Tomaso Albinoni

Possessed of that dazzling yet sometimes melancholic energy that courses through so much music of the Venetian Baroque, Albinoni was a prolific and urbane dilettante (he styled himself Dilettante Veneto). Born in Venice in 1671, he was spared from having to trade on his considerable skills as a violinist, singer and composer thanks to the good fortune of a prosperous family background. But he didn’t rest on his moneyed laurels. Over 50 operas—although he insisted he’d written more than 80—slaked operatic thirst in Venice and beyond. Indeed, in 1722 Albinoni presented two of them in Munich at the Elector’s invitation. Drawn to the oboe, his Concerti a cinque Op. 7 and Concerti a cinque Op. 9 (1715/1722) popularised the instrument in Italy, where his reputation ranked alongside those of Corelli and Venice’s concerto king, Vivaldi. Even J.S. Bach paid him the compliment of purloining some of his music for compositional and teaching purposes, so it’s ironic that Albinoni is best known today for a work he didn’t write: the so-called “Adagio in G Minor for Strings and Organ” (1958), a romanticised reinvention by musicologist/composer Remo Giazotto.