# Tomaso Albinoni



## neoshredder

Seriously no thread for this very enjoyable music from this composer? I got the Complete Concertos from I Musici. That comes with the classic Adagio piece.


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## tdc

I'm not overly familiar with this composer aside from the famous Adagio which I believe has been shown by modern scholars to not have actually been composed by Albinoni. (The work is likely a modern fraud from what I've read). 

Any recommendations?


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## Art Rock

I would recommend exploring his oboe concertos.


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## mmsbls

His Concertos in OP 5,7, and 9 are wonderful. Both the oboe and violin works are beautiful. As with much Baroque music, many works sound rather similar, but I frequently sample from these works when I'm in the mood for Baroque.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

I don't like that modern adagio thing. The oboe concertos are quite nice but I don't listen to Albinoni often.


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## neoshredder

Yeah I agree with the Oboe Concertos. They are amazing. Especially the second movement of No. 2 in D minor.


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## Llyranor

Any recommendations for HIP recordings of his concerti? I'm presently eyeing the Op9 one with Hogwood/AAM. I also see Standage has Op5/7/9/10, but they incomplete(?).

Op9/2's Adagio is out of this world!





Apparently it's fairly famous, but I've never heard it before (I believe I've only heard the spurious Adagio) - this seems like a nice gateway drug into the world of Albinoni, though. Recommendations?


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## neoshredder

Hearing Op. 10 for the first time. Some really interesting stuff.


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## Cheyenne

I have opus 2, 5, 7 and 9. Opus 1, 4, 6 and indeed 10 have also been recorded, but I could never find 3 and 8; and on some sites I can find apparently out of print recordings of one of his two surviving operas. He was one of my first favorites.


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## Blake

neoshredder said:


> Hearing Op. 10 for the first time. Some really interesting stuff.


Checking this out now, and it's very good.


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## Vaneyes

I think I've had this rec. for close to 25 years. :tiphat:

View attachment 31063


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## Sid James

I just put this review on current listening, I thought I'd add it to Albinoni's guestbook too:










*Albinoni *_12 Concerti a cinque, Op. 5_
- I Musici, soloists: Pina Carmirelli, violin concertante; Anna Maria Cotogni, violin; Michael S. Murray-Robertson and Carol Figeroid, violas

*Albinoni *has the singular and strange distinction of being a composer whose best known composition wasn't actually written by him. The Adagio for organ and strings is largely a concoction by an Italian academic of the early 20th century, Remo Giazzotto. Prior to recently acquiring this disc, I had heard little of Albinoni's actual music, and owned none of it other than that famous Adagio.

Not surprisingly, apart from the slow movements of these concertos having a bit of that reflective or emotional quality of Giazzott's fabrication, this music is quite different. All of these *concertos for strings* last only 4 to 7 minutes, they are exercises in conciseness of thought and extremely well crafted. There is variety here too, for example four of them are in minor keys (less used in the Baroque era) and some also have energetic middle sections as pivots rather than the usual slow movement.

Stylistically and chronologically, Albinoni fits in well between Corelli and Vivaldi. These concertos are moving beyond Corelli's concerti grossi, but they are not as virtuosic as Vivaldi's ones where to be. But like those other two Venetians, Albinoni's music speaks to warmth and a kind of life force that easily brings Canaletto's images of the city to mind.

Albinoni described himself as an amateur musician only composing for his own pleasure, but after the age of forty he began to compose for money. He was extremely prolific, for example some 40 operas flowed from his pen (many of them however now lost), and had a job as a choir conductor. J. S. Bach was among his many admirers.


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## deprofundis

*Albinoni*

His adagio will stay in my mind until im six feet Under...
I can't honnestly tell you anyone that dare criticized this 
piece of work is a profane.His music brought tears of joy
in my eyes and make me smile(you probaly know the feeling
even if it's cliche to say)

It's relentless and melancholic nothing quite like it hey?
Nothing sound quite like it, simple melodic driven and sad.

This music help me pass though time depression or sadness, 
to overcome it.

Im looking for something similar that will strike an emotional cord in me
*any other Albinoni symphony Worth the admittion? or another composer
old or new in the same league?*

greetings ladies and gentelmens :tiphat:


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## KenOC

It's a fine Adagio, though it's not really by Albinoni. If this especially appeals to you, a search of Albinoni's actual output may be disappointing.


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## neoshredder

KenOC said:


> It's a fine Adagio, though it's not really by Albinoni. If this especially appeals to you, a search of Albinoni's actual output may be disappointing.


Wasn't for me. His Oboe Concerto in D Minor would my choice.


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## Richannes Wrahms

Don't miss his precious *Concerti e Sinfonie Op. 2* dedicated to Charles IV, Duke of Mantua.






Even when all these first opuses are collections of relatively short pieces that some call 'exercises', I find them very moving. Some of them remind me of Bruckner's adagios, that sort of soul crushing sweet use of dissonance.


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## RogerWaters

neoshredder said:


> Wasn't for me. His Oboe Concerto in D Minor would my choice.


Seconded. Op. 9 No. 2

The sets of oboe concertos (opp. 9 and 7) by Il Fondamento (for a vigorous HIP sound), on the one hand, and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra (for a slightly thicker and warmer sound), on the other, are my favorites.

Does anyone else like Albinoni more than Vivaldi?


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## Animal the Drummer

Yes! Nothing against Vivaldi, whose music is never less than entertaining IMO and sometimes more than that, but for me Albinoni's output has an extra touch of class and sheer polish which elevates it above that of any other Italian Baroque composer.


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## RogerWaters

Animal the Drummer said:


> Yes! Nothing against Vivaldi, whose music is never less than entertaining IMO and sometimes more than that, but for me Albinoni's output has an extra touch of class and sheer polish which elevates it above that of any other Italian Baroque composer.


Nice to know I'm not alone. I also like Corelli a lot. Geminiani's concertos I find somewhat boring, but his sonatas are very nice.


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## Ras

I always thought that *the famous Adagio was the publisher's work - not Albinoni*'s, but recent research according to Wikipedia have concluded differently based on this Italian source wiki says: 
(Source: Nicola Schneider, "La tradizione delle opere di Tomaso Albinoni a Dresda", tesi di laurea specialistica (Cremona: Facoltà di musicologia dell'Università degli studi di Pavia, 2007): pp. 181-86.)



> >>>The famous Adagio in G minor, the subject of many modern recordings, is thought by some to be a musical hoax composed by Remo Giazotto. However, a discovery by musicologist Muska Mangano, Giazotto's last assistant before his death, has cast some doubt on that belief. Among Giazotto's papers, Mangano discovered a modern but independent manuscript transcription of the figured bass portion, and six fragmentary bars of the first violin, "bearing in the top right-hand corner a stamp stating unequivocally the Dresden provenance of the original from which it was taken". This provides support for Giazotto's account that he did base his composition on an earlier source.<<<


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## Ras

*Portrait of Albinoni copied from Wiki:*


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## Ras

By Albinoni I know these opus-numbers - What am I missing?
*OPUS: 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 10*
Are the rest of the works lost???


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## HerbertNorman

I have come to love this composer's works the last few weeks! It's a pity a part of his repertoire was lost due to the bombing of Dresden.
Oboe concertos are my favourites , but in general his concertos and orchestral works appeal to me and so do the operas.


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