Johann Adolf Hasse

Concerto in Sol Maggiore

Born in Hamburg in 1699, Johann Adolf Hasse, nicknamed "il Sassone", studied with his father, organist from Bergedorf, then in Naples with Porpora and became friends with Alessandro Scarlatti, Farinelli, Galuppi, Jommelli, Haydn and even Jean Sebastian Bach, whom he met in 1731. From his first opera, Antigonus, Hasse enjoyed success and began a career as a composer, musician and conductor which would take him throughout Europe before settling in Venice. Author of 58 operas, oratorios, cantatas, concertos and sonatas of all kinds, almost all of his work was destroyed by the fire of the siege of Dresden by the Prussians in 1760. Despite the stability of its main features, Hasse's style, clearly preclassical, underwent slight evolutions during his career but he remained a composer with a pronounced taste for lyricism, including in his instrumental writing, as demonstrated by the largo of his Concerto in sol Maggiore per Mandolino e cordi. Vivaldian in style, this work most certainly dates from Hasse's Neapolitan period and he developed a fluid and virtuoso writing for the small lute, then very fashionable in the courts and princely salons of this flourishing 18th century. The choice of tonality, the rhythmic discourse and the light orchestration constitute proof that the composer perfectly knew the possibilities of the mandolin for which he undoubtedly composed other works, unfortunately lost today.