Albinoni: Trattenimenti Armonici by Ensemble Barocco

Albinoni called himself a dilettante, and he meant it as a statement of social fact rather than artistic modesty. He was a Venetian gentleman of means, composing not for a salary or a patron’s whim but because he wanted to — and that freedom shows. His instrumental music has a particular ease about it, a well-bred confidence that never mistakes efficiency for depth. The twelve sonatas of op. 6, published in Amsterdam around 1712 under the title Trattenimenti armonici per camera — “harmonic entertainments for the chamber” — were aimed squarely at the amateur market, those prosperous households where a violin and a harpsichord sat in the parlor waiting for a quiet evening. Yet Albinoni gave them more than they strictly needed. The writing is gracious but not soft.

What the Ensemble Barocco Padovano Sans Souci has done here is transpose that world — literally, in one case — from violin to transverse flute. This is not quite as bold a move as the liner notes suggest. Baroque performers adapted music constantly, cheerfully, without apology. Albinoni himself seems to have expected it.

Still, the transverse flute changes things. It always does. The instrument’s treble sits in a different acoustical space than the violin’s — brighter in the upper register, thinner in the middle, with a breathy vulnerability in the lower octave that no string can replicate. Mario Folena understands this. He doesn’t play these sonatas as though they were violin pieces wearing a disguise. He phrases the slow movements — the adagios that open each work — with the kind of long, floating breath that is flute’s native element, not violin’s. The Sonata in d, op. 6, no. 7, opens with a melody that on violin would probably take on a certain rhetorical weight; Folena makes it wistful, almost questioning. It works.

What’s curious — and slightly puzzling — is the decision to transpose the Sonata in g minor, op. 6, no. 2, down from the original d major into g minor, while leaving others untransposed. The change in mode is not trivial. Albinoni’s D major has a clear-eyed brightness; g minor carries Baroque conventions of lamentation and shadow. You are, in some sense, hearing a different emotional argument. I don’t know that it’s wrong, exactly. But it’s a choice that deserves more explanation than it gets.

The continuo group is superb. Carlo Zanardi’s cello playing is clean and unfussy — he doesn’t overload the bass line with interpretive weight, which is exactly right for music this conversational. Terrell Stone alternates between theorbo and guitar, and the theorbo in particular adds a resonant plucked quality that sounds genuinely Venetian, like candlelight off water. Aldo Fiorentin’s harpsichord is present without being intrusive, coloring harmonies rather than insisting on them.

Albinoni’s fast movements here are dances in disguise — allemandes and gigues wearing tempo markings instead of their proper names, a sign that these sonate da camera were edging toward the sonata da chiesa model even as they retained their social function. Folena navigates the rhythmic ambiguity well, keeping the dance pulse alive without reducing everything to a bouncing metronomic regularity. The Sonata in a minor, op. 6, no. 6, has a finale that could easily become mechanical; instead it breathes.

Where the album is less successful is in moments that were clearly written for the violin’s natural idiom — double stops implied by the voice leading, or passagework that sits awkwardly at the extremes of the flute’s range. These are not disasters, but they remind you that you’re hearing a transcription. The Sonata in C, op. 6, no. 1, has one such passage in its second allegro where Folena’s intonation wavers briefly and the phrase loses its shape. Minor complaint. The overall standard is high.

Albinoni’s reputation today rests almost entirely on a piece he didn’t write — that saccharine “Adagio” fabricated by Remo Giazotto in the mid-twentieth century. It’s one of classical music’s more persistent frauds. The actual Albinoni is a more interesting composer: elegant, structurally sound, not flashy, occasionally surprising. These six sonatas, in their flute arrangement, won’t overturn the discography — recordings of the original violin versions remain the reference point — but they offer something genuine. A quiet pleasure. Civilized music, well played.