For this recording The Tallis Scholars have combined the Sevillian composer’s only six-part Mass with seven of his motets, including the ubiquitous Ave virgo sanctissima, which soon became the best-known and most popular work in this genre in both Europe and Spanish-speaking America. Another four Marian motets are also featured, Ave Maria, Surge propera, Beata Dei genitrix and Regina caeli, as well as two calling for repentance, Usquequo, Domine and Hei mihi, Domine.

The beauty of both the form and sound of this short, but solid musical anthology by the composer acclaimed as the Virgin’s singer in his time (still) makes a notable aesthetic impression on the listener, irrespective of his or her beliefs. As the person responsible for choosing one of Raphael’s Virgins as the CD cover knows very well, Guerrero is to music history what Raphael is to painting.

There is only one flaw. Why is there an insistence on a trilingual English-French-German booklet? Isn’t the CD going to be distributed in the cultural ambit in which the music was created and to which it pertains? If not, it would be a real shame.
MARICARMEN GÓMEZ

MISSA SURGE PROPERA
FRANCISCO GUERRERO
Peter Phillips; The Tallis Scholars
Gimell CDGIM 040
2006 - 66:57 min.
1997 - 64:53 min.