Albinoni’s biography, like that of many of his contemporaries, has often been a matter of a few sketchy elements mixed with anecdote, legends and caricatures served up on a veritable historic background. A series of clichés are associated with the late baroque composer: he is frequently described as a rich Venetian, a close friend of Vivaldi, and the owner of a playing card factory who lived on his business income, only writing music as a dilettante. While nothing in this description is completely false, neither is any of it completely true. As in many such cases, reality is somewhat less romantic than legend, at once more complex and more prosaic. Thanks to the remarkable work carried out in the second half of the twentieth century by scholars such as Michael Talbot, the international Albinoni specialist and author of his authoritative biography, the major elements of Albinoni’s life have been reconstituted, despite scanty documentary source material and numerous grey areas1.

Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni was born in Venice on 8 June 1671. His father, Giovanni Antonio Albinoni, was from the region of Bergamo, and had arrived in Venice twenty years previously to become the apprentice of the widow Pasinato, the owner of a printing works. If Giovanni Antonio had imagined making his fortune in Venice, his wishes were soon granted: when the only son of Signora Pasinato committed suicide, he became her sole legatee, upon her death in 1684 inheriting her business premises, her playing card factory, and several pieces of real estate. Giovanni Albinoni married Lucrezia Fabris in 1668, and the couple produced eight children. As the eldest son, Tomaso was destined to become the principal beneficiary of the family fortune, and it was assumed that he would inherit the printing works in his turn. He undertook professional training as a printer and attained the level of maestro, which would have allowed him to run the playing card factory himself. However, his musical talents soon thwarted his father’s plans for him to take over the family firm. Although information about Albinoni’s musical education is scarce, it has been established – apart from the legend that he, like Vivaldi, supposedly received instruction from Giovanni Legrenzi, the maestro di cappella of St. Mark’s – that he met with success in his lessons as a singer, a violinist and a composer, and that he made a firm decision to become a musician early in life. In 1694, at the age of 23, he made his official entry into Venetian musical life, offering two works, his first instrumental piece and his first opera, to the city’s music-loving public. This double debut was symbolic of the path he would follow throughout his life, devoting himself simultaneously and harmoniously to both instrumental and vocal music.

At this stage, the young composer’s status was still hybrid. His opus 2, a collection of Suonate a tre, described him not as a professional, but as “Musico di violino dilettante Veneto”. The word “dilettante” did not at the time carry a negative connotation; it meant, rather, a person who “devoted himself to an art for the pleasure it afforded”. Albinoni did indeed seem to be skilled at combining art and pleasure, judging from the laudatory preface written by the poet Antonio Marchi in the libretto to his first opera, Zenobia, regina de’Palmireni, which premiered at the Venetian Theatro SS. Giovanni e Paolo during the Carnival season of 1694: “The music is by Signor Albinoni who, although he composes for pleasure, has attained the level of the best professionals”. Albinoni must have continued to derive much pleasure from his numerous musical activities, for his opus 1 was followed in 1700 by opus 2, a collection of six Sinfonie and six Concerti a cinque, and in 1701 by opus 3, a collection of twelve Balletti a tre.