MORALES EN TOLEDO Codaex 25, Toledo Cathedral
Ensemble Plus Ultra Michael Noone
GCD 922001
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Performing artists
Ensemble Plus Ultra Michael Noone, director
Susan Hamilton, soprano Grace Davidson, soprano Clare Wilkinson, alto Mark Chambers, alto David Martin, alto Ashley Turnell, tenor Tom Phillips, tenor Warren Trevelyan-Jones, tenor Angus Smith, tenor Matthew Brook, baritone Eamonn Dougan, baritone Charles Gibbs, bass Robert MacDonald, bass
Production details
Playing time: 77’07 Recorded at St Jude-on-the-Hill, London, in March 2004 Engineered and produced by Adrian Hunter Executive producer: Carlos Céster Editorial assistant: María Díaz Artwork: oficina tresminutos 00:03:00 Booklet essay: Michael Noone Booklet in English-Français-Deutsch-Español
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Commercial release sheet (PDF)
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CRISTÓBAL DE MORALES (c.1500-1553)
New polyphony from Toledo Cathedral’s‘Codex 25’
01 Asperges me 02 Et factum est postquam 03 Sacris solemniis 04 Eripe me 05 Urbs beata Jerusalem 06 Nova resultent gaudia 07 Felix per omnes 08 Nunc dimittis 09 Gloria laus et honor 10 Et incarnatus est 11 Jam Christus astra ascenderat 12 Veni redemptor gentium 13 Monstra te esse 14 Ave maris stella
About this CD
Of all Spain’s Golden Age composers, it was Cristóbal de Morales who earned the most frequent and fulsome praise from his contemporaries. Among the most memorable encomiums were those flowing from the prolific quill of the music theorist Juan Bermudo (c.1510-c.1565). It was he who judged Morales deserving of nothing less than the unforgettable epithet, ‘the lightof Spain in music’.
It is with great pride and satisfaction that we present, in its world-wide recording premiere, a rare find of this magnitude. Behind this disc there lies an almost detective-like story involving a recently discovered manuscript from a dusty archive in the Cathedral of Toledo, which Michael Noone had the privilege of studying and bringing to light: ‘My story begins with an invitation I received in 2002 from the distinguished canonarchivist of Toledo Cathedral to study a previously inaccessible and seriously damaged polyphonic manuscript. After months of painstaking examination of this parchment choirbook, known as Codex 25, I was able to establish without doubt that it contained 20 works by Morales, of which at least 14 were either completely or virtually unknown.’ None of the 14 works on this disc has ever been previously recorded. Eleven of them come from the newly rediscovered Codex 25, while three others have been recovered from Toledo’s Codex 21 and Codex 16.
Following the revelatory release a couple of years ago of Morales en Toledo it is a great pleasure to welcome back Michael Noone and Ensemble Plus Ultra to Glossa for a further demonstration — in the music of Morales’ younger contemporary Francisco Guerrero — of Noone’s remarkable knack of uniting unknown music from recognized masters in superb performances underpinned by exemplary scholarship. Through his ongoing research in the Cathedral Archives in Toledo, Noone has discovered a group of six hymns by Guerrero (written when he was apprenticed to Morales), recording these in the church of San Miguel in Cuenca along with the previously-unrecorded Missa Super flumina Babylonis in the company of plainchant specialist Juan Carlos Asensio’s Schola Antiqua and the instrumentalists from His Majesties Sagbutts and Cornetts. [read more...]