Remo Giazotto

Remo Giazotto (September 4, 1910, Rome – August 26, 1998, Pisa) was an Italian musicologist, music critic, and composer, mostly known through his systematic catalogue of the works of Tomaso Albinoni. He wrote biographies of Albinoni and other composers, including Vivaldi, the composer of the Four Seasons.

Giazotto served as a music critic (from 1932) and editor (1945–1949) of the Rivista musicale italiana and was appointed co-editor of the Nuova rivista musicale italiana in 1967. He was a professor of the history of music at the University of Florence (1957–69) and in 1962 was nominated to the Accademia Nazionale di S. Cecilia.

In 1949, Giazotto became the director of the chamber music programs for RAI (Radio Audizioni Italiane) and in 1966 its director of the international programs organized through the European Broadcasting Union. He was also the president of RAI's auditioning committee and editor of its series of biographies on composers.

Giazotto is famous for his publication of a work called Adagio in G minor, which he claimed to have transcribed from a manuscript fragment of an Albinoni sonata that he had received from the Saxon State Library. He stated that he had arranged the work but not composed it. He subsequently revised this story, claiming it as his own original composition. The fragment has never appeared in public; Giazotto stated that it contained only the bass line, and the work was copyrighted by Giazotto.^[1][2]

Writings

• Il melodramma a Genova nei secoli XVII e XVIII (Genoa, 1941)
• Tomaso Albinoni, 'musico violino dilettante veneto' (1671–1750) (Milan, 1945)
• Busoni: la vita nell opera (Milan, 1947)
• La musica a Genova nella vita pubblica e privata dal XIII al XVIII secolo (Genoa, 1952)
• Poesia melodrammatica e pensiero critico nel Settecento (Milan, 1952)
• 'Il Patricio di Hercole Bottrigari dimostrato practicamente da un anonimo cinquecentesco', CHM, i (1953), 97–112
• Harmonici concenti in aere veneto (Rome, 1955)
• La musica italiana a Londra negli anni di Purcell (Rome, 1955)
• Annali Mozartiani (Milan, 1956)
• Giovan Battista Viotti (Milan, 1956)
• Musurgia nova (Mila, 1959)
• Vita di Alessandro Stradella (Milan, 1962)
• Vivaldi (Milan, 1965)
• La guerra dei palchi, NRMI, i (1967), 245–86, 465–508; iii (1969), 906–33; v (1971), 1304–52
• 'Nel CCC anno della morte di Antonio Cesti: ventidue lettere ritrovate nell' Archivio di Stato di Venezia', NRMI, iii (1969), 496–512

References

1. ↑ Letter from the Saxon State Library (consultant Marina Lang), 24 September 1990, reproduced in facsimile by Wulf Dieter Lugert and Volker Schütz, „Adagio à la Albinoni“, Praxis des Musikunterrichts 53 (February 1998), pp. 13–22, here 15.
2. ↑ Carolyn Gianturco. "Giazotto, Remo." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/11086 (accessed November 29, 2008).