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, establis...(+)
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).