COMPOSERS: Padilla
LABELS: Coro
ALBUM TITLE: Padilla
WORKS: Streams of Tears: Missa Ave Regina caelorum; Lamentations; Salve Regina; Mirabilia testimonia tua; Tristis est anima mea etc
PERFORMER: The Sixteen/Harry Christophers
CATALOGUE NO: COR 16059
Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla left Cadiz for Puebla Cathedral, a jewel of the Spanish-American empire, before 1622, and spent the remainder of his life there. His music was highly prized, copied by order of the Cathedral Chapter in 1663, but languished forgotten for almost 350 years before its recent rediscovery. Christophers’s programme focuses on his reflective sacred music. A Stabat Mater, opening with a cold, bare fifth, develops exquisite dissonances and harmonic diversions within its pure, linear counterpoint while Salve Regina is intensely expressive in its mourning and weeping. The four-part texture of ‘Tristis est…’ contrasts with the double choirs of most of the programme; a soprano, bass and continuo section of ‘Pater peccavi’ is similarly a refreshing interlude. Such reflective singing is alluring. But it misses the inherent energy of this South American tradition, (revealed superbly by Jeffrey Skidmore and Ex Cathedra on Hyperion). Nonetheless, this is a polished performance of less-familiar music. George Pratt