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Tomaso Albinoni

 
Artist: Tomaso Albinoni
 
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Tomaso Albinoni
  • Period: Baroque (1600-1749)
  • Country: Italy
  • Born: June 14, 1671 in Venice, Italy
  • Died: January 17, 1751 in Venice, Italy
  • Genres: Concerto, Miscellaneous Music, Opera, Orchestral Music

Biography

Not much is known about the life of Tomaso Albinoni. He was the eldest son of a wealthy Venetian paper merchant. The family was very well off, and in his adult life Albinoni was financially independent. He thought of himself as an amateur musician. Although completely trained in his art, he did not seek professional employment in music. He was a fine performer on the violin, and one of the most prolific writers of the violin concerto in the high Baroque. Initially Albinoni attempted to compose church music, but did not meet with much success. However in 1694, with the publication of 12 trio sonatas and the production of his opera Zenobia, Regina de Palmireni, Albinoni had found his milieu. For the rest of his life he would compose cantatas, operas, instrumental sonatas and concerti. His operas were popular throughout Italy, and are very original, although not well known today. In 1705, he married the soprano opera singer Margherita Rimandi. Together they had six children, while she continued with her singing career. Tomaso Albinoni meanwhile had inherited a portion of his father's estate, and began a singing school. In 1722, he published a collection of 12 concerti. He also was invited to Munich where a production of his opera I veri amici was given as part of the festivities honoring the marriage of the Prince Elector to the daughter of the Emperor. This occurred at perhaps the height of Albinoni's fame.

Albinoni was extremely prolific and is said to have composed over 80 operas, 40 solo cantatas, 79 sonatas, 59 concerti, and 8 sinfonias. He composed oboe concertos, treating the oboe as a lyrical, melodic instrument, much as the voice would have been treated. His compositions are extremely individual, and he possessed great gifts as a melodist. His compositions were much admired by Johann Sebastian Bach, who used themes of Albinoni's in several of his keyboard fugues. Two of these themes come from Albinoni's work Opera Prima. Bach also used to practice realizing the continuo harmonies using bass lines of Albinoni, and pieces of Albinoni's were used by Bach for teaching. Albinoni was at one time accorded a place in the history of music next to Arcangelo Corelli and Antonio Vivaldi. At the beginning of the twentieth century, editions of his works were published, and his violin music is still performed. ~ Rita Laurance, All Music Guide
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Music Encyclopedia: Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni
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(b Venice, 8 June 1671; d there, 17 Jan 1751). Italian composer. Born of wealthy parents, he was a dilettante musician, never seeking a church or court post, though he had contact with noble patrons. He concentrated on instrumental and secular vocal music and had early successes with his opera Zenobia (1694, Venice) and 12 trio sonatas op.1 (1694). His reputation grew, with operas staged in other cities, beginning with Rodrigo in Algeri (1702, Naples); later operas, such as I veri amici (1722, Munich), were staged abroad. In all he wrote over 50 operas, several other stage works and over 40 solo cantatas; few works date from after 1730.

Albinoni's instrumental works, mostly for strings, were especially popular; ten sets were published in his lifetime. Bach based four keyboard fugues on subjects from the op.1 sonatas. While Albinoni's concertos were less adventurous and soloistic than Vivaldi's, they were probably the earliest consistently in three movements, and his oboe concertos op.7 (1715) were the first by an Italian to be published. The sonatas (for one to six instruments with continuo) are mostly in four movements. His music is individual, with a strong melodic character and, especially in the early works, formally well balanced.

works:
Instrumental music
  • 5 sets of 12 concs. opp. 2, 5, 7, 9, 10, str (opp. 7 and 9 with obs)
  • c30 other concs., sonatas, balletti,. sinfonias
  • 42 trio sonatas, incl. opp. 1. 3, 8
  • 29 vn sonatas, incl. opp. 4, 6
Dramatic music
  • over 50 operas etc (c10 survive)
Vocal music
  • mass
  • over 40 solo cantatas

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni
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(born June 8/14, 1671, Venice — died Jan. 17, 1751, Venice) Italian composer. Born to a wealthy Venetian family, he was not obliged to work for a living and became a highly prolific composer. He had more than 50 operas successfully produced between 1694 and 1741, though few survive. His approximately 60 concertos became popular; he also wrote more than 80 sonatas for various instrumental combinations and many solo cantatas. These works are distinguished above all by their melodic charm.

