musica Dei donum
CD reviews
Santa Maria & Cristo: Sacred music
[I] Francisco DE SANTA MARIA (1532/38 - 1597): Missa O beata Maria
Arte Minima
Dir: Pedro Sousa Silva
rec: July 21 - 25, 2022, Vilar de Frades, Igreja de São Salvador
Pan Classics - PC 10452 (© 2023) (58'30")
Liner-notes: E/D; lyrics - translations: E
Cover & track-list
Spotify
anon:
Tento do 7º tom;
António CARREIRA (c1520-c1587/97):
Tento do 5º tom;
Pedro DE ESCOBAR (c1465-after 1535):
O Maria mater pia;
Pedro GUERRERO (c1520-after 1560):
O beata Maria;
Francisco DE SANTA MARIA:
Missa O beata Maria
Irene Brigitte, soprano;
David Hachkston, alto;
Nuno Raimundo, tenor;
Luís Neiva, bass
Silvia Cortini, António Godinho, Carlos Sánchez, Pedro Sousa Silva, João Távora, recorder
[II] Pedro DE CRISTO (c1550 - 1618): "Magnificat, Marian Antiphons & Missa Salve Regina"
Cupertinos
Dir: Luís Toscano
rec: August 14 - 17, 2021, Braga, Basilica do Bom Jesus
Hyperion - CDA68393 (© 2022) (75'30")
Liner-notes: E/D/F/PT; lyrics - translations: E/PT
Cover, track-list & booklet
Scores
Spotify
Alma redemptoris mater a 4;
Ave Maria a 8;
Ave maris stella a 4;
Ave regina caelorum a 4;
Beata Dei genitrix a 5;
Beata viscera Mariae a 4;
Magnificat 8. toni a 8;
Missa Salve regina a 4;
Quae est ista a 5;
Regina caeli a 4;
Salve regina a 4;
Sancta et immaculata a 4;
Stabat mater a 4;
Virgo prudentissima a 4
Joana Castro, Raquel Mendes, Eva Braga Simões, soprano;
Marta Queirós, Gabriela Braga Simões, contralto;
Almeno Gonçalves, Luís Toscano, tenor;
Pedro Lopes, Nuno Mendes, Pedro Silva, bass
The veneration of Mary was an important part of religious life in pre-Reformation Europe, and continued to be in those parts of the continent which were largely untouched by the Reformation. That goes in particular for the Iberian peninsula. This explains why Spanish and Portuguese composers of the Renaissance wrote many masses and motets for Marian feasts, such as the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption into heaven. The two discs under review here attest to that. Both are devoted to music by composers from Portugal of the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
There is no lack of recordings of music written by Spanish composers of the Renaissance. In comparison, music by Portuguese composers appears less often on the programmes of concerts and on disc. This is partly due to the earthquake that hit Lisbon in 1755, which destroyed the complete library of the royal palace. It included the country's musical heritage, and much of it is not available from any other source. Apart from that, Portugal is one of the countries which is at the outer edges of the European musical map, which means that the exploration of its musical history is something only local performers see as their duty. Thanks to the growing interest in early music across Europe, in recent decades music from countries like Poland, the Balkans, Malta, Ireland and Portugal has been performed and recorded. In many cases, it is from the pen of composers many music lovers have never heard of. That certainly goes for Francisco de Santa Maria, who - not surprisingly - has neither an entry in New Grove nor is the subject of an article in the English language Wikipedia.
Strictly speaking, one should call him Spanish, because he was born in Ciudad Rodrigo in Spain, near the Portuguese border. At young age he sang in the town's cathedral; he is mentioned in this capacity in a document from 1553. He seems to have moved to Portugal shortly afterwards: in Guarda he was active as mestre de capela, and then in the same position in Coimbra, in the north of Portugal. He had been ordained a priest, and in 1562 he took the habit in the Monastery of Santa Cruz, and was professed in 1563 to become an Augustinian Regular. There he worked for more than 30 years as mestre de capela.
Santa Maria did compose music for the theatre and sacred works. Among the latter are the mass performed on the first disc, and a set of Lamentations. He may also be the composer of a substantial number of pieces which have been preserved in copies without the name of the composer.
The Missa O beata Maria is a parody mass, for which Santa Maria used material from the motet of that title by Pedro Guerrero, the elder brother (and first teacher) of the much better-known Francisco, one of the great masters of the Spanish Golden Age. This four-part motet consists of two sections. Santa Maria uses material from both sections in the course of his mass. The opening of the first section can be heard, for instance, in the first Kyrie, the first section of the Gloria and the Sanctus, the opening of the second section of the motet in, among others, the Christe eleison and the Hosanna, and in the internal sections of the Credo and the Gloria.
The Kyrie and the Agnus Dei are in alternatim form. This was quite usual, but it is notable that in the two Kyries the first and third statements are in plainchant, and the second in polyphony, whereas in most masses of the Renaissance - as far as I can remember - it is the other way round. The second Agnus Dei is also in plainchant. Another notable aspect of this mass is that it does not end with the Agnus Dei, but rather the Benedicamus Domino, seldom added in polyphony.
