Officium Defunctorum - Capilla De Santa Ana - Audio CD (Arrives in 50 days)

At the centre of this album lies one of the most impressive discoveries from the music archive of the Catedral de Canarias: the Officium Defunctorum by Diego Durón de Ortega, composed in 1705. Everything suggests that this double-choir Requiem was written for the solemn funeral of Bishop Bernardo de Vicuña y Zuazo, who died on 31 January 1705 in Tenerife – a victim of the devastating earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that shook the island in those years. The work thus forms part of the great Spanish tradition of requiems for high-ranking church dignitaries and, at the same time, represents one of the earliest manifestations of the polyphonic funeral repertoire in the context of the Canary Islands. Diego Durón de Ortega (c. 1653–1731) is one of the most influential figures of the Spanish Baroque. For more than fiftyfive years, he served as Kapellmeister of the music ensemble at the Catedral de Canarias in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria – an extraordinary tenure during which he had a lasting influence on the musical culture of the islands. Despite numerous offers from cathedrals on the mainland, he remained loyal to the Canary Islands. His surviving oeuvre comprises some 450 works: masses, motets, psalms, lamentations and more than 400 villancicos. His style combines the polyphonic rigour of the Siglo de Oro with the new expressive trends of the Italianinfluenced Baroque, and at times even shows echoes of the folklore of the Canary Islands. In addition to the Officium Defunctorum, this album also features Durón’s four-part motet Sciens Jesus, which exemplifies the textual drama and melodic expressiveness of his work. The programme is complemented by works by three further composers who shed light on the musical milieu surrounding Durón: his brother Sebastián Durón (1660–1716), Kapellmeister of the Royal Chapel in Madrid, is represented by the Versos to Benigne fac Domine – a work that showcases his refined personal style, marked by Italian influences. Nicolás Tabares de Olivera, Kapellmeister of Cuenca Cathedral, contributes a fourpart instrumental work, Cum quatuor vocibus for Ministriles, which combines 16th-century polyphonic techniques with the multi-choir innovations of the 17th century. The programme concludes with Joan Baptista Cabanilles (1644–1712) and his Tiento sobre el ‘In exitu Israel’ – a work by perhaps the most significant representative of the Iberian organ tradition, whose contrapuntal density and formal freedom brought keyboard music on the Iberian Peninsula to its zenith. Together, these works paint a vivid picture of Spanish sacred music around 1700 – between the polyphonic tradition and the dawn of the Baroque, between the mainland and the vast Atlantic.

Label: Neos | Origin: Holland