Review Summary: revived Baroque
Popular associations of the rigid and un-dynamic, the bland and boring frequently manifest themselves when thinking about Baroque music, which is deficient of certain elegances and poetic technicalities prevalent in Classical period music, as well as the looser rhythmical expression and lavish harmonization found in Romantic. Instead, Baroque compositions depend on order and symmetry, through which structured rhythms and stringent melodies never fully free themselves, especially in comparison to Romantic pieces. Consequently, Baroque music doesn't allow for prediction really, as movements seem already set from their beginnings, thus constricting a spectrum of emotions to just a few. However, Albinoni's
Adagio in G Minor escapes this kind of predictability, as it has been altogether reimagined.
After 1945, Remo Giazotto, only having found Albinoni's original trio sonata's bass part among a myriad of documents ruined from bombings during WWII, merged another matching, even though fragmented melody with it to construct
Adagio in G Minor, giving Albonini - a man that died in 1715 - almost all credit. This composition, however, is only inspired by Albinoni, accordingly neo-Baroque as opposed to Baroque, which explains why it's as sorrowful and nostalgia-inducing as it is, perhaps rivaled in that department only by Bach's melancholic pieces such as
Air on a G String, but even they lack emotional diversity compared to
Adagio's dynamic changes, which appear enriched by lush string harmonies and confident descending melodies that diminish in strength as they fall.
Reconstructed by a twentieth century musicologist,
Adagio in G Minor has a shared consciousness from the Baroque to Contemporary periods. Structured melodies, characteristic trills and mordants, and understated organ suggests Baroque-ness, but
Adagio's melodies still enjoy a freedom that's stylistically Classical. Concurrently, there's a Romantic spirit that rouses a melodic swell along with Baroque and Classical nuances, which is an altogether modern combination that could only be constructed by a modern man such as Giazotto, who could look back for inspiration.
The amalgamated spirit Giazotto's created in
Adagio in G Minor is best-suited to quiet, unlit nights when you can focus without distraction on nuances - the organ, the second violin's interspersed, non-uniform arpeggios, the first violin's melody weaving seamlessly through a cloud of strings, which enter vigorously at
Adagio's finish; a rich conclusion that's of even greater intensity in your night silent surroundings.
Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u99f9RAvwu4
