Adagio (Albinoni)

The Anacrouse collection offers pianists, beginners and advanced alike, a wide choice of classical works from the Renaissance to the present day. It brings together major works of the repertoire as well as rarer pieces, and also offers transcriptions for piano solo or four hands, selected for their musical and educational interest. Each score, available individually, benefits from careful editorial work: a rigorously established musical text, clear and legible engraving, accompanied by a short biography of the composer and a note on the work.

The “Adagio” (in G minor), presented here in a solo piano transcription by David Neyrolles, is a work of great emotional depth that allows work on sound control and expressive playing. This title is taken from the reference songbook “9 Famous Classical Themes for Piano”, the second volume of the Anacrouse collection. This elementary-to-intermediate transcription offers fluid writing that makes it possible to approach the density of the chords and the shaping of a sustained melodic line, while respecting the solemn, contemplative character of the piece.

Although attached to the name of Tomaso Albinoni (1671-1751), this Adagio is in fact a modern reconstruction made by the musicologist Remo Giazotto in 1958. Having become one of the most famous and poignant pages of classical music, it is omnipresent in popular culture, cinema and documentaries. This edition allows the pianist to rediscover at the keyboard all the melancholy, brilliance and majesty of this universal theme, offering a moment of pure musical poetry.