Francisco Lopez Capillas. (Sound Recording Reviews).(Messe de la Bataille en Nouvelle Espagne)(Sound Recording Review)

Francisco Lopez Capillas. Messe de la Bataille en Nouvelle Espagne. Ensemble Vocal De Profundis/Cristina Garcia Banegas. K617 120, 2001.

Francisco Lopez Capillas was born in 1608 in Mexico City, and studied plainchant and polyphonic composition at the Royal and Pontifical University before assuming the post of chorister and second organist at Puebla Cathedral in 1641. Although most of his significant works were composed toward the end of his life--and thus well into what is generally regarded as the baroque period--the Messe de la Bataille is, like many of his other works, ambiguous in its relationship to the musical innovations that were taking place in the old world at the time. With this Mass, Capillas took a polychoral approach that harked back explicitly to the great masters of Renaissance polyphony, though the work is not entirely innocent of baroque elements. Nor is it lacking in local musical ...