From Spain to Eternity

 

NOTE: All of the music on this program is from the recording From Spain to Eternity—The Sacred Polyphony of El Greco’s Toledo with the Ensemble Plus Ultra. It is on the Archiv label and is CD 479 2610.

  

In 2011 DG released a spectacular 10-CD anthology on Archiv Produktion with Ensemble Plus Ultra (EPU), “the finest British early music singers” (Early Music Today), commemorating the 400th anniversary of Tomas de Victoria’s death. This box sold about 6.100 units worldwide and won a Gramophone award.

Now the award winning ensemble is back with a major recording project to mark the 400th anniversary of the death of El Greco in 2014 – composers including Cristobal de Morales, Alonso Lobo and Alonso de Tejeda were prolific in Toledo during the 37 years El Greco lived and worked there, and much of this music certainly inspired his painting.

Morales is THE Spanish composer of the Renaissance. Morales – Kapellmeister at the cathedral in Toledo, but also in Italian cities – is generally considered to be the most influential Spanish composer before Victoria. Almost all of his music is sacred, and all of it is vocal.

Pieces by Lobo and Tejeda make a wonderful conclusion to the disc – all in all a varied program, and encompassing three composers from Toledo during the time of El Greco.

1 ALONSO LOBO: Versa est in luctum
Motet a 6 from Liber primus missarum (Madrid, 1602)

2 CRISTÓBAL DE MORALES: Clamabat autem mulier Chananea
Infra hebdomadam I quadragesimae
Motet a 5 for the first week of Lent

3 FRANCISCO GUERRERO: Prudentes virgins
Motet a 5 from Motteta

4-9 ALONSO LOBO
Kyrie
Gloria
Credo
Sanctus
Benedictus
Agnus Dei
Missa “Prudentes virgines” a 5
from Liber primus missarum

10 CRISTÓBAL DE MORALES: Quanti mercenarii
Infra hebdomadam II quadragesimae
Motet a 6 for the second week of Lent

11 ALONSO DE TEJEDA: Rex autem David
Motet a 5 from Liber secundus sacrarum cantionum

12 CRISTÓBAL DE MORALES: Expandit Sion manus suas
Lamentation a 6

13 ALONSO DE TEJEDA: Miserere mei, Deus
Motet a 5 from Liber secundus sacrarum cantionum

14 ALONSO LOBO: Ave, Regina coelorum
Antiphon a 6 from Liber primus missarum