With this recording Collegium Musicum 90 add another attractive facet to their repertoire of eighteenth-century concertos. Alessandro Marcello is the lesser-known of the Marcellos, elder brother of the more prolific Benedetto; he was a prominent Venetian politician in public and a poet, painter, composer and collector of musical instruments in private. He published several books of cantatas, and violin sonatas, as well as the well-known D minor Oboe Concerto that Bach transcribed, before the appearance in 1738 of La cetra (''The lyre''), a collection of six concertos for 15 instruments (in six parts); the seventh item on this recording is an unpublished work composed in four parts.
The concertos, each in three contrasting movements, are varied in the form they take and the prominence they give to solo instruments. They are not 'oboe concertos' in the modern sense so much as concertos with oboes, like Handel's Op. 3 Concerti grossi. In relatively few movements (the Allegro assai and Larghetto of No. 1, the Moderato of No. 2, the Moderato of No. 4, all of No. 5 and the outer movements of No. 6) does Marcello regularly juxtapose concertino and ripieno forces. Instead, he provides dialogues and echoes (usually the violins mimic the oboes). Phrases are short and four-square, often with dotted or syncopated rhythms, counterpoint is sparse and unison playing of repeated notes and trills frequent. The clear, crisp playing of Collegium Musicum 90 reveals delightful sparks of humour, especially in the finales.
To maintain interest and momentum, Marcello has included many cameo roles for solo instruments. Virtuoso bariolage for the solo violin, played without affectation by the leader Simon Standage, threatens in the Moderato movements of Nos. 2 and 4 and breaks out in the Vivace of No. 6; Micaela Comberti is his second violin in the Larghetto of No. 1, the Moderato of No. 2 and the Allegro of No. 6. The oboes, played here with spirit by Anthony Robson and Catherine Latham, figure prominently in both concertino (the Moderato of No. 2, the Presto of No. 3, and the Moderato and Larghetto of No. 5) and tutti textures (the Allegro assai of No. 1 and the Allegro of No. 6). In the Adagio of No. 3, solo flute, played by Rachel Brown, is paired with solo violin in a delightful dialogue, accompanied by pizzicato strings; Brown is joined by her second flute, Siu Peasgood, in the Larghetto of No. 6. But these delights—as well-played as they are—cannot altogether compensate for the slightly insipid quality of the music, which is by no means in the class of the well-known solo oboe concerto. Alessandro was a dilettante, an amateur composer, and occasionally an amateurish one, but there are some fetching musical ideas. R1 '9505034'