Scan 70
Grove's dictionary of music and musicians;, 1907
10 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 47. See the scan on archive.org.
1MARBECK
3'Alcione' (words by Houdart de la Motte), 1706; and 'Séméle' (words by the same poet), 1709. The most successful of his operas was 'Alcione,' a representation of a storm in which was long much admired. In 1692 he published a set of 'Pièces en Trio pour les Flûtes, Violon et Dessus de Viole.' A second book of 'Pièces de Viole' appeared in 1701; a third in 1711 (when he was living in the Rue de la Harpe); a fourth in 1717 and a fifth in 1725. Reprints of some of these exist. In 1723 he published a set of 'Sinfonies' for violin, viol, and harpsichord, entitled 'La Gamme.' About 1725 Marais retired to his house in the Rue de Lourcine, where he occupied himself with horticulture. He still, however, gave lessons two or three times a week at a room in the Rue du Battoir. He died Aug. 15, 1728, and was buried in the Church of St. Hippolyte in the Quartier Saint-Marcel. The parish was suppressed in 1791, and shortly afterwards the church was destroyed. No trace of it now remains, but the name is preserved in the Rue Saint-Hippolyte. At his death Marais left in MS. a 'Te Deum' (written and performed on the convalescence of the Dauphiness) and some Concertos for violin and bass viol, written for the elector of Bavaria. At an early age Marais married Catherine Damicourt, who survived him. By her he had nineteen children, four of whom (three sons and a daughter) were also violists. On one occasion he presented his three musician sons to Louis XIV., before whom the children and their father gave a concert, while a fourth boy turned over the leaves of the music. One of his daughters married a musician named Bernier. Marais improved the bass viol by adding a seventh string, and by increasing the sonority of the three lower strings by covering or twisting them. There is a painting of 'M. Marais, musicien,' in the museum at Blois, and there also exists a mezzotint of Marin Marais, painted and engraved by A. Bouys and published in 1704. In this he is represented seated, full length, with his bass viol across his knees. The seven strings and the covering of the lower strings of the instrument have evidently been emphasised by the artist. Of his musician sons, the name of Jean Louis Marais occurs in the imprint of the fourth and fifth books of 'Pièces de Violes,' together with that of Roland Marais, the only one who attained any distinction. He published (in 1711) a Nouvelle Méthode de Musique, and in 1725 became a solo violist in the Royal Band, probably succeeding to his father's post. Quantz heard him in 1726, and praises him as a great performer. He published (in 1735 and 1738) two books of 'Pièces de Viole,' but nothing is known as to his biography. W. B. S.
5MARBECK, or MERBECKE, JOHN, born 1523, lay clerk, and afterwards (from 1541) organist of St. George's Chapel, Windsor; was arrested [in March 1542-43], together with three other inhabitants of the town, on a charge of heresy, i.e. favouring the principles of the Reformation. Their papers were seized, and notes on the Bible and an English Concordance in Marbeck's handwriting were found, and he was, moreover, charged with having copied an epistle of Calvin against the Mass. He and his three fellows were tried [on July 26, 1544] and condemned to the stake, but, whilst the sentence was immediately carried into execution against the others, Marbeck, owing to the favour of Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, and the interposition of Sir Humphrey Foster, one of the Commissioners, obtained a pardon. [Owing to a curious mistake, the fact of his pardon was omitted in Foxe's Acts and Monuments.] He indulged his opinions in secret until the death of Henry VIII., but afterwards avowed them, and in 1550 published his Concordance, and also the work by which he is best known, The Boke of Common Praier noted, being an adaptation of the plain chant of the earlier rituals to the first liturgy of Edward VI. In the same year he took the degree of Mus.D. at Oxford. He was still organist in 1565. Marbeck escaped the Marian persecution, and afterwards published The Lives of Holy Saints, etc., 1574; The Holie Historie of King David, etc., 1579; The Ripping up of the Pope's Fardel, 1581; A Booke of Notes and Commonplaces, etc., 1581; Examples drawn out of Holy Scriptures, etc., 1582; A Dialogue between Youth and Olde Age, 1584. He died at Windsor about 1585. His Boke of Common Praier noted, was reprinted in facsimile by Whittingham for Pickering in 1844; an edition by Rimbault was issued in 1845, and a reprint was included in vol. ii. of Dr. Jebb's Choral Responses and Litanies, 1857. A hymn for three voices by Marbeck is given in Hawkins's History, and portions of a mass for five voices by him, 'Per arma justitiae,' are contained in vol. vi. of Burney's Musical Extracts (Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 11,586.) Additions from Dict. of Nat. Biog.; West's Cath. Org.; C. F. A. Williams's Degrees in Music, etc. W. H. H.
7MARCATO (Ital.). 'In a marked, decisive manner.' The principal use of this direction is to draw the attention to the melody or subject when it is in such a position that it might be overlooked, as for instance, 'Il basso ben marcato,' in Chopin's Krakowiak, op. 11; or when there are two subjects both of which are to be brought prominently forward, as in the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven (last movement) where the two subjects come together in 6-4 time, the words being 'Freude, schöner Götterfunken,' and 'Seid umschlungen,' etc.; and in the Etudes Symphoniques of Schumann, No. 2, 'Marcato il canto' and 'Marcato il tema.' Beethoven also uses 'Queste note ben marcato' (sic) in the string quartet, op. 18; No. 6, slow movement, and 'Melodia marcata,' in the Trio, op. 9, No. 2.
9'Marcatissimo' is used by Chopin, Étude,
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