La Grande Chapelle - Musica Para la Catedral - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

La Grande Chapelle - Instrumental Canciones [COMPACT DISCS] date 10/30/2012

Antonio Rodríguez de Hita is renowned as the creator of comic zarzuela during the 1760s. However, his scant theatrical works have overshadowed the vast majority of his musical legacy, primaril y sacred in nature and composed for the prestigious Monastery of the Incarnation in Madrid, a Royal foundation. His religious works embrace a hybrid musical style, encompassing elements of late Baroque and Classical periods, stile antico, and theatrical language. In his Latin repertoire, Rodríguez de Hita displays a particular affinity for counterpoint and formal experimentation. The selection presented, drawn from his series of psalms, hymns, motets, lamentations, and especially Epiphany responsories, allows us to appreciate this fascinating musician and the richness of sacred music during the Enlightenment period

Antonio Soler is the 17th century's Spanish composer with the greatest international projection. His fame is due to the celebrated sonatas for harpsichord and his chamber music. However, Soler also produced an extensive oeuvre of vocal music thanks to the more than thirty years he spent at the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, where he was organist and maestro de capilla. This album gathers a carefully selected group of compositions in Latin written for two choruses and instrumental ensemble, some of which have never been recorded. Based on the technical procedures involved in polychoral writing, these works are made up of imposing choral sections- of both homophonic and contrapuntal textures- and sections for soloists with either a cantabile or virtuoso character closer to a theatrical style, all of which shows his mastery throughout an admirable stylistic spectrum. This pioneering initiative reveals the abundant imagination, the vocal writing skill and the ample scope of expressive resources employed by the great Catalan musician.