Composers

Tomaso Albinoni

String ensemble
Violin
Voice
Soprano
Oboe
Orchestra
Cello
Mixed chorus
Viola
Trumpet
Concerto
Sonata
Secular cantatas
Cantatas
Sinfonia
Operas
Opera seria
Arias
Libretto
Writings
by alphabet
Sinfonia in G major, T.Si 812 Concerti a cinque, Op.5Sinfonie e Concerti a 5, Op.26 Sonate da chiesa, T.So 26-31Violin Sonata in G minor, T.So 29Oboe Sonata in C major12 Trio Sonatas, Op.112 Trattenimenti armonici, Op.612 Balletti à tre, Op.3Balletti a cinqueViolin Sonata in D minor, T.So 26Sonata à 5 in G minor, Op.2 No.11Concerto for 2 Oboes in D major, Op.7 No.8Violin Concerto in B-flat major, Op.5 No.1Oboe Concerto in B-flat major, Op.9 No.1118 Cantate da CameraViolin Sonata in B minor, T.So 31Sonata à 5 in G major, Op.2 No.1Violin Concerto in C major, T.Co 2bTrio Sonata in G minorViolin Concerto in B-flat major, Op.7 No.10Sinfonia in G minor, T.Si 7Violin Sonata in G minor, T.So 30Violin Concerto in A major, T.Co 5Sonata à 5 in C major, Op.2 No.3L'Eraclea, R.IV.B.5.5Violin Concerto in G major, T.Co 4Sinfonia in C major, T.Mi 2Violin Sonata in F major, T.So 28Violin Sonata in E minor, T.So 2718 Secular Cantatas, T.204Violin Sonata in G minor, T.So 33Sonata à 5 in A major, Op.2 No.5Recorder Sonata in G majorSonata à 5 in C minor, Op.2 No.7Violin Sonata in B-flat major, T.So 32Sonata à 5 in B-flat major, Op.2 No.9Oboe Concerto in D minor, Op.9 No.2Violin Sonata in B-flat major, T.So 34La Statira, T.201Sonata in C major12 Concerti a cinqueAmarissime pene, T.204.03Il bel ciglio d’Irene, T.204.01Violin Sonata in A minor, Op.6 No.6Già dal mar sorgea l’alba, T.204.02Clori nel ciel d’amor lucida stella, T.204.15Figlia d'un dolce amoreQuest’è l’ora fatale, T.204.11Senti, bel sol, deh senti, T.204.10Lontan da te, mia vita, T.204.06Di tante ree sciagure, T.204.12Donna illustre del Lazio, T.204.18Fileno caro amico, T.204.13Il penar senza speranza, T.204.09Violin Concerto in D major, T.Co 3Dubbio affetto il cor mi strugge, T.204.16Lontananza crudel, mi squarci il core, T.204.04Poiché al vago seren di due pupille, T.205Son giovinetta spiritosettaRivolse Clori un giorno, T.204.17Sorgea col lume in fronte, T.204.05In rea procella di mar infidoSovra molle origliere, T.204.14Sovra letto d’erbette, T.204.07Non perché è il sol turbatoViolin Concerto in F major, Op.9 No.10Il concilio de' pianetiVolto caro del mio bel soleGli eccessi della gelosia, T.19912 Concerti a cinque, Op.1012 Concerti a cinque, Op.7Alcina delusa da RuggeroConcerto for 2 Oboes in C major, Op.7 No.11Concerto for 2 Oboes in C major, Op.7 No.5Concerto for 2 Oboes in D major, Op.9 No.12Concerto for 2 Oboes in G major, Op.9 No.6Concerto in D major, T.Mi 3Il nascimento dell’AuroraIl prodigio dell'innocenzaIl Tigrane, re d'ArmeniaIl trionfo di ArmidaLi stratagemmi amorosiL’incostanza schernitaOboe Concerto in B-flat major, Op.7 No.3Oboe Concerto in C major, Op.7 No.12Oboe Concerto in C major, Op.9 No.5Oboe Concerto in D major, Op.7 No.6Oboe Concerto in F major, Op.7 No.9Sinfonia in B-flat major, T.Si 6Sinfonia in D major, T.Si 4Trio Sonata in F major, Op.1 No.2Violin Concerto in A major, Op.7 No.7Violin Concerto in C major, Op.2 No.10Violin Concerto in D minor, T.Mi 10Violin Concerto in F major, Op.2 No.2Violin Concerto in F major, T.Mi 15Violin Concerto in G major, Op.2 No.8Zenobia, regina de' Palmireni, T.202Concerto for 2 Oboes in C major, Op.7 No.2Concerto for 2 Oboes in C major, Op.9 No.9Concerto for 2 Oboes in F major, Op.9 No.3Oboe Concerto in G minor, Op.9 No.8Trio Sonata in A minor, Op.1 No.6Trio Sonata in B minor, Op.1 No.8Violin Concerto in B-flat major, Op.9 No.1Violin Concerto in D major, Op.9 No.7
Wikipedia
Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni (8 June 1671 – 17 January 1751) 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 modern 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 in Venice, 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 well-documented period in which he lived. In 1694 he dedicated his Opus 1 to the fellow-Venetian, Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni (grand-nephew 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 Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke 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 Albinoni's 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.
Most of his operatic works have been lost, largely because they were not published during his lifetime. However, nine collections of instrumental works were published. These were met with considerable success and consequent reprints. He is therefore known more as a composer of instrumental music (99 sonatas, 59 concerti and 9 sinfonie) today. In his lifetime these works were compared favourably with those of Arcangelo Corelli and Antonio Vivaldi. His nine collections published in Italy, Amsterdam and London were either dedicated to or sponsored by an impressive list of southern European nobility. Albinoni wrote at least fifty operas, of which twenty-eight were produced in Venice between 1723 and 1740. Albinoni himself claimed 81 operas (naming his second-to-last opera, in the libretto, as his 80th). In spite of his enormous operatic output, today he is most noted for his instrumental music, especially his oboe concerti (from 12 Concerti a cinque op. 7 and, most famously, 12 Concerti a cinque op. 9). He is the first Italian known to employ the oboe as a solo instrument in concerti (c. 1715, in his op. 7) and publish such works, although earlier concerti featuring solo oboe were probably written by German composers such as Telemann or Händel. In Italy, Alessandro Marcello published his well-known oboe concerto in D minor a little later, in 1717. Albinoni also employed the instrument often in his chamber works.
His instrumental music attracted great attention from Johann Sebastian Bach, who wrote at least two fugues on Albinoni's themes (Fugue in A major on a theme by Tomaso Albinoni, BWV 950, and Fugue in B minor on a theme by Tomaso Albinoni, BWV 951) and frequently used his basses for harmonic exercises for his pupils. Part of Albinoni's work was lost in World War II with the destruction of the Dresden State Library. As a result, little is known of his life and music after the mid-1720s.
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.