Notes from Geoffrey Whittington, choir member, relating to the pieces we’re performing on 28 March in Petersfield.
In this programme we present some of our favourite Spanish and Portuguese music, as well as a newly commissioned work for the choir’s fiftieth anniversary. In the intervals there will be guitar music played by Zoe Barnett with whom we have collaborated with several times.
Schofield – Songs of Hope
Ian Schofield is a local composer and reviewer. We enjoyed learning and performing his Stream of Life which we commissioned ten years ago for our 40th anniversary. We have commissioned Songs of Hope for our 50th anniversary year: this is its world premiere! It is a collaboration between Ian and Maggie Sawkins, a local poet. It is in nine movements.
The texts focus on the plight of oppressed people, for instance those fleeing from torture, war and deprivation. There are several examples of bird-based imagery. As always with Ian’s music, the melodies and rhythms are fresh and captivating.
The eighth movement is written in a sort of polyphonic style to reflect the heritage of The Renaissance choir, and one movement uses a Latin translation of the words.
Victoria – Missa Officium Defunctorum
Tomas Luis de Victoria (1548 – 1611) was the greatest Spanish composer of the Renaissance and hsa been a main-stay of our programmes. Although born and dying in Spain, for a large part of his early career he worked in Rome. His music is fresh and expressive. The Missa Officium Defunctorum is a late work, written for the funeral of the dowager Empress Maria, sister of King Philip II of Spain in 1603.
We will sing these movements:
2 – Introit
3 – Kyrie
6 – Sanctus / Benedictus
8 – Communio
Guererro – Ave Virgo Sanctissima
Francisco Guerrero (1527-1599) is one of the greatest of Spanish Renaissance composers and one of our favourite ones. Guerrero spent nearly the whole of his career at Seville Cathedral, although he visited Italy twice. He was prolific, using texts in both Spanish and Latin. He claimed his music aimed to ‘excite the souls of listeners to worthy contemplation of the sacred mysteries’. This fine piece for five voices is quite dark and serious in tone, with typical canonic writing.
Morales – Manus tuae Domine
Christobal de Morales (1490-1553), after jobs at Avila and Plasencia, became a singer in the papal choir in 1535. On returning to Spain after a second spell in Rome, he had jobs at Toledo and Marchena. His last post was at Malaga and earlier on he taught Guerrero. Morales is famous for books of masses and pieces he wrote for the papal chapel. This piece for five voices opens with ascending scales in each part, and scale passages are common throughout.
Lobo – Versa est in luctum
Duarte Lobo (1565-1646) was a Portuguese composer and teacher who worked at Evora and Lisbon. His works include two books of masses, and he had a range of styles; he was influenced by both Palestrina and Guerrero. It is interesting to compare this six-part setting with Palestrina’s setting of the same words.
Lotti – Crucifixus
Antonio Lotti (1667 – 1740) was an Italian composer, though born in Hanover. He was unusual in being successful in both operas and sacred music. Some of his choral works like this one hark back to an earlier age but the power is impressive, with many telling suspensions. Note how after a smooth opening, at the words Crucifixus etiam there are quavers to remind of the nails hammered into the cross.
Casals – O Vos Omnes
Pablo Casals (1876-1973) was a top Spanish cellist, pianist, conductor and composer. This short, dark but powerful piece is moving.
The three Spanish secular works E la don don Verges Maria, Riu, Riu, Chiu and La Tricotea are included to show a sample of the popular street music one might have heard in Spain in the sixteenth century. They are all lively, often with interesting cross-rhythms.
La Tricotea is a satirical and bawdy song, largely deliberately unintelligible due to inverted words in three or four medieval languages (Spanish, Catalan, Italian and French). E la don don Verges Maria is Catalan (Medieval) – attr .Mateo Flecha the Elder, died 1553. The first words of Riu Riu Chiu are based on a shepherd’s call guarding the flock at a riverbank, but they have also been likened to the sound of the Kingfisher or Nightingale, and the text is ambiguous.