(Egizio) and Giuseppe Colla by
Pietro Bettelini, after a drawing by Luigi Scotti Most of his operatic works have been lost - either because they were never published or because they were destroyed. However, nine collections of instrumental works were published. These met with considerable success and consequent reprints. He is therefore today better known as a composer of instrumental music (99 sonatas, 59 concerti and 9 sinfonie). In his lifetime these works were compared favourably with those of
Arcangelo Corelli and
Antonio Vivaldi. His nine collections published in Italy, Amsterdam, and London were either dedicated to or sponsored by an impressive list of southern European nobility. Albinoni wrote at least fifty operas, of which twenty-eight were produced in Venice between 1723 and 1740. Albinoni himself claimed 81 operas (naming his second-to-last opera, in the libretto, as his 80th). In spite of his enormous operatic output, today he is most noted for his instrumental music, especially his oboe concerti (from
12 Concerti a cinque op. 7 and, most famously,
12 Concerti a cinque op. 9). He is the first Italian known to employ the oboe as a solo instrument in concerti (c. 1715, in his op. 7) and publish such works, although earlier concerti featuring solo oboe were probably written by German composers such as
Telemann or
Händel. ==References==