HARMONIA CAELESTIS: 16th Century Spanish Motets for Voice and Lute

Mignarda's New CD:  Harmonia Caelestis is now available for online ordering

Details and online ordering This evocative new recording highlights the intense devotional imagery of 16th century Spanish composers including Cristóbal de Morales, Francisco Guerrero, and Tomás Luis de Victoria. In returning to the sacred polyphony that brought us together, we have arranged the program as an extended meditation, following the example of our forebears in selecting and adapting the best examples of polyphonic sacred music for private devotions.

The featured motets - premiere recordings of seldom-heard
pieces along with a few familiar favorites - were originally
composed for four or five voices. We present them here in
historically sensitive interpretations for solo voice and lute,
interspersed with solo lute settings of motets and mass
movements.

Many people with a particular interest in sacred music are naturally focused on music as it serves its traditional, formal liturgical purpose - as we well understand, having met singing in a Latin schola. However as specialists in 16th century music, immersing ourselves in the philosophy and sensibility of the time, we know that there was far more integration between the sacred and the secular. Virtually every printed lute manuscript contained arrangements of sacred polyphony scattered among the dances and fantasias, and the lute was commonly used in private daily devotional music. Even Palestrina worked out his masses and other compositions with lute in hand.

Our programs are always interspersed with English, Latin, German, Italian, and French devotional music, both because we love the music and in order to provide this context: to underscore the integration of religion in the daily lives of the people who heard this music when it was current. Sacred music belongs in our programming because it was a part of daily life.