Albinoni?s name has been inseparable from ?the Adagio? for the last half century, much as Vivaldi?s name has become irrevocably associated with The Four Seasons. Two major differences in the relationships between the two great Venetian composers and their emblematic works can be noted, however. Firstly, while Vivaldi?s reputation is based on a wide variety of compositions which far surpass the bounds of his four most famous concertos, Albinoni?s is founded almost exclusively on the famous G-minor Adagio, which continues to obscure the rest of his extensive oeuvre, a body of works that has been largely neglected by performers. Secondly and most importantly, Albinoni, unlike Vivaldi, owes his fame to one of the most surprising falsifications in music history because he did not, in fact, compose the Adagio. The innumerable listeners who have enjoyed the piece, which appears extremely frequently on concert programmes and record albums, do not always realise that the work was written by one Remo Giazotto, who published it in 1958 under Albinoni?s name. Although Giazotto, who was also the composer?s first biographer, has always claimed a link between Albinoni and the Adagio, stating that he wrote the piece on an authentic Albinoni bass line, his attempts at legitimating the work have been in vain. The fragment in question has never been identified, and all Albinoni specialists agree that Giazotto?s work is in an entirely different style from that of Albinoni.
Music history is filled with paradoxes, and the fact that the false but highly successful Adagio rendered a great service to the forgotten Albinoni, allowing his music to become known once more, is one of them. Much remains to be done, however, in order to restore to Albinoni his rightful place in music history, located somewhere between the shadow of his great contemporary Vivaldi and the troublesome presence of the false Adagio. The relatively unknown Albinoni continues to await the time of his veritable rehabilitation.