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New Transcription & Fingering, Tomaso Albinoni, "Adagio"

New Transcription & Fingering, Tomaso Albinoni, "Adagio"

Tomaso Albinoni, Adagio, Tremolo Introduction

I have wanted to transcribe this amazingly beautiful work for many years but was never comfortable with the material I had at hand in order to start my work. Everything concerning the Adagio and how it was found and what we know of it today is actually covered by a thick mystery. I gathered several transcriptions and added my own sections in order to finally come up with a version that would add to the repertoire of the classical guitar. The transcriptions available were either over simplified or hyper complicated... finding middle ground was practically impossible.

Bach loved the work of Tomaso Albinoni and the Venetian musician was an inspiration to several Bach works.  This fact was all I needed to know in order to gather enough strength an finally come up with my own transcription. 

It is worth mentioning that Albinoni was not  a "professional musician", but a prolific violin player son of a wealthy merchant Venetian family and as always within rich families, one was allowed to play an instrument but "not too well". Rich people at the time hired professional musicians to be entertained. 

This amazing piece of music is often referred to as "Albinoni's Adagio", or "Adagio in G minor by Albinoni arranged by Giazotto", this description is actually incorrect. Giazotto discovered a small manuscript fragment ( a few opening measures of the melody line and basso continuo portion) from a slow sonata second movement. Giazotto obtained the document shortly after the end of World War II from the Saxon State Library in Dresden. Albinoni composed the work around 1708.

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