Schütz, published in the Praxis des Musikunterrichts a review of the problem of Adagio's authorship, including fragments of letters from the Saxon State Library, stating that such a piece of music from Albinoni's heritage is absent in the library's collection and has never been found in it, so the work as a whole is an unconditional forgery of Giazzotto.
One of the most performed musical works second half of XX century
The famous "Adagio"
Albinoni-Giazotto
Tommaso Giovanni Albinoni (Italian Tommaso Giovanni Albinoni, June 8, 1671, Venice, Republic of Venice - January 17, 1751, Venice) is an Italian composer of the Baroque era. During his lifetime he was known mainly as the author of numerous operas, but now he enjoys fame and is regularly performed, mainly by him. instrumental music... The so-called Adagio Albinoni in G minor, often attributed to him and one of the most frequently performed and recorded works of music, is in fact a work by the 20th century Italian composer Remo Giazzotto.
Biography
Born into the family of Antonio Albinoni (1634-1709), a wealthy merchant and Venetian patrician, studied violin and singing. Relatively little is known about his life, especially given the position of the composer and the relatively small number of surviving documents from his era. In 1694 he dedicated his Opus 1 to his Venetian compatriot Pietro, Cardinal Ottoboni (great-nephew of Pope Alexander VIII. Ottoboni was an influential patron of several composers in Rome, in particular Corelli. In 1700 Albinoni entered the service of the Duke of Mantua Fernando Carlo as To him he dedicated his Opus 2, a collection of instrumental pieces, and 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, conductor of St. Mark was his witness in Venice and, apparently, his friend. Albinoni apparently had no other connections with the most important musical institutions in Venice. At the same time, he achieved his original fame as opera composer in many cities in Italy 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 trios of sonatas and violin concertos; later, until 1719, he composed sonatas solo and oboe concertos.
Unlike most composers of the time, as far as is known, he never sought a position at court or church, but had his own means and the ability 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, a collection of Albinoni's violin sonatas was published in France as a posthumous edition, so researchers have long believed that Albinoni was dead by that time. It was later revealed, 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 of 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 for oboe concertos.
His instrumental music attracted the serious attention of Johann Sebastian Bach, who wrote at least two fugues on themes from Albinoni and constantly used his bass lines to exercise his students in harmony.
Much of Albinoni's legacy 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) - Italian composer of the Baroque era. During his lifetime, he was known mainly as the author of numerous operas, but at present he enjoys 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 the researchers suggest, never sought to get a position at the court or church, but had his own means and the ability to compose music independently. He came from a bourgeois environment and from childhood had the opportunity to study singing and playing the violin.
He lived at the same time and in the same place with Antonio Vivaldi. Albinoni himself very modestly assessed his composing abilities and subscribed to his works as a "Venetian amateur" - "dilettante venete".
Albinoni's instrumental compositions were duly appreciated by 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. For a long time, Albinoni's work remained known only to a narrow circle of musicologists and connoisseurs of early music. This situation persisted until the middle of the last century.
In 1945
In the preface to the 1958 edition of the Adagio g-moll by Tomaso Albinoni, Remo Giazzotto 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 legacy was lost during the Second World War with the destruction of the Dresden State Library.
In 1992, Remo Giazzotto wrote to a German journalist that while preparing a biography of Tomaso Albinoni in early 1940, he discovered four bars of notes for violin and a general bass for them (general bass - basso numerato - was used by Italian composers since XVI c. to insure against plagiarists).
However, no one has ever seen the full score of the bass general. True, a photocopy of six bars and the part of the general-bass remained with Remo's assistant Giazzotto, but musicologists doubt that the music recorded there is of the Baroque era.
The authority of the professor of the history of music of the University of Florence, the author of biographies of many famous Italian composers, was so high that he was believed unconditionally. Nowadays, few people doubt that the author of Adagio is Remo Giazzotto himself.
The Venetian composer of the Baroque era Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni (1671 - 1751) became famous all over the world for a work he did not compose.
In 1998, the famous musicologist and music teacher, professor at the University of Lüneburg, Wolf Dieter Lugert, in collaboration with Volker Schütz, published fragments of letters from the Saxon State Library, which claim that such a musical fragment from the Albinoni heritage is absent in the library collection and has never been found in it. , so the composition as a whole is an unconditional hoax by Remo Giazzotto.
Time will tell whether it is true or not. Let the experts figure it out. The music itself is important to us! And it is such that there is a huge number of transcriptions, arrangements, interpretations of this amazing masterpiece, both orchestral and vocal.
How many performers later recorded this melody is innumerable. And how many independent songs were created on its basis.
Here are just some of the performers of this melody from the collection of Andrei Malygin, who lives in Milan - Udo Yerganz (Germany) -adagio, Lara Fabian -agio Albinoni, Demis Roussos - adagio, B. Eifman staged the ballet "Knowledge" for V. Mikhailovsky and also counts that this music belongs to Albinoni, the melody of the romance of the great Russian composer G. Sviridov from "Alexander Pushkin's Blizzard" is also consonant with Adagio Albinoni.
How are all these melodies alike? And they are similar in emotions that arise from listening to them. Sadness, seemingly light, but breaking the heart. Weep to such music, and nothing more. And when the music emotionally "penetrates" so strongly, 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 "forgery of Giazzotto" and that there have never been any fragments of Albinoni's works in the Saxon Library.
"Fake" is too loud a statement. Remo Giazzotto himself never actually claimed that the work belongs to Albinoni - only that his "Adagio" is a reconstruction based on the fragments found, with a total duration of only six (!) Bars.
And the original title of the work sounded like this: "Remo Giazzotto. Adagio in G minor for strings and organ based on two fragments of a theme and a digital bass by Tomaso Albinoni".
But, either the desire of Giazzotto to pass off the wishful thinking (probably, he did find fragments of the work, but the fact that they belonged to Albinoni, judging by subsequent studies, is unlikely), or some combination of circumstances, played a cruel joke with him. The popularity of Giazzotto himself is rather dubious, but his work became known throughout the world under the authorship of Albinoni, at the same time gaining considerable popularity and Albinoni himself.
The professor of the history of music Remo Giazzotto (1910 - 1998) took with him to his grave the secret of the creation of the work of the composer, before whom he admired.