Francisco Guerrero - Duo Seraphim

Francisco Guerrero was born in 1528 in Seville, possibly in October. He was Spanish Catholic Priest and composer of the Renaissance. His older brother Pedro was also musical and they received their musical education together, although Francisco's talents soon eclipsed those of his brother. At the tender age of 17 he was appointed Master of Singing at Jaén Cathedral, later accepting a position in Seville in his early twenties. By the age of thirty his reputation was exceptional, he was highly sought after as a composer and singer and had published collections of his compositions at home and abroad.

Guerrero worked for several decades in Spain and Portugal, before travelling to Italy in 1581 where he published two further books of music. After returning to Spain for a few years, he next travelled to the Holy Land, only to be attacked by pirates! Nearly killed and robbed of all his money he returned to Spain penniless until Seville cathedral rescued him and re-employed him. Guerrero published a book of his experiences which met huge success and even planned a return to the Holy Land, but died of the plague in 1599.

Guerrero's unusually wrote both sacred and secular music, unlike his contemporaries Morales and Victoria. Interestingly he anticipated functional harmonic usage in his compositions, which have remained popular for centuries.

Duo Seraphim
This seems to have been the composer’s only piece (surviving complete) for twelve voices in three choirs.

"Guerrero had it printed twice, first in 1589 and again in his final collection (1597). Two lone high voices begin; at ‘Tres sunt’ three voices are exposed on their own. At ‘Plena est omnis terra …’ the grand tutti join in massive chords. The Trinitarian symbolism of the three choirs is obvious,  choral and instrumental groups enhance the separation of the three choirs and their dramatic potential." from notes by Bruno Turner © 1999

Our choral scholars recorded this beautiful motet during lockdown, one voice per part. It's a wonderful achievement and a fitting end to our current cycle of recordings. Next week we are back singing in church!

Duo seraphim clamabant alter ad alterum: 

Sanctus Dominus Deus Saboath. 

Plena est omnis terra gloria ejus. (Isaiah 6:3) 

 Tres sunt, qui testimonium dant in coelo: 

Pater, Verbum et Spiritus Sanctus: 

et hi tres unum sunt. 

Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth. 

Plena est omnis terra gloria ejus.

Isaiah 6:2-3; 1 John 5:7

You can download a copy of the score from choral wiki here under their copyright license.

Tallis - Salvator Mundi

As our choir begins to rehearse apart and come together online, I thought this might be helpful. We will be recording Tallis' "Salvator Mundi" individually soon, before submitting to produce a multi-tracked finished result.

Thomas Tallis (c. 1505 - 23rd Nov 1585) is considered to be one of England's greatest composers. Little is known about his early life, although there is a suggestion that he was a child of the Chapel Royal, which he joined as an adult. Born at the end of Henry VII's reign his life spanned a period of enormous change in music and worship in England.  What makes Tallis so unique is the way he avoided the religious controversies that raged around him throughout his service to successive monarchs. Like William Byrd he remained an "unreformed Roman Catholic" but was capable of switching the style of his compositions to suit the different monarchs' vastly different demands. Tallis was one of the first church musicians to compose anthems in English after the Anglican liturgy was reformed under Edward VI, switching back to Latin to compose major works such as Gaude gloriosa Dei Mater under Mary when she overturned the reforms of the preceding decades. He found favour with both Queen Mary I and her protestant sister Elizabeth I, and composed in Latin, English, French and Italian.

Posthumous portrait by Gerard Vandergucht

In 1575, Queen Elizabeth granted Tallis and William Byrd a 21-year monopoly for polyphonic music and a patent to print and publish music, which was one of the first arrangements of that type in the country. Tallis had exclusive rights to print any music in any language, and he and Byrd were the only ones allowed to use the paper that was used in printing music. Tallis' original polyphony ( two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody) was groundbreaking at the time, and not initially popular.  As Calvinism gained favour in England polyphony was discouraged unless the words were clear - and in the vernacular. Homophonic music (where one main part is supported by one or more additional strands of complimentary parts) became the norm after the Reformation, Tallis' motet "If ye love me" is an excellent example of this.  This period also saw the rise of the verse anthem for this reason, as the Word of God took priority in church music.

Salvator Mundi
Tallis persisted in writing polyphony addition to his more widely accepted homophonic compositions, and Salvator Mundi was first published in 1575. You can download a PDF here on Choral Wiki, although the music is reproduced on the YouTube recording below. I highly recommend subscribing to Morphthing1's YouTube channel, I have found most of our repertoire on there and used it for practise for years! Scroll down to find the links for isolated parts for rehearsal!


 

Alto 1 part is available here
Alto 2 part is available here
The Tenor part is available here
and the Bass part here

Update :- here is our choir's recording for Good Friday:-