Tomaso Albinoni was an unusual composer in many ways. An employee of the family business until his father’s death in 1709, he referred to himself simply as a ‘dilettante’, an amateur musician. Even after relocating to Venice, he kept his distance from the professional music scene; as he never subscribed to the Venetian musician’s union, he could never perform publicly in Venice. In spite of this, he composed an enormous 80 operas. 

Zero Emission Baroque Orchestra present this special disc of the complete Trattenimenti Armonici Op.6. Although a violinist at heart, Albinoni shows his experience of vocal music by writing a cantabile violin melody in the opening movement of each sonata. Each of the sonatas is written in the church style, alternating fast and slow movements. Of all of them, No.6 proved particularly successful and was arranged by contemporaries for a variety of different instruments including recorder and transverse flute.

“But even more interesting is the priceless realisation of the continuo of this sonata made by a certain H.N. Gerber when he was a student: in fact, H.N. Gerber’s teacher was one of the greatest admirers of Albinoni, a German organist named Johann Sebastian Bach.” (Carlos Centemeri, liner notes)