Juan Carlos

« Il était une fois un prince. Qui fut charmant puis maudit. Il s’appelait Juan Carlos, ou Juanito pour les intimes. Il n’était pas exactement prince, il était petit-fils de roi. Mais d’un roi sans royaume, acculé à vivre en exil. Son vrai pays, celui sur lequel ses ancêtres Bourbons ont régné depuis trois siècles, est l’Espagne. …

Los Angeles, June 2021 - An abounding reunion amongst Latin-Jazz luminaries, long-time music collaborators & friends embodied a gathering in the studio with a mission to record tracks for the long-awaited new album from Colombian native, Juan Carlos Quintero…

Aujourd'hui contesté par certains, Juan Carlos incarne pourtant un modèle politique : dernier " grand roi " européen, il a réconcilié l'Espagne avec elle-même en la guidant vers la démocratie et la modernité. Pourtant, rien n'était joué. …

Et Jesum presents motets, antiphons, and mass sections by the Spanish Renaissance composer Tomás Luis de Victoria, arranged for countertenor voice and accompanying stringed instrument. Both the laud (the Spanish version of the lute) and the more guitar-like vihuela are used by accompanist Juan Carlos Rivera. Rivera and countertenor Carlos Mena, a youthful alumnus of the Savall school, augment arrangements of Victoria's day with efforts of their own in a similar vein, and it would take a deep specialist indeed to pick out the 400-year-old ones.

The seventeenth century was a very dark century for the peninsular kingdoms. Famine, epidemics, and all kinds of miseries seized upon a diminishing and very fragmented population. In spite of the continuous social economical and epistemological crisis and of the imposition of an ideology of domination, Spanish culture had flashes of brilliance. And music was a very important part of that culture, particularly vocal music. It was a vehicle of expression for restrained passions, a music that, at times, sang to disillusionment and deception of the senses, just like the tono that lends its title to this recording. The Tonos selected for this recording coincide with this period, in which theatre performances enjoyed a new boost.