Adagio in G minor (Giazotto)

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The Adagio in G minor is a composition for strings and organ published in 1958 by the Italian musicologist and composer Remo Giazotto , allegedly based on fragments by Tomaso Albinoni . Today it is one of the most popular works of classical music .

Origin and authorship

The Adagio in G minor was first published in 1958 by the Milanese music publisher Ricordi under the title remo giazotto: adagio in sol minore per archi e organo su due spunti tematici e su un basso numerato di tomaso albinoni (lower case in the original). In the foreword it was stated that the piece was part of an Albinoni trio sonata in G minor without an opus number , of which only a printed numbered bass and two handwritten fragments of the 1st violin (a total of six bars) have survived. These fragments were sent to the editor Remo Giazotto by the Dresden State Library immediately after the Second World War , after he had already published his thematic directory of Albinoni's works (contained in the monograph Tomaso Albinoni , Milan 1945). Giazotto had initially suspended the figured bass and supplemented it with a short introduction and then created a melodic context on its basis using the existing melody fragments. Since the figured bass creates an "accentuated mystical mood", the editor considered it appropriate to entrust the figured bass to the organ instead of the harpsichord .

Both on the title page and in the foreword, the piece was clearly identified as Giazotto's composition (a copyright notice also stated that the Adagio was an original composition protected by applicable copyright law). In the success story of the work that began soon after its publication, Albinoni was almost always named as the composer and Giazotto only as the arranger; occasionally the name Giazottos was even dropped completely.

While the question of the author was ultimately irrelevant for the general public, musicology began to take an interest in the original sources. Between 1968 and 1978 there was a correspondence about this between the Saxon State Library Dresden, several music researchers and the Ricordi publishing house, which, however, remained inconclusive: Giazotto did not provide any further information about his sources, and the Saxon State Library found that the "alleged fragment of the famous Adagio, ascribed to Albinoni, is not in our music collection and has never been here". The Adagio is apparently a “free invention” from Giazotto “from A to Z”.

In 1992 Giazotto commented once again on the genesis of the work in a letter to the music journalist Piero Buscaroli. In contrast to his foreword from 1958, he now wrote that he had already found the fragment in early 1940, when his Albinoni book was finished in manuscript, among the materials that had been sent to him by German libraries for his studies. It was “a piece of paper” “on which the four bars of the theme and the figured bass were written” (the latter contradicts his earlier statement that he had the figured bass in print). In order to disperse, he had worked out the theme to a melody, just as he had earlier had to do with his composition teacher Paribeni.

His last assistant, Muska Mangano, found a photocopy of a photograph of a handwritten sheet of music in Giazotto's estate that corresponds to this description. It actually contains the figured bass and almost six bars of the violin part of the Adagios , but is from more recent times, probably from the first half of the 20th century. It bears the German heading “Albinoni's Trio Sonate G minor” and a stamp on which only the words “Dresden. Photograph of “are legible. Whether it comes from a Dresden library or was only photographed in Dresden, who made it and whether it is a real composition by Albinoni remains to be seen.

Musical character

The Adagio is made up of three parts. After an eight-bar introduction, carried only by the figured bass made up of organ and deep pizzicato strings, the high strings begin with an elegiac, melancholy melody that consists mainly of descending motifs and is sequenced several times . This part is repeated. This is followed by a cadenza-like middle section in which a solo violin enters into dialogue with the resting figured bass. The final third part is a variation of the first part (including the introduction) with several short appearances by the solo violin and a passionate upswing by the string ensemble towards the end.

The length of the piece (duration 7–12 minutes) shows that it can hardly be a real sonata movement by Albinoni; Above all, however, it is the (late) romantic style that clearly refers the work to the 19th or 20th century. Both melodically and harmonically, it is more reminiscent of Puccini or Mascagni than Albinoni. The main theme (which was already contained in Giazotto's presumed source) also shows a striking resemblance to a passage from the first movement of Mozart's Horn Concerto in E flat major KV 495 and to the theme of the second movement ( Adagio sostenuto ) from Piano Trio No. 1 in E flat - Major op. 33 by Louise Farrenc . The descending melodic line can also be found in the Adagio ma non troppo (Arioso dolente) of the 3rd movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 31 in A flat major, Op. 110 .

Effect and reception

Although the Adagio is stylistically very different from Albinoni's real works, it made a major contribution to the rediscovery of this baroque composer, largely forgotten for two centuries. Numerous chamber orchestras and ensembles have included it in their repertoire and recorded it on record or CD, often in combination with other works by Albinoni. There were also arrangements for a wide variety of line-ups (from brass ensembles to guitar solos). Even rock bands attacked the piece and adapted it in their style, such. B. Ekseption (1970), Renaissance (1974), The Doors (1978), Yngwie Malmsteen (1984) or Muse (2006). It has also been used in several films, including The Trial (1962), Red Sun (1970), Everyone for Himself and God Against All (1974), Rollerball (1975), Moon Base Alpha 1 (Season 1, Episode 23, 1976), Gallipoli (1981), Flashdance (1983), Welcome to Sarajevo (1997), Raus aus Åmål (1998) and Manchester by the Sea (2016).

The Adagio is now one of the best-known and most popular pieces of “classical music” and is included in most compilations of baroque “hits”. According to the assessment of the musicologists Wulf Dieter Lugert and Volker Schütz from 1998, Giazotto “as the copyright composer of the piece is by far the most earning contemporary composer of the last 50 years”.

Individual evidence

  1. See the facsimile of the title page .
  2. See the facsimile of the preface .
  3. ^ Letter from the Sächsische Landesbibliothek Dresden dated January 14, 1998, quoted in: Wulf Dieter Lugert, Volker Schütz: "Adagio à la Albinoni", Praxis des Musikunterrichts 53 (February 1998), p. 13.
  4. ^ Letter from the Saxon State Library in Dresden (subject librarian Marina Lang) dated September 24, 1990, reproduced as a facsimile in Lugert / Schütz (1998), p. 15.
  5. Nicola Schneider: La tradizione delle opere di Tomaso Albinoni a Dresda , tesi di laurea specialistica, Facoltà di musicologia dell'Università degli studi di Pavia, Cremona 2007, pp. 181f.
  6. ^ Facsimile and transcription in Schneider (2007), pp. 184 and 188; New set on IMSLP .
  7. In a copy of the 1st edition of the Adagios in the library of the Milan Conservatory there is a handwritten note by Giazotto that the fragments are being kept in the “Biblioteca Statale di Lipsia ”, ie in Leipzig (Schneider 2007, p. 186f.). Unclear and unverifiable sources are also found in other publications by Giazotto (examples ibid., P. 186).
  8. ↑ The fact that Giazotto no longer incorporated the fragment into his Albinoni catalog raisonné, although he would have had five years before the book went to print, could indicate that he himself had doubts about its authenticity - or knew that it was inauthentic.
  9. Horn solo in bars 97–100 and 105–108; see. Score on IMSLP , audio sample on YouTube .
  10. See audio sample on YouTube .
  11. See audio sample on YouTube .
  12. Lugert / Schütz (1998), p. 13.