FRANCESCO MARIA MARINI: CONCERTI SPIRITUALI, Libro Primo (1637). Motets for Two, Three or Four Voices and Basso Continuo. Edited by Janet E. Hunt. Available as either a spiral-bound printed volume (ISBN 978-0-9962221-6-7) or as a PDF download. $40.00

The 1637 printing of Concerti Spirituali . . . concertati a 2.3.4.5.6.7 voci, et con instrumenti constitutes all that is presently known about the composer Francesco Maria Marini.  The title page indicates that he was from Pesaro and employed as maestro di capella in the nearby Republic of San Marino.  As Dr. Jerome Roche’s writings on north Italian liturgical music of this era point out, it is disappointing not to have more compositions from a musician whose surviving volume indicates skillful treatment of text, voices, form, and obbligato instruments.  He particularly cites Marini’s masterful integration of instruments and voices in the motets Jesu dulcis memoria, Omnes gentes, and Anima mea in aeterna, in which a variety of techniques are employed to enhance the formal outline of each motet while integrating the instrumental material with the vocal material.  

Of the twenty-seven motets in the collection, twenty-one are for voices and continuo without obbligato instruments.  These are for either two or three voices in different combinations, treating a number of texts suitable for Christmas, Marian feasts (or the Office of Compline), penitential observances, and other feast days.  Included in the collection are three motets celebrating Saint Marinus, the patron saint of San Marino.  One of them, O Titani montis, cleverly sets a dialogue between Cantus and Bassus, providing some background on Saint Marinus and promoting his way of life as an example of how to enter heaven. 

Avoiding daring harmonic language or other characteristics of contemporary secular vocal music, Marini employs different combinations of vocal ranges in a texture that is sometimes imitative and at other times in homophonic consonant intervals, supported by basso continuo.  The result is a set of modest-length sacred motets that are pleasing and expressive.