Tomaso Albinoni
The Venetian dilettante who put the oboe concerto into the publishing market
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Who he was
Tomaso Albinoni (1671–1751) was a Venetian composer. His family ran a paper business and was wealthy enough that he never needed a court or church post; he called himself a Venetian dilettante. He wrote operas from 1694 onwards, staged in Venice and elsewhere, and, more importantly, sets of instrumental music: Opp. 2, 5, 7, 9 and 10 were published in Venice and Amsterdam, and Op. 9 (1722) contains the oboe concertos.
His place
He represents another route through the late Baroque Italian concerto. Corelli and Vivaldi were professionals writing for ensembles they played in or trained; Albinoni wrote for the publishing market, and his collections were bought by amateur ensembles across Europe. His concertos are modest in length and polite in the relationship between soloist and band. The oboe had only just become a solo instrument, and Op. 9 belongs to the first published sets of oboe concertos.
What to hear
Listen first for the distance between solo and band. The oboe does not compete with the orchestra; it sits inside the string texture and sings long phrases, and the band answers between them. Then listen for the breath of the slow movements. They rest almost entirely on melodic breathing and a supporting bass, with very little ornament. Finally listen for the problem of the Adagio. The famous Adagio in G minor was put together in the twentieth century by the scholar Remo Giazotto from a fragment, and published in 1958. What you hear is a modern piece, not a Baroque original.
Key works
- Oboe Concerto in D minor, Op. 9 No. 2
- Concerto collections Opp. 7 (1715), 9 (1722), 10 (1735)
- Operas, including Zenobia (1694) and dozens more
- Adagio in G minor, arranged by Giazotto in 1958, not an original work
Influence
His concertos put the oboe on the solo platform; such works were then published and played by amateur ensembles across Europe, and the market for instrumental music grew with them. The Adagio became one of the most popular "Baroque" pieces of the twentieth century, which ties Albinoni's name to something he did not write and makes studying him unusually awkward.
Listen in the library
All tracks from midicn-lib — inline badge is the license tier (C1 commercial / C2 non-commercial / C3 study only).
Sources
- 阿尔比诺尼生平、威尼斯出版的作品集与歌剧目录，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 的 Albinoni 条；本文为原创表述
- 《g 小调慢板》1958 年由贾佐托整理出版的经过，参通行巴洛克协奏曲研究；实例说明为本站听辨提示
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.