ALONSO LOBO
Lamentations
JAMES MACMILLAN
Cantos Sagrados
Choral music of the Spanish Renaissance is dominated by one titan – the genius priest-composer Tomás Luis de Victoria. The music of Guerrero and Morales stands with the masterpieces of Victoria. However, Victoria considered only one colleague to be his equal – the unsung master Alonso Lobo. A choirboy and lifelong musician of Seville Cathedral, Lobo’s output of choral music demonstrates an extraordinary refinement, incorporating Palestrina’s seamless counterpoint and Venetian polychoral technique with unmistakable Iberian intensity. The Lamentations abound with exquisite melisma, especially the Hebrew declamations beginning each movement. The effortless elegance of his counterpoint places Lobo in the highest echelon of Renaissance composers.
Like so much of James MacMillan’s early work, Cantos Sagrados (1990) is unashamedly political in nature. Contrasting the poetry of Ariel Dorfman and Ana Maria Mendosa with Latin sacred texts, MacMillan’s work focuses on political oppression in Latin America in the most arresting fashion. The familiar words ‘Libera me’ take on new significance. The violence, deceit and regret of those complicit is the lasting memory of this work. The finale depicts the execution of a political prisoner, and the desperate remorse of his executioner – whispering ‘Forgive me, compañero.’