Benedetto Marcello

Giacomo Benedetto Marcello (born 24 June or July 24, 1686 in Venice, † July 24, 1739 in Brescia) was, like his brother Alessandro Marcello, an Italian composer of the Baroque.

  • 3.1 Vocal Music 3.1.1 oratorios
  • 3.1.2 Other sacred works
  • 3.1.3 Stage Works
  • 3.1.4 Other Secular Vocal Works
  • 3.2.1 concerts and symphonies
  • 3.2.2 sonatas
  • 3.2.3 Cembalowerke

Life and work

Legal career

Benedetto Marcello was born into a Venetian family lawyer, and so it stood to reason that he also studied law. In 1711 he was elected to the Council of the Forty; This post he held for 14 years.

In 1730 he was sent to Istria in Croatia today as Provveditore (Governor ) of the Republic of Venice to Pola. The already ailing Marcello but could not tolerate the local climate; his health deteriorated so much that he had to return to Venice in 1737. But already in the following year he was transferred as Camerlengo ( Chancellor, Treasurer) to Brescia. He died there on July 24, 1739 at the age of 53 years.

Marcello as a musician

Despite his professional obligations Marcello neglected from the beginning never the music. Only when he had to go to Pola, he stopped composing.

As a young man he had published songs and sonatas. Because composing but only in addition to his public career was always possible, he described himself as always nobile dilettante Veneto di Contrappunto, so as a lover, that is, lay the music. Finally, however, he resumed his studies in composition with Francesco Gasparini (1668-1727) and Antonio Lotti (ca. 1667-1740 ) on.

The first setting of Psalm paraphrases Italian L' Estro Armonico Poetico - brought the now 38 -year-old Marcello a Europe-wide fame. The extensive work of 50 solo Psalms by Girolamo Ascanio Giustiniani was an early attempt " archaic solo song ". Overall, this work of eight volumes, one to four voices with basso continuo for organ or piano, some with obbligato cello or two violins. In this work outweighs a more traditional contrapuntal technique. But they also often changes quite unexpectedly from with compact, homophonic, almost folkloric games. Down to the smallest detail, this psalm settings follow the text. The work now also includes a setting of Mao Zur, a song that is sung in the Jewish liturgy of Hanukkah, as well as a version of the Kaddischgebetes.

As a master of the solo cantata Marcello is one of the last representatives of the great pathetic vocal style, which sometimes makes into small dramas in the context of the genre. In addition, Marcello wrote sounded magnificent chamber music, including piano, cello and flute sonatas and concertos.

Il teatro alla moda

As an opera composer Marcello was less successful. Maybe he wanted to take revenge on this genre when he Il teatro alla moda satire wrote in 1720. In it, he blamed the excesses of the theater, his habits and his schematism. However, the criticism concerned only the externals of which has become routine opera house. The Gesangsdespotie, the prima donnas and Kastratenunwesen had so prevailed, that there were hardly any room for the music and the composer himself becoming more and tighter restraints were applied. Of course, the excesses of this system were also denounced elsewhere in artistic and social relationship. But Marcello's Satire brought the conditions of the Venetian opera sharply to the point.

A reform of the opera conducted this culturally and historically interesting font is not a; this, it only came through the French musical aesthetics and, based on Marcello, by Ranieri de ' Calzabigi (1714-1795) and Christoph Willibald Gluck ( 1714-1787 ).

Works

Benedetto Marcello's oeuvre includes numerous sacred works well except 380 secular cantatas and some instrumental concerts. His stage works include Arianna, which was probably 27 premiered in the winter 1726 / in the salon of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni in Venice ( more performances followed in 1948 in Bologna and in April 2010 at the Salzburg State Theater ). The soon necessary reprints of his psalm settings were identified later by Giovanni Bononcini (1670-1747), Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) and Johann Mattheson (1681-1764) enthusiastically recommended.

It is difficult to classify stylistically Marcello in the number of these composers. Although he seems to have been influenced in his instrumental concertos by Antonio Vivaldi's style, but in sacred music, he maintains a rather idiosyncratic personal style.

Vocal music

Oratories

  • La Giuditta (UA Venice in 1709? )
  • Joaz (UA Venice 1727? , Florence 1729 )
  • Il riso delle quattro pianto e il stagioni dell'anno per la morte, esultazione e coronazione di Maria Assunta in Cielo (UA Macerata 1731)
  • Il trionfo della poesia e della musica nel celebrarsi la morte e la esultazione, e la Vergine Assunta incoronazione di Maria semper in Cielo (1733, no performance occupied)

Other sacred works

  • Estro armonico - poetico: parafrasi sopra li primi [e secondi ] Venticinque salmi (Translation: GA Giustiniani ), 8 volumes (Venice 1724-26 )
  • 9 shows for 3-8 voices, including Requiem in G minor
  • 30 more sacred works: 4 antiphons, 3 graduals, 1 anthem, 1 Lamentation of Jeremiah ( lost), 1 lesson for the Holy Week ( lost), 2 Magnificat for 3-4 voices, 5 Miserere, 8 motets, 3 Offertories, 2 Vesper Psalms

Stage Works

  • La morte d' Adone ( Serenata, UA Venice in 1710 or 1729 )
  • La gara amorosa ( Serenata, UA about 1710-12? )
  • Psyche ( intreccio scenico musicale, libretto by Vincenzo Cassani, UA Venice 1711/12? )
  • Spago e Filetta ( interludes to tragedy Lucio Commodo, UA Venice in 1719? )
  • Le nozze di Giove e Giunone ( Serenata ), 2 versions: Nasce per viver (UA Vienna in 1725 for the feast of Charles VI. ) Questo é ' l giorno ( shorter version, UA Vienna in 1716? )
  • Calisto orsa ( Pastorale, Libretto: Carminati, UA 1725? )
  • Arianna ( intreccio scenico musicale, Libretto: Cassani, UA Venice about 1727)

Other secular vocal works

  • Canzoni madrigal ash et arie per camera for 2-4 voices, Op 4 (Bologna 1717)
  • 380 cantatas (texts often by Marcello himself) for one voice and basso continuo, 22 strings (including Carissima figlia, Didone, Gran tiranno è l' amore che Percorelle pascete, Senza gran pena )
  • 81 Chamber Duets for 2 Voices and Basso Contino, 2 with strings (including Timoteo, Clori e Daliso, Clori e Tirsi )
  • 7 Chamber Trios for 3 voices and basso continuo
  • 5 madrigals for 4-5 voices

Instrumental music

Concerts and symphonies

Sonatas

Cembalowerke

Writings (selection )

  • Fantasia ditirambiva eroicomica (or Volo Pindarico, 1708)
  • Famigliare Lettera d'un accademico filarmonico et arcade ( 1716)
  • Sonetti: pianger cercai non già dal pianto onore (Venice 1718)
  • Il teatro alla moda (Venice 1720)
  • A. Dio: Sonetti ... con altre rime, d' argomento sacro e morale (Venice 1731)
  • Il divino Verbo fatto Uomo, o sia L' universal redenzione ( at least 21 Canti )
June 24 Baroque music Pula Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church Homophone Kaddish Castrato Pietro Ottoboni (cardinal) Psalm 51 Intermezzo Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor Minuet Integrated Authority File
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