Easter celebrations in the Piazza Navona. The confraternity of the Resurrection of S. Giacomo degli Spagnoli – the Castilian national church in Rome – was responsible, from 1579 onwards, for organizing the Easter celebrations in the Piazza Navona, one of the most spectacular public festivities during the time of Spanish supremacy in Italy.

For the solemn procession, which took place before dawn, the square would be decked out with ephemeral constructions and allegorical scenes, accompanied by lights, fireworks and music provided by the finest singers in the city situated either on platforms or in the procession itself. Indeed it was organized as a symbol of the hegemony of the Spanish nation and functioned as a powerful propaganda tool.

As a member of the confraternity, Tomás Luis de Victoria was associated with the procession before his return to Spain in 1585. This double CD offers a never before undertaken evocation of the music that might have been heard in the church and around the square during this most important of Roman celebrations.

It brings together an enormously varied selection of vocal and instrumental pieces by composers who, together with Victoria, were either involved in the organisation of the festivities (such as Francisco Soto or Ruggiero Giovanelli) or whose music was preserved in the S. Giacomo degli Spagnoli archive (Jacobus de Kerle, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Giovanni Animuccia, Rocco Rodio and Francisco Guerrero).

This superb recreation, as well as offering us a new reading of Victoria’s work, submerges us, in a wholly new way, in the sonorities that he would have been familiar with in the latter part of his Roman period: from sumptuous polychoral works with Venetian influences to the simple laude spirituali associated with the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri.

In short, it is another first for La Grande Chapelle, establishing a context in which to place one of the greatest composers of the Spanish Renaissance.

Contents:
CD 1
S. GIACOMO DEGLI SPAGNOLI (MAITINES Y LAUDES)
1. Motete: Iubilate Deo, omnis terra, a 8 - Ruggiero Giovanelli
2. Salmo: Domine, quid multiplicati sunt, a 5 - Jacobus de Kerle
3. Antífona: Haec dies quam fecit Dominus, a 8 - Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
4. Himno: Tantum ergo, a 5 - Tomás Luis de Victoria

PROCESION EN PIAZZA NAVONA
5. Fanfarria (instrumental) - Cesare Bendinelli
6. Motete: Surrexit pastor bonus, a 6 - Tomás Luis de Victoria
7. Lauda: Christo ver’huom’ e Dio, a 3 - Serafino Razzi
8. Himno: Ad caenam agni providi, a 4/5 - Tomás Luis de Victoria / Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
9. Motete: Ardens est cor meum, a 6 - Tomás Luis de Victoria
10. Victimae paschali laudes (instrumental) - Fernando de las Infantas
11. Motete: Ego sum panis vivus, a 4 - Tomás Luis de Victoria
12. Himno: Iesu, nostra redemptio, a 4 - Giovanni Matteo Asola / Tomás Luis de Victoria
13. Ricercata La mi re fa mi re (instrumental) - Rocco Rodio
14. Responsorio: Expurgate vetus fermentum, a 8 - Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
15. Fanfarria (instrumental) - Cesare Bendinelli

CD 2
S. GIACOMO DEGLI SPAGNOLI (MISA, VÍSPERAS Y COMPLETAS)
1. Himno: Te Deum laudamus, a 6 - Jacobus de Kerle
2. Tiento de segundo tono por Gsolreut (órgano) - Bernardo Clavijo del Castillo
3. Motete: O sacrum convivium, a 4 - Tomás Luis de Victoria
4. Secuencia: Victimae paschali laudes, a 8 - Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
5. Villanesca: Si tus penas no pruebo, a 3 - Francisco Guerrero
6. Antífona: Christus resurgens, a 5 - Giovanni Animuccia
7. Salmo: In exitu (Salmi passaggiati) - Giovanni Luca Conforti
8. Antífona: Crucem sanctam subiit, a 5 - Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
9. Lauda: Anima mia, che pensi?, a 3 - Anonymous
10. Antífona: Regina caeli, a 8 - Tomás Luis de Victoria