ALBINONI, TOMASO GIOVANNI  BIOGRAPHY

Tomaso Albinoni was a man of independent means who did not find it necessary to associate with mere musicians, instead preferring the company of wealthy patrons, including Corelli’s patron Cardinal Ottoboni, Ferdinando III de’ Medici, and the Emperor Karl VI. He was a prolific composer of more than fifty operas, over forty cantatas, and a wide range of instrumental music, including 79 sonatas for one to six instruments, 59 concertos, and eight sinfonias; during his lifetime his works enjoyed a wide European distribution. He is particularly noted for his melodic gifts, although a closer examination of some of his works, including the present one, sometimes reveals deficiencies in their part-writing. The aria 'Vien con nuova orribil guerra' is a battle aria from his late opera, La Statira, with a libretto by Zeno and Pariati, first performed in Rome in 1726. Besides the trumpets, it also features oboes, an instrument for which in 1715 Albinoni had been the first in Italy to write a collection of concertos, his Opus 7. In this work, the first trumpet and the first oboe split the rôle of competing with the soprano soloist.