Procol Harum picture sleeves

Adagio di Albinoni [sic]

Niels-Erik Mortensen writes to BtP (January 2003)
I felt a compelling need to let it be known among the international Procol society that Albinoni cannot be held responsible for the otherwise beautiful piece for strings and organ. Neither Procol, nor Brian Auger who recorded the Adagio with his Oblivion Express (1970), have noted that the adagio was really composed by Italian researcher Remo Giazotto about 1945. The following text, borrowed from here, should throw a little more light upon the story:

"Albinoni's Adagio" is based on a fragment of manuscript discovered in the Dresden State Library after the Second World War by Remo Giazotto, a Milanese musicologist who was at that time completing his biography of Albinoni and his listing of Albinoni's music. Only the bass line and six bars of melody had survived, possibly from the slow movement of a Trio Sonata.

"Giazotto "reconstructed" the now-famous Adagio in about 1945, based on the surviving fragment. To him it suggested a piece that would be played in church, so he added an organ. It is perhaps ironic that Albinoni's rediscovery by the wider public in our own times was largely based on this ever-popular piece which Albinoni would only barely recognize.

"Anyway, next time you hear it, remember to murmur knowledgeably to yourself: "Ah! The Remo Giazotto Adagio"!"

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