el Himno de Riego

Francisco Guerrero is still insufciently well known by comparison to his great contemporary and compatriot Victoria. El León de Oro here afrms his rightful place in the history of the Golden Age of Spanish polyphony.

A collection of works representative of a school of Flemish composers living in Madrid towards the end of the Renaissance and all employed by Philip II of Spain, who held composers from the Low Countries in particularly high regard. La Hèle’s Mass, here receiving its first complete recording, is a major discovery.

A sublime survey of sacred music of the high Renaissance, Hyperion's 2018 release Amarae Morti offers transparent performances by Peter Phillips and the a cappella chamber choir El León de Oro. Covering music of the Franco-Flemish and Iberian schools, the program follows a trajectory from darkness to light, from somber motets by Dominique Phinot, Orlande de Lassus, Nicolas Gombert, and Manuel Cardoso to glorious works by Tomás Luis de Victoria, Cristóbal de Morales, and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. There is a consistency of subjects in the program, which includes settings of the Lamentations, Media Vita, the Regina Coeli, and the Magnificat, revealing different treatments of these familiar texts and varying levels of complexity and contrapuntal mastery, which culminate in the magnificent polychoral works of Victoria and Palestrina.

There is no shortage of recordings of Manuel de Falla's El sombrero de tres picos (The Three-Cornered Hat) and El amor brujo (Love, the Wizard), with more on the way, thanks to the centenary of the former in 2019. Even casual listeners may reflect that this delightful work has never, despite plenty of changes in taste in music of the interwar period, fallen out of style. It was on the cutting edge when it was premiered, and yet its fusion of flamenco influences with growing French neoclassicism is irresistible for general symphonic audiences.

The sultry warm atmosphere of an Andalusian night is almost palpable in Falla’s spellbinding Noches en los jardines de España. With its shimmering, sensuous harmonies, exquisite orchestral colours and exuberant melodies and rhythms, it’s perhaps Falla’s most impressionistic work. Using a large orchestral canvas on which he paints with deft, luminous strokes, Falla skilfully integrates a virtuoso piano part to create lovingly evocative music, full of captivating beauty.

The Cancionero de Medinaceli or Cancionero Musical de Medinaceli (CMM) is a manuscript containing Spanish music of the Renaissance. It was copied during the second half of the 16th century and kept at the library of the Duke of Medinaceli's house, hence its name. Is it probably the most important compilation of Spanish secular polyphony of the Renaissance after the Cancionero de Palacio.

Jordi Savall - Alfons V El Magnanim (1396- 1458) - El Cancionero De Montecassino (2001) {2CD, Alia Vox AV9816 A+B}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 650 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 350 Mb
Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 124 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2001 Alia Vox | AV9816 A+B
Classical / Medieval / Renaissance / Choral / Instrumental Music

The works on this 2-CD set all come from a single source: a document called "Cancionero de Montecassino" which is believed to contain works composed between 1430 and 1480. Somehow the document has survived down through the centuries; it was almost lost when the Abbey where it was stored was bombed in 1944. Luckily the document survived so that this amazing CD set could be recorded by the - also amazing - Le Capella Reial de Catalunya. This CD is the second in a series entitled "Musicas Reales", the first of which being "Carlos V" containing works mainly from the 16th century. If you enjoyed that one, then "Alfons V el Magnanim" will be a welcome addition to your CD spinner.

Juan García de Salazar was a Spanish Baroque composer from the Basque country who spent most of his career working at Zamora Cathedral; he is so obscure the entry for him in the New Grove doesn't even include a list of his works. Musicologist Manuel Sagastume Arregi has pulled together a number of Salazar's extant movements related to the Vespers service with additional material to create Juan García de Salazar: Complete Vespers of Our Lady in Naxos' Spanish Classics series. It is performed by the Basque ensemble Capilla Peñaflorida and features the period wind group Ministriles de Marsias and the fine baritone of Josep Cabré. There are no stars here, though – everything on Juan García de Salazar: Complete Vespers of Our Lady is done to the service of the music, which is outstanding. Sagastume Arregi's realization of García de Salazar's Vespers service incorporates appropriate plainchant sections taken from a Basque hymnal dated 1692, organ music by García de Salazar's contemporaries José Ximenez and Martín Garcia de Olagüe, instrumental arrangements of García de Salazar's motets, and an arrangement of Tomás Luis de Victoria's Vidi speciosam probably made by García de Salazar himself.

Mägo de Oz es una banda española de folk metal fundada el 7 de julio de 1988 por el baterista Txus di Fellatio en el barrio de Begoña en Madrid. Inicialmente se llamó Transilvania, en honor a la canción homónima del sexteto inglés Iron Maiden, y adoptó el nombre definitivo de Mägo de Oz en 1989.1