The motet Veni Domine by Spanish composer Francisco Guerrero is, in my opinion, one of his finest works. The text “Veni Domine et noli tardare” was set to polyphony by numerous Spanish composers: Cristóbal de Morales (with 2 settings), Juan Esquível, and …
Gregorio Allegri’s (c.1582-1652) Miserere, mei Deus is without any doubt the most mystical work of sacred vocal polyphony of the Catholic world for its association with the musical practices in the Sistine Chapel. Together with Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli it …
Photo from my presentation at the CESEM/UÉvora Conferences in Music and Musicology, where I talked about Diogo Dias Melgaz’s beautiful motet Memento homo.
In 2015 I shared a interesting documentary I found on YouTube about the great Lisbon 1755 earthquake, a cataclysmic event that marked the Portuguese social and cultural life deeply.
The region where I’m from – the Azores archipelago – is known for its seismic activity that is documented almost since the first settlers arrived in mid-fifteenth century. One of the Azorean chroniclers, Doctor Gaspar Frutuoso, wrote by the end …
Next October 31st (Sala dos Espelhos, Colégio Mateus d’Aranda, 14h00) I will give a brief presentation on one of the works by Diogo Dias Melgaz, the four-voice a capella motet Memento homo, for Ash Wednesday.
In 2014 I prepared an edition of Matheo d’Aranda’s surviving polyphonic works for the number 11 of the Polyphonia series of musical editions published by the Edições MPMP of Movimento Patrimonial pela Música Portuguesa.
Review for the online edition of the Portuguese classical music magazine Glosas, of the concert by vocal group Contrapunctus (dir. Owen Rees) last October 5th in Évora Cathedral.
When one speaks of water and music, in most cases, the first association is, naturally, the Wassermusik suites by Georg F. Handel. Indeed these works have established themselves as canonic in instrumental music repertoire of Western music. But there are many other …
The music of Francisco Guerrero has been an important part of my musicological research. I worked on three of his motets that served as models for the same number of parody masses by Portuguese composer Duarte Lobo. I also sung …