Benedetto Marcello

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Benedetto Marcello

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

Live and act

Legal career

Benedetto Marcello came from a Venetian family of lawyers, so it was natural that he too should study law. In 1711 he was elected to the Council of Forty ; he held this office for 14 years.

In 1730 he was sent as Provveditore (Governor) of the Republic of Venice to Pola in Istria in today's Croatia . Marcello, who was already ailing, couldn't stand the climate there; his health deteriorated so much that he had to return to Venice in 1737. But already in the following year he was transferred to Brescia as Camerlengo (Chancellor, Treasurer). He died here on July 24, 1739 at the age of 53; the Pope ordered a day of mourning.

Marcello as a musician

Despite his professional commitments, Marcello never neglected music from the start. Only when he had to go to Pola did he stop composing.

As a young man he had already published songs and sonatas. Because composing was always only possible alongside his public career, he always referred to himself as a nobile Veneto dilettante di contrappunto , i.e. a lover, i.e. a lover. H. Laypeople of music. Finally, however, he took up his composition studies with Francesco Gasparini (1668–1727) and Antonio Lotti (around 1667–1740).

The first setting of Italian psalm paraphrases L'Estro Poetico-Armonico brought the now 38-year-old Marcello fame throughout Europe. The extensive work of 50 solo palms based on Girolamo Ascanio Giustiniani was an early attempt at "archaic solo chant ". In total, this work consists of eight volumes, one to four-part with basso continuo for organ or piano, some with obbligato cello or two violins. A rather traditional contrapuntal compositional technique predominates in this work. But it too often changes unexpectedly with compact, homophonic , almost folkloric parts. These psalm settings follow the text down to the smallest detail. The work also contains a setting of Mao's Zur , a song that is sung in the Jewish liturgy on Hanukkah , and a version of the Kaddish prayer .

As a master of the solo cantata, Marcello is one of the last representatives of the great pathetic style of singing, which sometimes places small dramas in the framework of the genre. In addition, Marcello wrote magnificent chamber music such as piano, cello and flute sonatas as well as instrumental concerts.

Il teatro alla moda

Marcello was less successful as an opera composer. He may have wanted to take revenge on this genre when he wrote the satire Il teatro alla moda in 1720 . In it he criticized the excesses of the theater, its habits and its schematism. The criticism, however, only concerned the external appearance of an opera business that had become routine. The despotism of singing, the prima donna and castrato malice had become so prevalent that there was hardly any leeway for the music and the composers themselves were increasingly fettered. Of course, the excesses of this system in artistic and social terms were also denounced elsewhere. But Marcello's satire brought the state of the Venetian opera to the point.

This culturally and historically interesting script did not introduce a reform of the opera; this only came about through the French musical aesthetics and, based on Marcello, through Ranieri de 'Calzabigi (1714–1795) and Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714–1787).

Works

In addition to numerous sacred works, Benedetto Marcello's complete works also include 380 secular cantatas and some instrumental concerts. One of his stage works is Arianna , which was probably premiered in the winter of 1726/27 in the salon of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni in Venice (further performances followed in 1948 in Bologna and in April 2010 in the Salzburg State Theater ). The soon necessary reprints of his psalm settings were later euphorically recommended by Giovanni Bononcini (1670–1747), Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767) and Johann Mattheson (1681–1764).

It is difficult to classify Marcello stylistically in the series of these composers. Although he seems to be influenced by Antonio Vivaldi's style in his instrumental concerts, he has a very idiosyncratic personal style in sacred music.

Vocal music

Oratorios

  • La Giuditta (Premiere Venice 1709?)
  • Joaz (premiere Venice 1727 ?, Florence 1729)
  • Il pianto e il riso delle quattro 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 incoronazione di Maria semper Vergine Assunta in Cielo (1733, no performance confirmed)

Other sacred works

Stage works

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

Other secular vocal works

  • [12] Canzoni madrigalesche et [6] arie per camera for 2-4 voices op. 4 (Bologna 1717)
  • 380 cantatas (texts often by Marcello himself) for 1 voice and basso continuo , 22 with strings (including Carissima figlia , Didone , Gran tiranno è l'amore , Percorelle che 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 terts for 3 voices and basso continuo
  • 5 madrigals for 4–5 voices

Instrumental music

Concerts and symphonies

  • 12 Concerti a cinque op. 1 (Venice 1708)
  • 5 concertos for violin, strings and basso continuo (D major, D major, D major, E flat major, F major)
  • Concerto in F major for 2 violins, strings and harpsichord (1716/17)
  • Concerto in D major for flute, strings and harpsichord
  • 7 symphonies (D major, F major, G major, G major, A major, A major, B major)

Sonatas

  • 12 sonatas for flute and basso continuo op.2 (Venice 1712)
  • 6 sonatas for violoncello and basso continuo “op. 1 "(Amsterdam approx. 1732)
  • 6 sonatas for 2 violoncellos or viole da gamba and basso continuo “op. 2 "(Amsterdam approx. 1734)
  • Sonata in G minor for violin and basso continuo
  • Sonata in B flat major for violoncello and basso continuo
  • 4 sonatas for flautino and basso continuo (C major, G major, G major, G minor; authenticity doubted)

Harpsichord works

  • 12 sonatas for harpsichord op. 3? (Venice approx. 1712-17)
  • 35 sonatas and sonata movements for harpsichord
  • 4 minuets ; Suite of 30 minuets

Fonts (selection)

  • Fantasia ditirambiva eroicomica (or Volo Pindarico , 1708)
  • Lettera famigliare 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'universale redenzione (at least 21 Canti )

Aftermath

The Conservatorio in Venice was founded in 1876 as Liceo Musicale e Società Benedetto Marcello and is named after the composer Benedetto Marcello.

literature

  • Marco Bizzarini:  Marcello, Benedetto. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Second edition, personal section, volume 11 (Lesage - Menuhin). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2004, ISBN 3-7618-1121-7 , Sp. 1039-1041 ( online edition , subscription required for full access)
  • Eleanor Selfridge-Field: The music of Benedetto and Alessandro Marcello. A thematic catalog, with commentary on the composers, repertory and sources . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1990, ISBN 0-19-316126-5

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Clive Unger-Hamilton, Neil Fairbairn, Derek Walters; German arrangement: Christian Barth, Holger Fliessbach, Horst Leuchtmann, et al .: The music - 1000 years of illustrated music history . Unipart-Verlag, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-8122-0132-1 , p. 78 .
personal data
SURNAME Marcello, Benedetto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Marcello, Benedetto Giacomo (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian Baroque composer
DATE OF BIRTH June 24, 1686 or July 24, 1686
PLACE OF BIRTH Venice
DATE OF DEATH July 24, 1739
Place of death Brescia