Benedetto Marcello

Benedetto Marcello (1686–1739) was a Venetian nobleman, magistrate and Baroque composer. His father wanted him to pursue law, so he combined public service with music, holding office from the Council of Forty in 1711 to provincial governor at Pola while writing more than three hundred cantatas and four oratorios.

His masterpiece Estro poetico-armonico (1724–1727) set fifty psalms for voices and continuo and was admired across Europe by Goethe, Rossini and Verdi. In 1728 he secretly married his singing pupil Rosanna Scalfi, a commoner, and he died of tuberculosis at Brescia in 1739.