MUSIC PROGRAM NOTES Adagio in G Minor Program Notes by McKinley Glasser
“
The Adagio’s enduring
popularity and myriad
transcriptions attest
to the music’s power, whether or not it is truly Albinoni’s.
Tomaso Albinoni (1671-1751) Classical music is littered with hoaxes and intentional misattributions. There’s the work of Fritz Kreisler, the violin virtuoso who “found” concerti by Vivaldi, Bocherini and others but admitted later in life that they were his own. As recently as the 1990s, Winfried Michel threw scholars into an uproar by “discovering” six Haydn sonatas only to reveal he had secretly composed them. Whether this is done out of modesty, mischief, or for more selfish reasons, the practice is a documented part of music history. An infamous example is the Adagio in G Minor, attributed to 18th-century Venetian composer Tomaso Albinoni but composed largely by 20th-century scholar and Albinoni expert Remo Giazotto. The story goes that Giazotto found a fragment of a manuscript by Albinoni in the Saxon State Library after the end of World War II. He copyrighted and published it in 1958 under the title “Adagio in G minor for Strings and Organ, on Two Thematic Ideas and on a Figured Bass by Tomaso Albinoni.” Giazotto never reproduced the fragment, and toward the end of his life claimed sole credit for the piece. Regardless of the work’s true pedigree, it has earned its place alongside authentic works by Italian masters. The single-movement work features a hauntingly beautiful melody that takes stylistic cues from Albinoni and his Baroque contemporaries, but also favourably resembles the arias of Puccini or Mascagni. A somber descending bass grounds the ethereal solo line, lending a timeless gravitas. Perhaps this ageless dignity has led to the work’s ubiquity; it was featured in the 2016 film Manchester by the Sea, prompting New Yorker critic Anthony Lane to ask, “Should Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor not be banned onscreen? Any piece of music that has been used for Rollerball, Gallipoli, and Flashdance has, by definition, been squeezed dry.” The Adagio’s enduring popularity and myriad transcriptions attest to the music’s power, whether or not it is truly Albinoni’s.
