In the above section of Albinoni’s Adagio there opens a musical window to the late romantic era. The suspensions and passing tones in the Adagio makes you think of Mahlers Adagietto. A different time frame is conjured…
A new staging of the Albinoni fragment
With a metaphorical inspiration from the middle part; instead letting the sixteenth note ‘quasi cadenza’ be an inspiration towards other ‘musics’ and cultural contexts. For instance its close proximity to maqam Shadd Araban (Hijaz on G).
Another association
one does quite spontaneously in the next to last section of the Adagio is to Mahler's Symphony No.5 fourth movement(adagietto).
The new setting will feature different kinds of guitars (one player) and the oboe. A prepared acoustical guitar played with a bow sets the basic sound in parts of the interpretation.
By letting fragments from Albinonis Adagio arise in new situations we will hopefully be able to hear the music again. If we come to listen to the strong melody somewhat stripped of its petrified cultural and emotional deposits, we might just discover it anew.
The middle section of the Adagio with the quasi cadenza of the first violin gives associations to some Arabic scales.
Also the general setting with a single melodic line hovering over a drone makes your thoughts drift towards Arabic maqams…
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The Albinoni/Giazotto Adagio is of course the bearer of a different cultural role than Beethovens 5th(sic). The melancolic music of the Adagio is is widely spread and has by that in a sense become public property. The music can be found in inumerable versions from ’favorite baroque collections’ to concept CDs like ’quiet moments’ etc. We hear it in elevators and in shoppingmalls, in concerthalls and in different pop-cultural surroundings. It has become a part of the sound-tapestry that surrounds us.
Giazotto claimed at first that he had transcribed the whole piece from a manuscript fragment by Albinoni but later on changed that to having found the bassline and the first six bars of the score.
Giazotto wrote a systematic catalogue over the music of Tomaso Albinoni and maybe the whole piece is an 'archeological finding' originally buried in the archives by Giazotto himself. The piece has of course some parts that could be attributed to Albinoni but it also has features that is more connected to the way a lot of baroque music was interpreted in the nineteen-thirties and fourties.
My new piece will take some of the 'baroque' fragments and let a guitar and oboe feature as front 'singers' in a new setting that is in turn inspired by some of the musical shadows that Giazotto resurrects. Some fragments of the music will re-appear in new
situations, in the same way as Giazotto allegedly underwent with the Albinoni fragments, by which we hopefully will be able to hear some of the music beyond some of the superimposed
cultural layers of now readymade nostalgia. (see Doors Video)
With a metaphorical inspiration from the middle part; instead letting the sixteenth note ‘quasi cadenza’ be an inspiration towards other ‘musics’ and cultural contexts. For instance its close proximity to maqam Shadd Araban (Hijaz on G).
Another association one does quite spontaneously in the next to last section of the Adagio is to Mahler's Symphony No.5 fourth movement(adagietto).
