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| Composer : | Guerrero, Francisco (1528 - 1599) | ||
| Instrumentation : | Flute, Oboe, English Horn, French Horn and Bassoon | ||
| Style : | Renaissance | ||
| Arranger : Publisher : | MAGATAGAN, MICHAEL (1960 - ) | ||
| Copyright : | Public Domain | ||
| Added by magataganm, 21 Apr 2023 Francisco Guerrero (c. 1528 – N1599) was a Spanish Catholic priest and composer of the Renaissance. He was born and died in Seville. His early musical education was with his older brother Pedro and after that with the famous composer Cristóbal de Morales. At the age of 18 he was appointed maestro de capilla (i.e. music director) at Jaén Cathedral. Three years later he accepted a position of singer at Seville Cathedral. During this time he was much in demand as a singer and composer, establishing an exceptional reputation before his thirtieth birthday; in addition he published several collections of his music abroad, an unusual event for a young composer. After several decades of working and traveling throughout Spain and Portugal, sometimes in the employ of emperor Maximilian II, he went to Italy for a year (1581–1582) where he published two books of his music. After returning to Spain for several years, he decided to travel to the Holy Land, which he finally was able to do in 1589. His adventure included visits to Damascus, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem; on the return trip his ship was twice attacked by pirates, who threatened his life, stole his money, and held him for ransom. He was able to return to Spain; unfortunately he had no money, and endured a series of misfortunes, including some time spent in debtors' prison. At last his old employer at Seville Cathedral extricated Guerrero and he resumed working for them. His book on his adventurous visit to the Holy Land was published in 1590 and was a popular success (it is reasonable to suppose that Cervantes knew it). At the end of the decade he planned one more trip to the Holy Land but died in the plague of 1599 in Seville before he was able to depart. Of all the Spanish Renaissance composers, he lived and worked the most in Spain. Others—for example Morales and Victoria—spent large portions of their careers in Italy (though, unlike many Franco-Flemish composers of the time, Spanish composers usually returned home later in life). Guerrero's music was both sacred and secular, unlike that of Victoria and Morales, the two other Spanish 16th-century composers of the first rank. He wrote numerous secular songs and instrumental pieces, in addition to masses, motets, and Passions. He was able to capture an astonishing variety of moods in his music, from ecstasy to despair, longing, joy, and devotional stillness; his music remained popular for hundreds of years, especially in cathedrals in Latin America. Stylistically he preferred homophonic textures, rather like his Spanish contemporaries, and he wrote memorable, singable lines. One interesting feature of his style is how he anticipated functional harmonic usage: there is a case of a Magnificat discovered in Lima, Peru, once thought to be an anonymous 18th century work, which turned out to be a work of his One of the features of Guerrero’s music is the number of outstanding motets he wrote on texts praising the Virgin, to such a degree that commentators in his lifetime and beyond have been tempted to say that he had a fixation about her. His contemporaries even called him ‘El cantor de Maria’. But this is really a tribute to the power of his music, since Mary has been of central importance to most Catholic composers, even if they could not match Guerrero’s balance and serenity. Famous is Ave virgo sanctissima, which became so popular in Guerrero’s lifetime that it was regarded as the quintessentially perfect Marian motet and used as a parody model by a host of composers, many of them Flemish. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this masterpiece is that the intense emotion is generated within the confines of a canonic structure: the two sopranos parts echo each other throughout at an eight-beat interval, yet they move so smoothly and effortlessly that it would be easy to assume that there was no complexity involved. The phrase at ‘Margarita preciosa’ (‘as precious as a pearl’) is one of the loveliest in all renaissance music. Source: Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Guerrero_(comp oser)) Although originally composed for Chorus (SAATB), I created this Interpretation of "Ave virgo sanctissima" (Hail, Holy Virgin) for Wind Quintet (Flute, Oboe, English Horn, French Horn & Bassoon). | |||
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