6/8 – Music of Renaissance Spain

During the European Renaissance, roughly 1400-1600 CE, a cappella choral music for church services attained new heights of beauty and magnificence.  While much of this music originated in Rome, the center of all Christian religious activity at that time, Spain produced equally gifted composers and choristers, and the 16th century is known as the Siglo de Oro – the Golden Age – of Spanish music.  Eventually the musical tradition of Spain made its way to the growing overseas empire in the New World, and in the 17th century, the new churches of Mexico and South America achieved a kind of musical Golden Age of their own.  Mexico’s Puebla Cathedral, built in the mid-17th century, became an important center of religious and musical life in the new society that was evolving from Spanish, Portuguese, Native American, and African influences.

Francisco Guerrero, who lived from 1528 to 1599, served several Spanish cathedrals and also held posts in Lisbon and Rome.  He composed full-length Masses as well as the shorter liturgical works called motets.  Maria Magdalene, a motet for Easter, has six separate voice parts; the work falls into two separate sections.  The first, introduced by the sopranos, recounts how Mary Magdalene and another Mary procure spices and take them to Jesus’ tomb.  The voices intertwine in a slow, relaxed pace, dwelling repeatedly on each word of the text, until we reach “sole,” (sunrise).  The section ends with the word “Alleluia.”  The basses and tenors then tell of the women’s meeting with a young man robed in white, and the music builds in intensity toward the word “surrexit,” meaning “He is risen.”  This second section ends again with “Alleluia” then “Amen.”

Juan Gutierrez de Padilla, who was born about 1590 and lived until 1664, was trained in the conservative tradition of the Spanish Siglo de Oro, but once he emigrated to the new land, his works absorbed influences from new sounds.  In contrast to the Guerrero motet, whose rhythms are quite steady, Padilla’s Mass features rhythmic contrasts and syncopations.  The Mass is written for eight voice parts that are often separated into two antiphonal choirs.  The text is that of the Latin Mass, which is divided in five sections: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus-Benedictus, and Agnus Dei.

Baroque music expert Andrew Lawrence-King of the Harp Consort, in commentary for the group’s recording called Missa Mexicana, notes Padilla’s originality in the Missa Ergo Flos Campi, and points out something interesting about the text, an element that our singers today think is of particular importance.  As Lawrence-King puts it: “Padilla takes considerable liberties with the liturgical text, creating refrains that suggest the religious fervor of a gospel meeting, and a hint at the didactic, evangelizing purpose of music in the colonial church.”  There’s a special emphasis on “Bonae Voluntatis” (Goodwill Toward All Men); “Miserere Nobis” (Have Mercy On Us); “Credo” (I Believe); and “Dominus Deus Sabaoth” (Lord God of Hosts).