Marcello

King David, soldier and poet, was for centuries a figure as attractive to musicians as to artists like the one who sculpted the big unclothed guy in Florence's Uffizi galleries. Benedetto Marcello's settings of the Psalms of David, part of a large collection called the Estro poetico-armonico, were famous during his own lifetime (1686-1739) and beyond, but have been strangely neglected in recent years even as more obscure Baroque repertories have flourished. When they are heard, it is usually because of their exotic Jewish component.

Andrea Bacchetti follows his album of sonatas by Baldassarre Galuppi with another little-performed 18th century Venetian, Benedetto Marcello, whose work has a surprisingly modern character. The "Sonata III", for instance, opens with a sequence in which the right hand plays the same note 48 times in rapid succession, while the left cycles quadruplets around it – the kind of gambit you'd expect from a Cage or Feldman, but hardly from a contemporary of Vivaldi. Marcello is said to have once fallen into a grave that opened beneath him, a trauma perhaps responsible for the austere, near-spiritual logic of pieces such as the "Sonata V", where the absence of frills prefigures the enigmatic miniatures of Erik Satie.

The epitome of a Renaissance man, Benedetto Marcello (1686-1739) won success and acclaim as a poet, writer, musician, lawyer, judge, administrator and philologist. Though his keyboard sonatas have appeared on several recorded collections of the Italian Baroque, they have rarely been presented in a comprehensive manner. In doing so, this album celebrates the personal even idiosyncratic style of a composer whose technical accomplishment facilitates rather than stifling his creative voice. The 12 Sonatas were later published as Op.3. They date from early in Marcellos career, and are mostly cast in three and four brief movements, though the first and last of them, in D minor and C minor respectively, feature more extended forms.

Brilliant's breezy survey of Rossini's one-act operas is assembled from five different recordings originally released on the Claves label in the early '90s. All were well received in their original form, and since all five were conducted by the veteran Marcello Viotti in similar-enough-for-non-audiophile acoustics, they make a convincing box set, and an attractive buy for those looking for a lighthearted Rossini infusion. The packaging is minimal, and the included libretti are in Italian only, so if you're counting on a translation you'll have to find it somewhere else. Viotti's work is exemplary and idiomatic throughout, always putting Rossini's most tuneful and lighthearted foot forward, while never forgetting that every good comedy has real moments of pathos. The overtures all seem a bit under tempo, and could use an extra shot of fun, but they are still upbeat enough to elicit a smile.

il Gardellino is a Flemish instrumental ensemble for Baroque music, founded in 1988 on an initiative of the Dutch oboist Marcel Ponseele (NL) and flutist Jan De Winne. The name was derived from a piece by Vivaldi for transverse flute, oboe, violin, bassoon and continuo Il Gardellino, which is in Flemish the name of the songbird distelvink. The ensemble plays on period instruments in historically informed performance. Works by Johann Sebastian Bach are a focus, but also by his contemporaries Johann Friedrich Fasch, Carl Heinrich Graun, Handel, Johann Gottlieb Janitsch, Telemann and Vivaldi.

Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835) wanted to move the audience of his operas to tears. And this is exactly what Beatrice di Tenda manages to do: it has great music and the story really touches the heart. In this production by Daniel Schmid, one can experience the stunning singers Edita Gruberova and Michael Volle in the main roles – with Marcello Viotti conducting the Orchestra of the Zurich Opera House. In Beatrice di Tenda, Bellini departs from the belcanto style, which he used in Norma, and explores a new way of musical expression, which brought to the fore a new warmth and different characteristics.

La morte di San Giuseppe (The Death of St. Joseph) is a fascinating curiosity from the pen of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, the Italian composer of La serva padrona – the little intermezzo through which the irreverent breezes of Mozartian opera first blew. This recording is a world premiere of La morte di San Giuseppe, which was known to scholars through fragmentary manuscripts in European libraries but for which a full autograph manuscript only recently surfaced. Designated as an oratorio, the work depicts the death of Joseph, husband of Mary. It features three characters in addition to Joseph, a tenor; St. Michael and Divine Love, both sopranos; and Mary, a contralto.

Il pianto e il riso delle quattro stagioni dell'anno per la morte, esultazione e coronazione di Maria Assunta in Cielo, written in 1731, is the second last of the four oratorios by Benedetto Marcello (1686-1739). As a member of the Venetian aristocracy he didn‘t have to consider the musical conventions as much as his professional contemporaries. Thanks to his unconventional style he is one of the most interesting Italian baroque composers.