ExclusiveAlbinoni: Oboe Concerto in D minor, Op. 9, no.2 - III. Allegro

【Classical music and nature 古典音樂小站】Tomaso Albinoni: Oboe Concerto in D minor, Op. 9, no.2 - III. Allegro. This beautiful piece was played by Paul Arden-Taylor. It has Creative Commons license (Public Domain Mark 1.0 Universal) and is provided through www.musopen.org.

Tomaso Albinoni's Concertos à cinque, op. 9, were first published in 1722. Of the twelve works that make up the collection, the Oboe Concerto in D minor (No. 2) and the Double Concerto in F major (No. 3) are probably the best known. They were dedicated to Maximilian Emanuel, Duke of Bavaria.

Born in Venice in 1671, Tomaso Albinoni was the eldest son of a wealthy paper merchant who owned several shops in Venice. It is not known who Albinoni's teachers were - although Legrenzi's name has been suggested - but we do know that Tomaso took violin and singing lessons. With his inherited family wealth, Albinoni had no need to accept a musical position in the church or at court: his independent means allowed him to remain a dilettante. However, his intentions were clearly to devote himself to music, and on his father's death he effectively relinquished control of the family business, although he continued to receive a share of the profits for a short time. In 1721, following a legal dispute, the business was taken over by an old creditor of his father's, and Albinoni's private income virtually ceased.

Albinoni first came to prominence as a composer in 1694 in the opera house, where his melodic style proved very popular. Over the next forty-seven years he wrote more than fifty operas, as well as some thirty cantatas, around sixty sonatas and at least sixty concertos. Although some of Albinoni's music has been criticised for lacking harmonic finesse, he was undoubtedly a remarkable melodist and, perhaps because of his rather isolated lifestyle, a highly individual composer. Nowhere is this individuality more evident than in the Twelve Concertos, Opus 9, first published in Amsterdam by Le Cene in 1722. Albinoni divided the concertos into three different types of ensemble: four are for two oboes and strings, four for solo oboe and four for solo violin. All twelve follow the three-movement pattern, but they differ from earlier concertos in their extended proportions, particularly in the slow movements, which are particularly expressive.

The Concerto in D minor for Oboe and Strings (Op 9 No 2) is Albinoni's finest solo concerto. An energetic first movement, characterised by dotted rhythms, is followed by a ravishing slow movement. Accompanied by repeated chords in the lower strings and a harp-like configuration in the first violin, the soloist has a soaring line: here is Albinoni at his most appealingly melodic. The final movement keeps both soloist and orchestra busy with an imitative arpeggiated figure and plenty of counterpoint.

The Concerto in C for trumpet, three oboes, bassoon and continuo is an unusual work. There is no information as to the occasion for which this concerto may have been written, but we can guess that it was probably for an outdoor event, where a solo trumpeter and the local oboe band might have added musical colour to a festive occasion. Certainly the trumpeter must have been a good player, but Albinoni gives equally demanding solo 'breaks' to the first oboe and the obbligato bassoon. No one would suggest that this is music of greatness - though it is certainly tuneful - but it presents an unusual and fascinating timbre.

If Albinoni's catalogue of concertos seems large, Antonio Vivaldi's collection of at least 500 is extraordinary, with 350 concertos for solo instruments and a further 150 written for two or more players. If Vivaldi did not invent the ritornello form, he was certainly the first composer to use it regularly in the outer movements of his concertos, and he was one of the first to standardise the three-movement form.

The video was shot by Christian Schlegel and edited by Wenjing Ma.