Few today would contest Tomaso Albinoni's importance to the history of Western art music, given his role as an early innovator and (in the words of Quantz) ‘improver’ of the fledgling concerto genre. Without Michael Talbot's continued and far-reaching research on the composer, however, the chances are that Albinoni would be familiar to us only through the famous ‘Adagio’, which he didn't even write (it is of course the work of the musicologist Remo Giazotto, who supposedly based it upon a surviving fragment of a sonata by the composer). Beginning with his doctoral work on the composer's instrumental music (‘The Instrumental Music of Tomaso Albinoni (1671–1741)’ (PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1968)), Talbot has devoted his career to researching Albinoni and his contemporaries, resulting in countless articles, as well as the standard reference book Tomaso Albinoni: The Venetian Composer and His World (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990). The edition reviewed here provides the opportunity for both scholar and performer to become better acquainted with more of the composer's music.
Like virtually every other composer of the period, Albinoni wrote not only operas and instrumental music, but also cantatas, with the total count of reliable attributions currently standing at forty-six. Whilst this may seem unremarkable when compared with the hundreds written by figures such as Alessandro Scarlatti or Benedetto Marcello, the number nonetheless suggests a clear interest in the cantata at a time when Albinoni also had links to several Italian courts, given that he appears to have composed in this genre for only a period of ten to fifteen years (commencing in the mid-1690s). Indeed, in 1702 Albinoni's set of twelve cantatas Op. 4 (six for soprano and six for alto) was published with a dedication to Francesco Maria de' Medici. The present edition is based not on a printed source, but a manuscript housed in Berlin's Staatsbibliothek (Mus. ms. 447). This collection, comprising eighteen soprano cantatas, is of importance not only as the largest single source of Albinoni's cantatas, but also because this is the only extant source of nine works in the collection. Alongside Talbot's 1979 edition of Op. 4 in the series Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era (Madison: A-R Editions), the publication of the present collection means that half of Albinoni's total cantata output is readily available in modern editions. To date two CDs featuring works from Op. 4 have been recorded; it is to be hoped that this edition may encourage further releases.
Historically the genre of the cantata has suffered from being something of a musicological ‘poor relation’ in comparison with its sisters the sonata and the concerto. This is partly to do with the vastness of the repertory, which makes an overall survey of the form a considerable challenge (indeed, the only work to attempt to do so remains Eugen Schmitz's Geschichte der weltlichen Solokantate (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1914)). However, in recent years Talbot has played an important part in discussions of the genre and its contexts, most notably in his book The Chamber Cantatas of Antonio Vivaldi (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006), as editor of Aspects of the Secular Cantata in Late Baroque Italy (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009) and as contributor to Teresa Gialdroni's volume La cantata da camera intorno agli anni italiani di Handel (Rome: Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, 2009). (Both of the last two volumes contain chapters that include detailed discussions of works in the present edition.) Another significant factor contributing to the problems of studying the cantata is that the genre was transmitted predominantly in manuscript, making the sources less accessible. It is for precisely this reason that modern editions of these works are of vital importance.
The edition, which is clearly and attractively presented, is a collection of sixteen works that were previously issued separately (at a price of £9.95 each; the collected volume, at £68, thus offers a substantial saving). Only sixteen of the eighteen works in the Berlin manuscript appear, both Lontananza crudel, mi squarci il core and Poi ché al vago seren di due pupille, which were also published in Albinoni's Op. 4 (and are included in Talbot's 1979 edition), being excluded. Unfortunately, the situation is not so clear-cut in the case of other concordances, and it is here that the biggest editorial decisions had to be made. Talbot chooses to disregard the presence of a second source of the cantata Senti, bel sol, deh senti in Vienna's Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, which contains an alternative second aria, as this version is for another voice type (alto) and in a different key. Fileno, caro amico also survives in an alto version (this time in Münster), which again is not included, but a further soprano copy in Ostiglia is also extant, this time with a different second aria. Talbot sensibly argues that the versions for other voice types in other keys are too different to be included in this edition, but he does present both variants of the second soprano aria, allowing the performers to decide on their preference. These complexities are clearly explained in a concise Introduction, which also describes the source and makes suggestions for performance practice; remarks on Albinoni's musical style are left to a minimum, with the reader instead being referred to various other publications in which the subject is discussed in depth.
From a scholarly point of view this volume offers a neat snapshot of the cantata at the turn of the eighteenth century, in terms of both poetry and music. The texts, all of which are included in an appendix (with both English and German translations), are typical in featuring Arcadian shepherds and shepherdesses in the various stages of love, a lamenting Arianna (in Già dal mar sorgea l'alba) and an encomium in honour of a ‘Donna illustre del Lazio’, whom Talbot identifies as Tarquinia Ottoboni (the sister-in-law of Antonio, who was the author of another text in the collection and father of Pietro, the dedicatee of Albinoni's Op. 1). There is a clear alternation of recitative–aria pairs, with the classic turn-of-the-century recitative–aria–recitative–aria form appearing most frequently, as well as an appearance of the aria–recitative–aria form that was to gain currency in later decades.
On the page Albinoni's recitatives appear at first to be rather business-like and perfunctory, with little recourse to arioso, even in his setting of emotionally heightened texts. However, closer inspection reveals the composer's fine craftsmanship, and Talbot has convincingly demonstrated elsewhere how Albinoni's harmonic language subtly encapsulates the poetic meaning. Most notable are the substantial cavatas, featuring carefully wrought imitation between voice and continuo. But it is the arias that mark these works out as being especially worthy of performance today. There is a range of musical styles on display here, but the singing quality of the melodies is evident throughout, and the arias of sorrow and lament are particularly fine.
Aside from the issue of variant sources, the music itself needed only a very light editorial touch. As is frequently the case, it is the question of accidentals that needs most attention. Talbot has standardized their use, but there always remain one or two grey areas in which multiple readings are possible. On some occasions the critical commentary fully explains the situation, expressing a personal preference for one particular version; on others (for example, in bar 13 on page 101, in which the figuring suggests an E♭, but an E♮ is written in the soprano part) it is left to the performers to draw their own conclusions. The critical commentary also includes helpful suggestions for performance practice. The greater part of the editorial intervention appears in the continuo line, both in the addition of figures to a partially figured bass, and a suggested realization. This keyboard part is stylish and unobtrusive, and its inclusion will undoubtedly make the works more accessible to a wider range of performers.
The quality of Albinoni's music is such that these cantatas deserve to be better known and more widely performed. It is to be hoped that this clear and stylish edition from the hand of Albinoni's most authoritative expert will enable these works to enter firmly into the established repertory, and that further such editions will follow.
