Baroque or Not? The Adagio in G Minor Mystery

I’m not 100% sure but I think the first time I heard Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor was in the late 70’s or early 80’s watch­ing TV com­mer­cials. Back then it was espe­cially pop­u­lar to use clas­si­cal music as back­drop for TV ads, at least here in Austria.

Vivaldi’s Four Seasons for a cof­fee brand, some local Bank (ab)used Mozart for their life insur­ance pack­age  — what the Adagio was sup­posed to ped­dle, I don’t remember.

I do remem­ber though, that this haunt­ing piece some­how grabbed me and I couldn’t get it out of my head and would con­stantly whis­tle and hum the melody any­time I had seen the TV spot.

After the ad got can­celed, I for­got about the piece, until...

The Swedish Virtuoso

A few years later — enter Yngwie Malmsteen.

Both hailed as a gui­tar god and con­demned as an ego­man­i­cal, repet­i­tive shred­der — the swedish gui­tar vir­tu­oso is a con­tro­ver­sial fig­ure. In his “Icarus Dream Suite Op. 4″ I expe­ri­enced a flash­back when I heard the beloved TV com­mer­cial melody again.

Thanks to the liner notes, I learned that the melody was a quote and came from the Adagio in G Minor by Italian Baroque com­poser Tomaso Albinoni.

How come I had never heard of Albinoni before?

Typical for a teenager I thought it unfair that the cre­ator of this great melody remained obscure and unknown in com­par­i­son to other Baroque com­posers like Bach, Vivaldi and Handel. I even tried to find solace in the thought that despite the lack of the composer’s fame, the melody still seemed to stay popular.

And isn’t the music what mat­ters, anyways?

3 Adagio Versions

Speaking of the music...
Here’s 3 ren­di­tions that I’d like to share with you.

1) For Organ and Strings

First in the “clas­si­cal” for­mat for organ and strings:

2) Orchestra and Guitar

Dominic Miller, whom most peo­ple only know as Sting’s gui­tarist, recorded a superb ver­sion on his “Shapes” album.

3) Solo Guitar

And finally, a solo gui­tar tran­scrip­tion by one of my favorite gui­tarists, YouTube phe­nom­e­non Per-Olov Kindgren.

What about the Mystery?

Initially, this blog post was sup­posed to end here. My orig­i­nal inten­tion was to fea­ture the Adagio and maybe muse about why a cer­tain piece just speaks to you for a para­graph or two.

Imagine my sur­prise when I came across this dur­ing my research:

The Adagio in G minor for strings and organ con­tinuo is a neo-baroque com­po­si­tion by Remo Giazotto first pub­lished in 1958. It is usu­ally referred to as “Albinoni’s Adagio”, or “Adagio in G minor by Albinoni, arranged by Giazotto”, but it has been estab­lished as an entirely orig­i­nal work by Giazotto.

Source: Wikipedia

Not by Albinoni?
How can Albinoni’s Adagio NOT be by Albinoni?
What’s going on here?

It was sup­pos­edly based on a frag­ment of a second-movement con­tinuo from a “Sonata in G minor” by Tomaso Albinoni pur­port­edly found among the ruins of the old Saxon State Library, Dresden, after it was fire­bombed by the Allies dur­ing World War II, but since Giazotto’s death in 1998 it has emerged that the piece is all his com­po­si­tion, as no such frag­ment has been found or recorded to have been in pos­ses­sion by the Saxon State Library.

Source: Wikipedia

Adding New Layers

To me this adds a whole new layer to the piece. Not just the emo­tional feel­ing of con­ceived injus­tice that Albinoni has to suf­fer. No, now there’s all those addi­tional ques­tions like:

Irrelevant ques­tions?

Maybe...

But there’s some­thing that I like to call “The Story” play­ing an impor­tant part to art appre­ci­a­tion. “The Story” is some­thing that can change your per­cep­tion and enrich your life immensely.

How does it work?

I’ll let you know in one of my next posts.

How’s that for a cliffhanger?

Share Your Thoughts

• In the mean­time, please let us know which ver­sion of the Adagio you enjoyed the most.
• Any other great ren­di­tions you’d like to share?
• What other piece of music had a sim­i­lar hold on you as the Adagio did for me?

Like this blog post? Buy me a cup of tea or leave a tip...

No related posts.

Tagged with: Adagio in G Minor • Albinoni • appreciation • Baroque • classical music • composer • Handel • Kindgren • Miller • Mozart • Vivaldi • Yngwie Malmsteen

Filed under: Music

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and never miss an update!