Benedetto Marcello, younger brother of Alessandro, was a Venetian contemporary of Vivaldi. He is remembered in history books more for his satirical treatise Il teatro alla moda, in which Vivaldi, among many others, is lampooned, than for his music. But Benedetto was, none the less, an able composer whose music interested the young Bach at Weimar sufficiently for him to arrange one of his concertos for solo keyboard. Besides a small number of surviving concertos Benedetto Marcello wrote sonatas, chamber cantatas, oratorios, settings of the first 50 Psalms which were published under the title Estro poetico-armonico, and miscellaneous pieces for the stage.
This Requiem in G minor is an interesting piece in which Marcello demonstrates a pleasingly varied range of ideas, more archaic at times than we might expect from acquaintance with his instrumental music. This applies to sections of the Introit, whereas subsequent numbers such as the ‘Quantus tremor’, with its lively string figures which call to mind one of his Psalm settings, and the sprightly bassoon writing of the ‘Tuba mirum’ are more forward-looking. Marcello was a gifted melodist, too, as we find in the skilfully written ‘Liber scriptus’ with its elegant and distinctive contours.
The recording capitalizes upon what is claimed to have been the first performance in modern times, in September 1996 at the Scuola Grande of San Rocco in Venice. Alessandro Borin has placed the music in a plausible liturgical context, opening the proceedings with an evocative ‘Campane da morto’, followed by one of Marcello’s organ sonatas. The ‘Introitus’ comes next, then the ‘Sequentia’, ‘Offertorium’, a second organ sonata, a touchingly expressive motet for soprano and alto voices, Dulcis Jesu Mater Cara, in place of the ‘Agnus Dei’, and, finally, the ‘Lux aeterna’ and ‘Requiem aeternam’.
Singing and playing are often rough-and-ready, but there are attractive contributions from several of the soloists and instrumentalists. And the music is performed with a good sense of style and without pretension. Music and interpretation are sufficiently interesting to give the disc a warm, if qualified welcome. The weakest element, by far, is the choral one – the ‘Offertorium’ suffers in particular – but, accustomed as we are nowadays to excellence in the corporate vocal sphere, I have not lost my taste for honest music-making of the kind we have here. Worth exploring.'