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On Monday, June 8, this exact date, in 1671, the Italian composer, Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni, was born. He is now only famous for his instrumental works, in particular the Adagio in G minor, which may NOT be his. However, Albinoni was famous in his day as an opera composer as well; his output includes operas, concertos, sonatas for one to six instruments, sinfonias, and solo cantatas.
In my first music article, Day Dreams, I stated I may never write another blog on a "Pop" tune unless there was something more to it other than "Pop". In the pantheon of "Pop" classical music, the Adagio fits right in with the Intermezzo from Cavaleria Rustican, the Humming Chorus from Madama Butterfly, Der König in Thule from La Damnation de Faust and many, many others, for sheer emotion evoking melodies.
In the case of the Adagio, it wrenches extreme emotion from a person whether it is used in a wedding or a funeral; both uses are of equal intensity. In the former, tears of utter joy, in the latter tears of the deepest grief.
The Adagio in Sol minore per archi e organo su due spunti tematici e su un basso numerato di Tomaso Albinoni (Mi 26) (Adagio in G minor for strings and organ, on two thematic ideas and a figured bass by Albinoni), also known as "Albinoni's Adagio", is a 1958 neo-Baroque composition often attributed to the 18th-century Venetian composer Tomaso Albinoni. In fact, the work was composed by a 20th-century musicologist and Albinoni biographer named Remo Giazotto. The piece was purportedly based on the discovery of a bass line by Albinoni in a manuscript fragment.
The Adagio 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. The ascription to Albinoni rests upon Giazotto's purported discovery of a
manuscript fragment (consisting of a few opening measures of the melody
line and basso continuo portion) from a slow second movement of an otherwise unknown Albinoni trio sonata.
According to Giazotto, he obtained the document shortly after the end of World War II from the Saxon State Library in Dresden which had preserved most of its collection, although its buildings were destroyed in the bombing raids of February and March 1945 by the British and American Air Forces. Giazotto concluded that the manuscript fragment was a portion of a church sonata (sonata da chiesa, one of two standard forms of the trio sonata) in G minor composed by Albinoni, possibly as part of his Op. 4 set, around 1708. Giazotto then constructed the balance of the complete single-movement
work based on this fragmentary theme. He copyrighted it and published it
in 1958 under a title which, translated into English, reads "Adagio in G
minor for strings and organ, on two thematic ideas and on a figured
bass by Tomaso Albinoni". Giazotto never produced the manuscript fragment, and no official record
has been found of its presence in the collection of the Saxon State
Library.
The Adagio has been used in many films, television programmes, advertisements, recordings, and books. It was used in 1961 as the main theme of the Alain Resnais film Last Year at Marienbad, the 1962 Orson Welles film The Trial, in 1974 the Werner Herzog film, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, the original 1975 version of the film Rollerball, the 1981 Peter Weir film Gallipoli, the 1983 film Flashdance and the 1991 film The Doors.
In music, the Renaissance 1974 album Turn of the Cards, the Richard Clayderman 1979 recording Sentimental Medley for his album Medley Concerto, in 1984 Yngwie Malmsteen in the Icarus Dream Suite Op. 4, the 1998 song Anytime, Anywhere from the album Eden by Sarah Brightman and Wolf Hoffmann recorded a neo-classical metal version, released in his Headbangers Symphony album in 2016.
There is a brilliant recording of the Adagio by Stjepan Hauser of Two Cellos as well as a "heavy Metal" version by Wolf Hoffmann on YouTube (links below).
Viewfinder links:
2cellos ~ Whole Lotta Love & Beethoven
Net links:
YouTube links:
2cellos ~ Whole Lotta Love & Beethoven
Stjepan Hauser ~ Adagio in G minor
Wolf Hoffmann ~ Adagio in G minor
