Misas Prudentes Virgines / Beata Dei Genitrix

Alonso Lobo was recognized by his contemporaries and later generations as one of the great masters of Spanish polyphony. Favorite disciple of and assistant to Francisco Guerrero in Seville, Lobo was the only musician of the time to serve as chapel master at both Seville and Toledo Cathedrals, which were at the top of the Spanish ecclesiastical system. His Liber primus miss arum (1602) was widely circulated in Spain and the New World. Of the six masses included in the original printed edition, La Grande Chapelle has chosen the Prudentes virgines and Beata Dei genitrix masses, neither of which is available in a modern edition. Using Guerrero's motets of the same name as a starting point, Lobo combines, with unequalled mastery, erudite imitative techniques such as enigmatic canons with daring harmonic and expressive flourishes that have drawn comparisons with the work of El Greco, his exact contemporary in Toledo.