Music of the Iberian Peninsula with Portland Recorder Society

Music of the Iberian Peninsula
Sunday, November 29 1pm-4pm
Grace Memorial Episcopal Church, NE Broadway, Portland

While the polyphonic style of the 16th century is often framed as a story of Rome, Venice, and the Franco-Flemish north, some of the era's most searching and dramatic music was being written in Spain and Portugal. Composers like Cristóbal de Morales, Francisco Guerrero, and Tomás Luis de Victoria trained in the same contrapuntal tradition as their Italian contemporaries — several worked in Rome itself — but brought home a sound marked by intense chromaticism, dramatic word-painting, and an almost mystical devotional fervor shaped by the spiritual climate of the Counter-Reformation.

In this workshop we'll sing through motets and Mass movements from across the peninsula, including works by:

• Tomás Luis de Victoria

• Cristóbal de Morales

• Francisco Guerrero

• Duarte Lobo

• Rivafrecha

• and others

We'll trace how these composers absorbed the Franco-Flemish polyphonic language and transformed it into something unmistakably their own — music that helped make Golden Age Spain and Portugal one of the era's great centers of sacred composition.

This workshop is presented in collaboration with the Portland Recorder Society. PRS members may attend for free. Everyone else will receive a discounted registration ($20) through the generosity of PRS.