Vicente Lusitano
2022-06-17
There’s been a lot of buzz online since the publishing of several yesterday in some British media such as the BBC or The Guardian regarding the Portuguese-born composer Vicente Lusitano.Read more
Diogo Dias Melgaz ❧ Salve Regina
2019-10-02
The motet Salve Regina, for four voices, is probably Diogo Dias Melgaz’s best-known work. Melgaz was born in the Alentejo village of Cuba in 1638 and died in Évora in 1700 and is one of the Évora Cathedral composers whose most musical output has survived to this day.Read more
Duarte Lobo • Asperges me
2019-09-30
This polyphony setting of the antiphon Asperges me comes from Portuguese composer Duarte Lobo’s first Liber Missarum of 1621. It was one of the books Lobo printed in Antwerp at the famous Officina Plantiniana by Balthazar Moretus.Read more
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina • Assumpta est Maria
2019-08-14
No Renaissance composer and few later ones have been as proficient as Palestrina at writing positive, outward-going, major-key music, and in this context Assumpta est Maria represents one of the most important works of the period.Read more
Tomás Luis de Victoria – O Quam gloriosum
2019-07-09
One of my favourite motets by Tomás Luis de Victoria is the four-voice O quam gloriosum, a motet indicated for the feast of All Saints. It was one of his most published works with the first print in the 1572 book of motets with reprints in 1583, 1585, 1589 andRead more
Tomás Luis de Victoria • Ascendens Christus in altum
2019-05-30
The motet Ascendens Christus in altum by Spanish composer Tomás Luis de Victoria was first published in his 1572 book of motets, one of his finest publications where one can find other motets such as the famous O magnum mysterium or the six-part Vidi speciosam.Read more
Polyphony for World Voice Day
2019-04-16
The human voice is probably one of our most valuable treasures, to which so much wonderful music has been composed since the beginnings of our civilisation. April 16th was chosen since 1999 to celebrate worldwide the phenomenon of voice. Its aim is to demonstrate the enormous importance of the voiceRead more
Alonso Lobo • Versa est in luctum
2019-04-04
To me, one of the finest examples of the relation and message that painting and music can communicate can be found in El Greco’s The Burrial of the Count of Orgaz and Alonso Lobo’s motet Versa est in luctum. Both works are pratically from the same period and both areRead more
Tomás Luis de Victoria ❧ Ave Maria [a 8]
2019-03-27
Together with Francisco Guerrero’s, Tomás Luis de Victoria’s double-choir setting of the Ave Maria (the only one actually by him) is probably one the “Ave Maria” settings from Iberian composers which I like more (although D. Pedro de Cristo’s setting is also sumptuous).Read more
Estêvão Lopes Morago • Oculi mei semper ad Dominum
2019-03-13
On June 4th, 2014, I made some recordings with Ensemble Eborensis of the repertory we were singing at the time, taking advantage of the generous acoustic of the archaeology wing of the then Évora Regional Museum (now National Museum Fr. Manuel do Cenáculo), which used to be the archiepiscopal palaceRead more