Guerrero: Lauda mater ecclesia

This brand new recording by Harry Christophers and The Sixteen is dedicated to the works of Spanish Renaissance composer Francisco Guerrero and includes his exquisite Missa de la Batalla Escoutez. The Mass is a parody on Janeuqin's famous chanson 'La Guerre' which also features on this disc. Janequin’s La Guerre, was so popular in the 16th century that it led to numerous composers, including Janequin himself, writing parody mass settings on it. Missa de la Batalla Escoutez is one of the finest of those settings.

Guerrero is a quite astounding and varied composer with a wide expressive range. Heralded in the Renaissance as ‘the most extraordinary of his time in the art of music’, he was more famous than Victoria and Morales. Despite being a master of expression and sublime melodic invention - skills exemplified by his Missa de la Batalla Escoutez and the other fine works on this disc - Guerrero’s work has often been overlooked in favour of that of his contemporaries. With this brand new recording The Sixteen aims to redress the balance.

Guerrero, Victoria and Morales together comprise the triumvirate at the pinnacle of the Spanish Renaissance, and of these Guerrero was without doubt the most highly respected in his time.

Missa Sancta et immaculata comes from his first published collection of Masses (1566) and takes its theme from Morales’s motet Sancta et immaculata virginitas (‘Holy and immaculate virginity’). Guerrero expands the original four-part texture to include a second soprano line, and the resultant shimmering texture marks this out to be a truly remarkable Mass. This is its first recording.

Two motets, a Magnificat setting, and three Vesper hymns complete this recording, the latter works beginning a long-overdue exploration of the wealth of Hispanic melody, a unique treasury in the chant repertoire. Lauda mater ecclesia is an extraordinary work setting a—somewhat smutty—text (now removed from the liturgy) in honour of Mary Magdalen.