Ian Watt - Invocacion: Impressions of Spain - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The story of John Adams is a truly American one. Raised in Massachusetts and trained as a composer at Harvard, at the age of 24 he headed west to San Francisco in order to distance himself from his neo-European upbringing.

Ian Watt - British Guitar Works [COMPACT DISCS] date 09/10/2013

On the present recording the Peñalosa Ensemble brings together works by the two composers whose sacred music forms the chronological frame of the Golden Age of Iberian vocal music it's namesake, the Spanish Renaissance composer Francisco de Peñalosa (motets, Magnificat), and Tomás Luis de Victoria (Missa, motets). If Peñalosa may be said to belong to the first generation of composers who assimilated the Franco-Flemish style of Josquin Desprez, then Victoria's death in 1611 symbolically closed the Iberian Renaissance through the adoption of Italian influences from the Age of Mannerism. The unique, highly emotional manifestation of Iberian Marian piety also influenced both composers - just as it also left it's imprint on the visual arts in Spain during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Compositions by Tomás Luis de Victoria not only experienced successful, rapid, and continuous dissemination over the whole of Europe owing to what was beyond any doubt their sublime quality but also received additional impetus from printed editions of music - so that his music was interpreted without interruption until the nineteenth century and was elevated to the status of a symbol standing for an entire musical epoch.