Marcello: Oboe Concerto. Ensemble XXI by Lygia O'Riordan

Alessandro Marcello (1669-1747)

Concerto for Oboe in d minor

Alessandro Marcello was born in 1669 in Venice. Apart from his activities as an instrumentalist, composer and singer he was also known as a poet, painter, philosopher and mathematician. As such he was a member of the prestigious Arcadia in Rome. The oboe concerto is considered to be one of the first examples of the classical concerto style. It was written before 1708 and published by Count Johannes Ernst Von Weimar in 1716 in Amsterdam. After Marcello’s death in 1747 the work lay forgotten until it was rediscovered in the 1950’s by Frank Walker and Albert van der Leiden in Amsterdam. Since then the work has won enormous popularity, particularly for its beautiful second movement.