Album

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. Marcello, a Venetian aristocrat and financial official, was also something of an early ethnomusicologist; he notated chants and songs of Venetian Jews, and inserted intonations of psalm verses, in Hebrew, as freestanding movements or interludes into these settings. (The Jews, in turn, spread Marcello's works all over Europe.) Marcello handles these beautifully. In the three psalms presented on this disc, they come respectively at the beginning, near the end, and in the middle as an introduction to a key aria. The notes by conductor Jay Bernfield blame musicological questions about the authenticity of some of Marcello's other works for the decline in popularity of these psalms, but it would be surprising, given the German roots of musical scholarship, if anti-Semitism did not play some role.

Almost as surprising as the Hebrew language is the direct, contemporary Italian used in the main portions of the psalm settings—many works of this type were in Latin. Marcello's works form something of an intimate Italian counterpart to Heinrich Schütz's German Psalmen Davids. His settings, for soprano and a continuo featuring a combination of harp and lute that appears in paintings of David, are neither operatic nor oratorio-like. They are formally loose and follow the sense of the text in a flexible way; many of the sections marked "aria" are slow, expressive, arioso-like conceptions; sample track 25, with its repetition of the words "sei la sola meta e immortale oggetto" (You are the only goal and immortal object [of worship]") for an idea of the power of Marcello's style. Israeli-born soprano Rinat Shaham is an ideal interpreter of this music, not only because of her religious background but also because of her medium-sized voice that adapts itself nicely to the free, expressive qualities of this music. A full set of Marcello's 50 psalms by these same forces would be both artistically desirable and commercially successful.

© James Manheim, Rovi

CD 1
Benedetto Marcello Composer Estro poetico-armonico, psalm settings for vocal soloists and continuo, SF.601-51...Psalm 18 Work 5:45 Mike Fentross Theorbo, Susan Napper Cello, Rinat Shaham Mezzo-Soprano, Francoise Johannel Harp
1	1.Intonazione degli Ebrei Spagnoli (Sha'ar asher misgar)	0:47			$0.99
2	2.Aria: Largo (Oh immacolata, e pura)	4:58			$0.99
Benedetto Marcello Composer Sonata for 2 Cellos and Continuo in C-, SF. 753 (Op.2, No.2) Work 10:21 Mike Fentross Theorbo, Skip Sempe Harpsichord, Rinat Shaham Mezzo-Soprano, Arianne Maurette Viola da Gamba, Francoise Johannel Harp
3	1.Largo	4:48			$0.99
4	2.Presto	1:41			$0.99
5	3.Grave	1:19			$0.99
6	4.Presto	2:33			$0.99
Benedetto Marcello Composer Estro poetico-armonico, psalm settings for vocal soloists and continuo, SF.601-51...Psalm 15 Work 13:59 Mike Fentross Theorbo, Susan Napper Cello, Rinat Shaham Mezzo-Soprano, Francoise Johannel Harp
7	1.Aria: Lento (Signor, dall' empia gente)	3:20			$0.99
8	2.Recitativo (Per quelli poi, che meco uniti denno)	1:14			$0.99
9	3.Aria: Risoluto (Pera orgni lor memoria)	0:57			$0.99
10	4.Aria: Adagio assai (Tu, mio Signor, tu solo)	1:31			$0.99
11	5.Recitativo (Nulla v'e di piu illustre, e di piu grande)	0:26			$0.99
12	6.Aria: Adagio (Benedetto tu, o Signore)	0:54			$0.99
13	7.Recetativo (Cosi fra rei perigli, e pene amare)	0:27			$0.99
14	8.Aria: Allegro (Percio riempiesi)	1:18			$0.99
15	9.Recitativo (No, tu non lascierai)	0:28			$0.99
16	10.Intonazione degli Ebrei Tedeshi (Maoz Zur yeshuati)	0:34			$0.99
17	11.Aria: Presto, Allegro (De la vita l' retto calle)	2:50			$0.99
Benedetto Marcello Composer Sonata for 2 Cellos and Continuo in Bb, SF. 758 (Op.2, No.5) Work 9:10 Mike Fentross Theorbo, Skip Sempe Harpsichord, Rinat Shaham Mezzo-Soprano, Arianne Maurette Viola da Gamba, Francoise Johannel Harp
18	1.Adagio	3:31			$0.99
19	2.Allegro	3:02			$0.99
20	3.Largo	1:09			$0.99
21	4.Presto	1:28			$0.99
Benedetto Marcello Composer Estro poetico-armonico, psalm settings for vocal soloists and continuo, SF.601-51...Psalm 21 Work 28:03 Mike Fentross Theorbo, Susan Napper Cello, Rinat Shaham Mezzo-Soprano, Arianne Maurette Viola da Gamba, Francoise Johannel Harp
22	1.Aria: Grave (Volgi mio Dio, deh volgi)	3:20			$0.99
23	2.Aria: Adgio (Le grida de delitti al di cui peso)	0:50			$0.99
24	3.Recetativo (Nel Giorno ognor ti chiamo e non mi senti)	0:39			$0.99
25	4.Aria: Largo assai (E pur tu quello sei)	3:08			$0.99
26	5.Recetativo (A me sol tocca una diversa sorte)	2:59			$0.99
27	6.Aria: tempo giusto (Quai Giovenchi feroci)	3:02			$0.99
28	7.Aria: adagio assai (Forar le mani mie)	1:51			$0.99
29	8.Recetativo (Han divisi fra loro i panni miei)	0:12			$0.99
30	9.Intonazione degli Ebrei Tedeschi (Shofet kol ha aretz v'otah b'mishpat ya'amid)	1:01			$0.99
31	10.Aria: Adagio (Signor non tardi dunque il tuo soccorso)	1:32			$0.99
32	11.Aria: Largo (Di costoro al furor mio Dio mi togli)	0:49			$0.99
33	12.Aria: Lento (Ma so ben io)	1:23			$0.99
34	13.Recitativo (La stirpe d'Israello il tema a onori)	0:51			$0.99
35	14.Aria: Largo (lo dunque alto Signor tue laudi eccelse)	2:00			$0.99
36	15.Aria: Largo (Di si gran maraviglie)	0:56			$0.99
37	16.Recetativo (Con riverente tributaria fede)	1:20			$0.99
38	17.Aria: Adagio, Allegro (Annuziato alle future genti sara'l Signor)	2:10			$0.99