Posts Tagged ‘ Baroque choral music ’

João Lourenço Rebelo's music represents the coming of Baroque to Portugal. Born in 1610 in Caminha he was taken as a boy servant into the chapel of the Duke of Bragança at Vila Viçosa. The Duke sponsored his musical studies including at the Colégio dos Santos Reis Magos under Roberto Tornar. Another of Tornar's pupils was the young Duke of Bragança and future King João IV with whom Rebelo struck up a friendship that was to endure for the rest of his life. João IV evidently valued the friendship because he  dedicated his essay Defensa de la musica moderna contra la errada opinion del obispo Cyrilo Franco  to his lifelong friend, whose music he praised saying that it had inspired and helped his own musical efforts, João also left money in his will for his friend's music to be published. Rebelo's freedom to experiment with the new Baroque style came from his friendship with the King freed of economic worries he used his access to the royal library, and to relatively lavish musical forces to compose fresh and exciting music that's a pleasure to to listen to and must have seemed very adventurous indeed to his contemporaries. In his motet Super aspidem which you can hear below he jetisons the traditional treatment of the Psalms in favour of a more modern approach forcing the text to his purpose using repetition and an astonishingly rapid tempo  to achieve the desired effect. It's sung below by The Sixteen conducted by Harry Christophers – the text and translation to English are below the player. Enjoy :-).

markfromireland

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