Morales

Morales was the first Spanish composer to achieve true international fame, and was described by contemporaries as ‘the light of Spain in music’. Although he is relatively well-represented in recordings, a few pieces have attracted the attention of performers at the expense of the majority of his output. This recording aims to begin filling that gap by presenting works which are so far underexposed, yet which are of extremely high quality.

2011 DGG 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 won a Gramophone award.

Cristóbal de Morales was the finest Spanish composer of the early 16th century (2000 marked the 500th anniversary of his birth ca. 1500, possibly in Seville). He was also one of the most important contributors to a repertoire of musical settings used in the liturgy for the dead. His five-voice Requiem (or Missa pro Defunctis, as it was originally called) was published in Rome in 1544 while he was a member of the Papal choir, and from there it became widely known across Europe. This overwhelming and impressive music was probably sung in 1599 in Mexico as part of the memorial ceremonies for Emperor Charles V (almost an exact contemporary of Morales), and then in 1598, in the context of a full Requiem Mass celebrated in the Cathedral of Toledo upon the death of Philip II.

Morales's five-part setting of the Requiem is one of the masterpieces of the 16th century and was actually published twice during his lifetime. The 'Missa pro defunctis' follows the customary pattern of the time. Each section begins with a unison Gregorian intonation, which then continues as a cantus firmus in the upper part as the other voices spin a polyphonic texture underneath. The work avoids obvious madrigalisms, but maintains an austere, meditative texture, which is both spiritual and moving.