Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Although he is primarily remembered as the creator of zarzuela and Spanish opera, the sacred and secular vocal chamber music of Baroque composer Juan Hidalgo enjoyed success during his lifetime. Hidalgo's sacred works are perhaps less well known and were composed primarily for specific devotional practices in the palace, and most of his output was likely destroyed in the calamitous fire of the Royal Palace. However a partial restoration of Hidalgo's scores has been possible through recovered manuscripts and in this collection comprised of songs never before released, La Grande Chapelle has selected a varied group of these sacred songs known as tonos and villancicos that greatly illuminate the Baroque culture in Spain of those times.

Antonio Rodríguez de Hita is renowned as the creator of comic zarzuela during the 1760s. However, his scant theatrical works have overshadowed the vast majority of his musical legacy, primarily sacred in nature and composed for the prestigious Monastery of the Incarnation in Madrid, a Royal foundation. His religious works embrace a hybrid musical style, encompassing elements of late Baroque and Classical periods, stile antico, and theatrical language. In his Latin repertoire, Rodríguez de Hita displays a particular affinity for counterpoint and formal experimentation. The selection presented, drawn from his series of psalms, hymns, motets, lamentations, and especially Epiphany responsories, allows us to appreciate this fascinating musician and the richness of sacred music during the Enlightenment period.

La Grande Chapelle would not normally dedicate two separate albums to the same musician, but the relevance of Carlos Patiño and his long career as a composer at the service of the Spanish Court more than justifies a second look at his work. In addition to his vocal production in Latin, Patiño cultivated various musical genres in Spanish, mainly tonos and villancicos, which were written to liven up court parties and for devotion at the Royal Chapel. This album brings together pieces written in a minute format, generally four voices with thoroughbass, that are characterized by rhythmic richness and an intimate relationship with the poetic text. It is an important compilation for delving into Patiño’s work and, ultimately, for approaching the lesser-known music of the Spanish Golden Age.

Situated on the very western edge of Europe, Santiago de Compostela has been a spiritual and artistic center since the Middle Ages. In the seventeenth century, its cathedral enjoyed a golden age that led to the transformation of its Romanesque structure into a Baroque landmark. There, a polychoral style was abundantly cultivated, giving both solemnity and grandeur to religious ceremonies. Among the maestros that served the Compostela cathedral, José de Baquedano stands out. A Navarran composer who perfected his artform with Matías Ruiz at the Royal Monastery of the Incarnation in Madrid, he left a notable vocal legacy in Spanish and Latin after three decades of practice. Therein, his pieces written for Holy Week are especially remarkable. This recording offers a novel anthology of Baquedano's Latin work, with a selection of motets, psalms and lamentations written for two and three choirs, revealing the magnificent talent of this composer from Finisterre.

Antonio Soler is the 17th century’s Spanish composer with the greatest international projection. His fame is due to the celebrated sonatas for harpsichord and his chamber music. However, Soler also produced an extensive oeuvre of vocal music thanks to the more than thirty years he spent at the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, where he was organist and maestro de capilla. This album gathers a carefully selected group of compositions in Latin written for two choruses and instrumental ensemble, some of which have never been recorded. Based on the technical procedures involved in polychoral writing, these works are made up of imposing choral sections- of both homophonic and contrapuntal textures- and sections for soloists with either a cantabile or virtuoso character closer to a theatrical style, all of which shows his mastery throughout an admirable stylistic spectrum. This pioneering initiative reveals the abundant imagination, the vocal writing skill and the ample scope of expressive resources employed by the great Catalan musician.

At the beginning of the 17th century the Brussels court experienced an extraordinary cultural splendour thanks to the Archdukes Albert and Isabella Clara Eugenia, during a period of peace and prosperity in the Southern Low Countries under Spanish Habsburg rule. The sovereigns, who were great collectors and patronized artists such as Brueghel de Velours and Rubens, maintained a magnificent musical chapel with a substantial number of Spanish, Italian and English musicians. It was in this context that the work of the Zaragoza native Pedro Ruimonte unfolded. Master of chamber music under the Archdukes, his Parnaso español (1614) represents one of the capstones in the history of Spanish music. This album reconstructs the musical landscapes of the Archdukes’ chapel and chamber music, characterized by a variety of styles and genres and an innovative spirit.

First monographic recording ever published about Cristóbal Galán, master of the Spanish Royal Chapel under the reign of Charles II (end of the 17th Century), with a refined selection of his best religious works in Latin and Spanish.

A. LOBO Missa Prudentes virgines. Missa Beata Dei genitrix. GUERRERO Prudentes virgines. Beata Dei genitrix • Albert Recasens, dir; La Grande Chapelle • LAUDA 013 (61:08 Text and Translation)


The liberal use of El Greco reproductions in this digipack reflects the subtitle of the program, Works of [Lobo’s] First Book of Masses (1602) for the service of the cathedral of Toledo in the time of El Greco . Two Masses by Alonso Lobo (1555–1617) are parodies of motets by Francisco Guerrero, his teacher, as are three more of the six Masses published in 1602 (the sixth was based on a Palestrina motet). One of Lobo’s predecessors at the Toledo cathedral was Cristóbal de Morales. Lobo was at the Seville cathedral before he took this position, but returned to Seville in 1604, where he died. He was the only maestro to serve the two most prestigious cathedrals in Spain. Although Lobo’s life was not as eventful as most of his contemporaries, there is a 10-page essay on his life and works with this disc, leaving no stone unturned. It is a highly readable account.


The Mass for Virgin Saints, a first recording, is set for five voices, like its motet, while the Mass for the Blessed Virgin and its motet are set for six voices. The latter Mass was once recorded on Meridian but never arrived here. The music unfolds in the serene way that so much Renaissance polyphony does. Recasens, a director unknown to me but for the recordings on this label, maintains an easy mastery over his six singers. The voices blend more easily than some one-to-a-part vocal ensembles do. The lovely singing, the informative notes, the elegant artwork, and the digipack combine to make an irresistible package for this music. Strongly recommended.


FANFARE: J. F. Weber

For over thirty years Carlos Patiño served Philip IV as Choirmaster in the Spanish Royal Chapel. The Spanish monarch was not the only one who held him in great esteem, for João IV of Portugal admired him as well and put together a collection of his works for the renowned Livraria. In 1634, after Mateo Romero had retired, Patiño became the first non-Franco-Flemish maestro de capilla in the Spanish Hapsburg court. Trained in the cathedral tradition in Seville under the tutelage of Alonso Lobo, he developed his own musical style which combined his interest in counterpoint with the use of multiple choirs. From his extensive corpus of Latin vocal music, widely disseminated throughout the principal ecclesiastic centres of Spain and America, Albert Recasens and La Grande Chapelle have extracted some gems. The selection of pieces, many dedicated to the Virgin Mary, not only manifest the quality and originality of Patiño’s work, but also reveal a fascinating amalgam of compositional procedures which are invariably used to underline the meaning of the words