Musical celebrations of the feast of St Cecilia were common in Europe since the fifteenth century and throughout the sixteenth century. Of the many composers who wrote music for this festivity we find four mid-sixteenth-century compositions by French composers. Two motets Cantantibus orgnis and Cecilia virgo gloriosa – by Pierre Certon which…[Read more]

Edition of the motet “O magnum mysterium”, for six voices, by the Spanish composer Francisco Garro (c.1556-c.1623). Garro was active in Lisbon as master of the Portuguese Royal Chapel from 1592 to 1623, and this motet was published in one of his 1609 collection of masses, printed in Lisbon at the Pedro Craesbeeck workshop.

António de Oliveira was a Portuguese composer active in the last decades of the sixteenth century. He was a pupil of Manuel Mendes at Évora and made his musical career in the church of São Julião in Lisbon moving afterwards to Rome, where he died. Like Manuel Mendes, his musical production is scarce. This brief post aims to summarize what is kno…[Read more]

Edition of the “Magnificat Primi Toni”, for four voices, by the Italian composer Francesco Soriano (c.1548-1621). This work sets the polyphony for the odd verses of the canticle. It was published in Soriano’s collection “Passio D. N. Jesu Christi secundum quatuor evangelistas… Magnificat sexdecim…”, printed in Rome by Luca Antonio Soldi in 1619.

Edition of the “Magnificat Sexti Toni”, for four voices, by the Portuguese composer Filipe de Magalhães (c.1571-1652). This work sets the polyphony for the odd verses of the canticle. It was published in Magalhães’s “Cantica Beatissimae Virginis”, printed in Lisbon at the Craesbeeck workshop in 1636.

Edition of the motets for Advent for four voices by the Portuguese composer Francisco José Perdigão (17??-1833) preserved in the Códice n.º 10 of Évora Cathedral music archive. Comprises the motet “Amen dico vobis” for the First Sunday, “Cum audisset Joannes for the Second Sunday, and “Omnis vallis implebitur” for the Fourth Sunday.

Memória referente à igreja (colegiada) de São Mamede, na cidade de Évora. Memórias Paroquiais de 1758. Fonte Arquivo Nacional – Torre do Tombo, Memórias Paroquiais, vol. 14, nº 111a, pp. 841-842.