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SINGER PUR CONCERT
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On 6 October 2019, at the Royal Monastery of Yuste
The programme of this concert, which coincides with the eighth centenary since King Ferdinand III “the Saint’s” marriage with Beatrice of Swabia, revolves around the worship of Virgin Mary, its success coinciding with the dawn of the late Middle Ages. This worship led to the promotion of the creation of important works of sacred and profane music in Latin as well as in vernacular. This tradition kept increasing during the following centuries, particularly in Spain, even after the Council of Trent set the texts of Marian liturgy.
The programme begins with some of the works included in the famous Codex Las Huelgas, named after the Royal Monastery of Santa María la Real, located close to Burgos, secularly known as “Las Huelgas”, since it was preserved there. The Codex comprises polyphonic works, dated during the first decades of the 13th century, composed for a changeable number of voices (from one to four). The Monastery of Las Huelgas is clearly mentioned in song 122 of the Cantigas de Santa María attributed to Alfonso X “the Wise”, as well as Nas Olgas, logar de bon prez, (“Las Huelgas, lugar de buena oración” in Galician-Portuguese).
Apart from these works, others written by some of the great masters of Spanish polyphony, such as Cristóbal de Morales or Tomás Luis de Victoria, based on texts related to the worship of Virgin Mary, will be interpreted and will be alternated with other compositions of contemporary authors, such as Arvo Pärt or Max Beckschäfer, based on medieval mystic texts. All of them will contribute to draw a geographic and chronological bridge between beginning of the 13th century Spain and Germany and what they are nowadays.
