Occasionally I’ll devote an evening’s listening to music by a composer in a specific genre (Schubert songs; Mozart piano concerti; Haydn quartets; Palestrina masses). Saturday afternoon I decided to try a variation on this idea—I listened to music by an extraordinary generation of Portuguese composers trained at Evora’s cathedral school in the late 16th century. Magalhães, Cardoso, and Duarte Lôbo (not to be confused with Alonso Lobo, the composer of the beautiful and much-recorded setting of the funeral motet “Versa est in luctum”) all wrote in the stile antico of Palestrina and their Iberian patron saint Victoria long after the rest of Europe (except England, of course) had followed Italy into the proto baroque. Cardoso was perhaps the most adventurous of the trio harmonically, while Lôbo was the most conservative. Much of the Portuguese music from this period was destroyed in the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755. Much, but not all.
Fortunately much Portuguese polyphony was recorded during what seems now to be a golden age of early music recording in the late 80s and 90s. I listened to a recording by The Sixteen, conducted by Harry Christophers, of three motets by Cardoso along with his Mass “Regina caeli.” Also on the CD are two lovely motets by Lôbo, “Audivi vocem” and “Pater peccavi” and one of his two (yes, two) requiem settings, this one for eight voices (the Tallis Scholars have recorded his six-voice Requiem). From there I moved on to Cardoso’s great Requiem setting as performed by The Schola Cantorum of Oxford, conducted by Jeremy Summerly (on Naxos). Also on that recording is a performance of the Lôbo eight-voice Requiem. (I wonder how many music lovers have two recordings of that Lôbo piece in their collections?)
Staying with Naxos, I moved on to a wonderful recording called “Portuguese Polyphony” by Ars Nova, conducted by Bo Holten, of music from many periods of Portuguese music including the early 17th century. Represented in this period are all three of my composers of interest. A nice Magnificat and an effective setting of the Lamentations of Jeremiah by Cardoso, the two beautiful Lôbo motets mentioned earlier, and an affecting mass setting, O soberanna luz, by Magalhães.
Anyone who is at all attracted to Renaissance polyphony who has not heard these pieces should run not walk to acquire them. Sadly, the Sixteen recording is no longer available, the label (Collins) having gone out of business. I don’t know whether it has found new life on The Sixteen’s own label, Coros. It’s worth looking for.
Outstanding. Now all we need is a deck of cards. 