For more information on Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni, visit Britannica.com.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Tomaso Albinoni
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Albinoni, Tomaso (älbēnô'nē) , 1671–1751, Italian violinist and composer. He wrote more than 50 operas, 40 cantatas, and instrumental works of many kinds. His orchestral music was admired by Bach, who used several of Albinoni's themes in his own compositions. Albinoni's surviving works include violin concertos, trio sonatas, and oboe concertos.
 
Wikipedia: Tomaso Albinoni
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Tomaso Albinoni

Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni (8 June 1671, Venice, Republic of Venice – 17 January 1751, Venice, Republic of Venice) was a Venetian Baroque composer. While famous in his day as an opera composer, he is mainly remembered today for his instrumental music, some of which is regularly recorded.

Contents

Biography

Born to Antonio Albinoni, a wealthy paper merchant in Venice, he studied violin and singing. Relatively little is known about his life, especially 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 Pietro, Cardinal Ottoboni (grand-nephew of Pope Alexander VIII); Ottoboni was an important patron in Rome of other composers, such as Arcangelo Corelli. 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 was married; Antonino Biffi, the maestro di cappella of San Marco was a witness, and evidently was a friend of Albinoni's. 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 composers of his time, he appears never to have sought a post at either a church or noble court, but then he was a man of independent means and had the option 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 1751, of diabetes.

Music and influence

He wrote some fifty operas, of which twenty-eight were produced in Venice between 1723 and 1740, but today is most noted for his instrumental music, especially his oboe concertos.

His instrumental music greatly attracted the attention of Johann Sebastian Bach, who wrote at least two fugues on Albinoni's themes and constantly used his basses for harmony exercises for his pupils.

Part of Albinoni's work was lost in World War II with the destruction of the Dresden State Library, thus little is known of his life and music after the mid-1720s.

The Albinoni Adagio in G minor is a 1958 composition entirely composed by Remo Giazotto, which Giazotto claimed to have based on fragments from a slow movement of an Albinoni trio sonata he had been sent by the Dresden State Library.[1]

Works

See List of compositions by Tomaso Albinoni and List of operas by Albinoni.

Media
Concerto for 2 Oboes in F Major, op. 9 No. 3 - 1. Allegro
Performed by the Advent Chamber Orchestra with oboists Humbert Lucarelli and Edino Biaggi
Concerto for 2 Oboes in F Major, op. 9 No. 3 - 2. Adagio
Performed by the Advent Chamber Orchestra with oboists Humbert Lucarelli and Edino Biaggi
Concerto for 2 Oboes in F Major, op. 9 No. 3 - 3. Allegro
Performed by the Advent Chamber Orchestra with oboists Humbert Lucarelli and Edino Biaggi
Problems listening to these files? See media help.

Footnotes

 This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (September 2008)
  1. ^ >Letter from the Saxon State Library (consultant Marina Lang), 24 September 1990, reproduced in facsimile by Wulf Dieter Lugert and Volker Schütz, „Adagio à la Albinoni“, Praxis des Musikunterrichts 53 (February 1998), pp. 13–22, here 15.

References

  • Eleanor Selfridge-Field, Venetian Instrumental Music, from Gabrieli to Vivaldi. New York, Dover Publications, 1994. ISBN 0-486-28151-5
  • Michael Talbot: "Tomaso Albinoni", Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed June 25, 2005), (subscription access)

External links

Audio Clips


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

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Artist. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Music Guide ® , a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Music Encyclopedia. The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Tomaso Albinoni".  Read more

 
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