This Requiem contains:
01. Introit
02. Kyrie
03. Gradual
04. Tract II
05. Offertory
06. Sanctus
07. Benedictus
08. Agnus Dei
09. Communion I
10. Communion II
11. Dismissal
12. Tract I
Source: | booklet of cd Signum Records SIGCD017
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♫ 01. Introit
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♫ 02. Kyrie
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♫ 03. Gradual
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♫ 04. Tract II
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♫ 05. Offertory
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♫ 06. Sanctus
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♫ 07. Benedictus
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♫ 08. Agnus Dei
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♫ 09. Communion I
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♫ 10. Communion II
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♫ 11. Dismissal
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♫ 12. Tract I
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This Mass is written for four voices ATTB and contains:
Probably first version: Missa defuntorum, 1559, Rome
Renewed published: Missa pro defunctis, 1566, Paris
Revised version: Missa pro defunctis, 1582, Rome
The most common recording is an attempt to imagine the requiem mass and Burial Service that was celebrated in Seville’s great Cathedral after the composer’s death. On November 3, 1599, the Dean and chapter of Seville Cathedral met to discuss Guerrero’s grave illness. A week later the Chapter authorised the singers to celebrate a requiem mass for the repose of his soul and it was decided that he would be buried in the Cathedral’s chapel of Nuestra Señora de la Antigua with all the honours due to a deceased prebendary: "En este dicho dia cometieron a los señores mayordomo de fabrica contador señalen en nuestra señora del antigua sepoltura al maestro francisco guerrero i mandaron lo entierren como a prebendado con su novenario lo qual se hizo por gracia atento a sus servicios."
Though no precise musical details about the ceremony have come down to us, it seems likely that Guerrero’s own setting of the requiem mass would have been sung by the musicians with whom he had lived and worked for over 40 years. His Requiem was first published in Paris in 1566 (although Robert Snow has uncovered evidence to suggest that it appeared in a now lost Roman publication of 1559). In 1582, a revised version of the Requiem was published in Rome. It is this version, revised in accordance with liturgical reforms brought about by the Council of Trent (1545-1563), that would have been sung at Seville in the late sixteenth century and which is performed on this recording. The reforms, which were formally embraced in Seville in January 1575, brought Sevillian usage into conformity with the Roman Missal of 1570. In his revision, Guerrero omitted the obsolete tract "Sicut cervus", replacing it with the new "Absolve Domine". He added a new setting of the responsory "Libera me", the six-voice motet "Hei mihi, Domine" and two new settings of the "Communion", one for four voices and one for five voices. It is the latter that appears on the recording Glossa CD 921402.
Guerrero, ever the perfectionist, took the opportunity of republication to make minor improvements to most of the movements of the earlier version that could serve the revised liturgy without change. There can be no doubt about the quality of this music. Indeed, Robert Stevenson places this Requiem "...among the most magnificent and dramatic..." of Guerrero’s creations. One of the remarkable features of Seville Cathedral’s music making was the participation of ministriles who played shawms, cornetts, sackbuts and dulcians. Indeed, in 1526 it was the canons of Seville Cathedral who formally established the earliest known Cathedral wind band in Spain. In 1553, the canons decided to offer long term contracts to the wind musicians, agreeing that it would be "...a very useful thing... to make use of every kind of instrumental music in this cathedral: especially since it is so famous and splendid a temple and of such large dimensions... and moreover all other Spanish cathedrals, though many enjoy much smaller incomes, make constant use of instrumental music..." ("hera cosa muy decente y conforme a la divina escritura que la dicha sancta yglesia fuese servida y con todo genero de musica onesta como son los dichos menestriles por que siendo tan ynsigne y grande templo como lo es tiene muncha necesidad de la dicha musica por su sonorosidad pues los tienen todas las yglesias catedrales despaña de muncho menos posibilidad"). One imagines the Cathedral musicians playing for Guerrero’s own Requiem with all the skill and expertise which made Seville one of the peninsula’s most illustrious musical centres. In addition to possessing a fine high tenor voice, Guerrero himself played harp, vihuela, organ and cornett and there seems little doubt that all of these instruments would have been employed by the musicians who played for the composer’s own requiem mass. Given the present state of our knowledge, we cannot say for certain what precise versions of the plainsong melodies would have been performed in Seville Cathedral at the end of the sixteenth century for a requiem mass. For this recording (i.c. Glossa GCD021402) we have relied upon a variety of contemporary Spanish sources, most notably Francisco de Montanos’s Arte de canto llano (Salamanca, 1610 and 1616). This remarkable compendium of chant melodies contains a little-known melody for the Dies Irae that is recorded here for the first time. In its "Pie Jesu" we have imagined what kind of elaboration Guerrero’s former colleagues might have invented for the culminating verse of this wonderful melody.