The performance has some notable features as well. First, the vocal works are performed with one voice per part. Unfortunately the liner-notes don't discuss aspects of performance practice. I would have liked to know where this mass may have been performed (probably the monastery) and how many singers may have been involved. The same goes for another feature of this performance: the singers are supported by a quartet of recorders. It is known that wind instruments participated in sacred music at the Iberian peninsula, but scholars and performers seem not to agree how widespread this practice was and at what occasions instruments were used. It is mostly loud wind instruments that are used. I can't remember having heard recorders in this role. They play colla voce, but in some passages the number of voices is reduced, and some parts are performed instrumentally. An example is the passage on the resurrection in the Credo, where one voice is accompanied by recorders. A third feature is that two instrumental pieces are inserted, which are played by the recorders. It is a bit odd that one of them is played between the Kyrie and the Gloria, as in the mass these sections are never separated. A placement of Carreira's Tento do quinto tom between Gloria and Credo would be more logical. Lastly, I should mention that the plainchant - the intonations and the alternatim sections - is taken from a chantbook from the mid-16th century, copied in Santa Cruz. It couldn't be more authentic.
This disc is of great importance: it very likely is the first recording devoted to Francisco de Santa Maria. His Missa O beata Maria is a fine work which fully deserves a recording. I had never heard of this composer and the ensemble is also new to me. It makes an excellent impression. The four singers are a real ensemble, whose voices blend perfectly. The recorders are noticeable, but are never obtrusive: the balance between voices and instruments is just as it should be. The recorders, extended to a quintet in the person of the director, are on their own in the instrumental works, which are intended for organ, but can be perfectly played on recorders, and the five players do a fine job.
The second disc is devoted to Pedro de Cristo, who was probably one of Santa Maria's pupils. He was born in Coimbra, where he worked all his life at the Monastery of Santa Cruz, and succeeded Santa Maria as its mestre de capela. He played several instruments, such as keyboard, harp and dulcian.
The list of his works, as included in New Grove, is substantial. They have been preserved in four choirbooks which are part of the library of Coimbra University. None of his works were printed during his lifetime. Performers have to deal with the problem that only a relatively few number of works bear the name of Cristo as the composer. Many can be attributed to him for stylistic reasons, but there are also some that are certainly not from his pen. The booklet to the disc includes some paragraphs about the history of the manuscripts which include his oeuvre; some of them have been seriously damaged, and needed restoration in order to make them usable for performance.
It is notable that Cristo has left hardly any masses. In work-lists of Renaissance composers in New Grove, the masses usually are listed separately. Here Cristo's only mass is mentioned among the other works, mostly motets. The Missa Sancta Maria is a parody mass, which is based on the plainchant melody of the antiphon, whose opening motif is clearly recognizable in the different sections of the mass. In the programme the mass is preceded by Cristo's polyphonic setting of this same antiphon. Although it is not the material on which the mass is based, they have a distinctive common feature, which, according to Owen Rees, an expert in Cristo's music and the author of the entry on the composer in New Grove, is due to the influence of Santa Maria: they have a relatively narrow range of only sixteen notes across four voices. Two other works have a compass of seventeen notes: Virgo prudentissima and Ave maris stella. This feature is one of the reasons that the authenticity of two other works is doubtful: the tessitura of Quae est ista and Beata Dei genitrix is a about three octaves. Moreover, Rees has observed that these pieces have been added to the manuscript from which they are taken at a later date.
The large majority of Cristo's works are for four voices; only a few are in five parts. His extant oeuvre includes eight polychoral works; two of them are included here: the Magnificat which opens the programme, and the Ave Maria that closes it. Both are examples of the alternatim practice. Four motets are notable for the treatment of the text, which has marked declamatory traits: Alma redemptoris mater, Ave regina caelorum, Sancta et immaculata and Beata viscera Mariae. The Stabat mater is not a setting of the complete text, but only the first two stanzas.
Whereas Santa Maria's music seems to have been completely ignored, the oeuvre of Pedro de Cristo has received attention in the past. Only five of the fourteen pieces recorded by Cupertinos appear on disc for the first time. Even so, this very fact makes this disc a substantial addition to the discography of Portuguese - and wider: Iberian - Renaissance polyphony. Cupertinos is a Portuguese ensemble founded in 2009, which almost exclusively devotes itself to the Portuguese musical heritage of the 16th and 17th centuries. The booklet mentions that during its existence it has presented around 250 works, among them over 100 for the first time. The importance of this can hardly be overstated, especially in the light of what I wrote above about the fate of Portuguese music due to the 1755 earthquake. The ensemble consists here of ten singers: three sopranos, two (female) altos, two tenors and three basses. This allows for a performance of the polychoral works; I assume that in the smaller-scale works the different parts are sung by two voices. This results in a transparency which makes the lyrics pretty well intelligible. Cupertinos is a very fine ensemble, and I am looking forward to further recordings.
Lovers of renaissance polyphony, and also those who have a special interest in music of the Iberian peninsula, should not hesitate to add these discs to their collection.
Johan van Veen (© 2024)
Relevant links:
Arte Minima
Cupertinos