From Spain to Eternity - The Sacred Polyphony of El Greco's Toledo

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From Spain to Eternity - The Sacred Polyphony of El Greco's Toledo
Ensemble Plus Ultra

[ Deutsche Grammophon Archiv / CD ]

Release Date: Monday 2 June 2014

This item is currently out of stock. We expect to be able to supply it to you within 2 - 4 weeks from when you place your order.

In 2011 DG released a spectacular 10-CD anthology on Archiv Produktion with Ensemble Plus Ultra (EPU), "the finest British early music singers" (Early Music Today), commemorating the 400th anniversary of Tomas de Victoria's death. This box sold about 6.100 units worldwide and won a Gramophone award.

Now the award winning ensemble is back with a major recording project to mark the 400th anniversary of the death of El Greco in 2014 - composers including Cristobal de Morales, Alonso Lobo and Alonso de Tejeda were prolific in Toledo during the 37 years El Greco lived and worked there, and much of this music certainly inspired his painting.

Morales is THE Spanish composer of the Renaissance. Morales - Kapellmeister at the cathedral in Toledo, but also in Italian cities - is generally considered to be the most influential Spanish composer before Victoria. Almost all of his music is sacred, and all of it is vocal.

Pieces by Lobo and Tejeda make a wonderful conclusion to the disc - all in all a varied program, and encompassing three composers from Toledo during the time of El Greco.

"The effect is still opulent: texts are painted witha vivid dynamic range and (dare I say it?) the occasional expressive vibrato...The results - intimate yet intense - are a fitting reflection of Counter-Reformation ethos, epitomised in the turbulent works of El Greco." BBC Music Magazine, September 2014 *****

"Morales, in particular, is a composer whose music is always worth hearing...here he brings out the best in Plus Ultra." Gramophone Magazine, August 2014

"It's a nicely conceived sequence, even if the connections with El Greco sometimes seem a bit contrived, and is performed by the seven members of Ensemble Plus Ultra with great care and refinement, though sometimes with a bit too much English reserve for my taste." The Guardian, 24th July 2014 ***

Tracks:

Guerrero:
Motete Prudentes virgines, a 5

Lobo, A:
Versa est in luctum
Missa Prudentes virgines, a 5
Ave Regina caelorum

Morales, C:
Clamabat autem mulier Chananea
Quanti mercenarii

Tejeda:
Miserere mei, Deus