Songs of Shepherds and Angels: Morales’s Christmas Mass |The Renaissance Singers

Cristóbal de Morales based his lush Missa Quaeramus cum pastoribus on an immensely popular popular motet by Mouton. In reworking the original material he transformed its breezy, taut four-voice textures into larger canvasses of lush, five-part polyphony, dividing the basses throughout to create rich sonorities that culminate in a seven-fold division of forces for the Agnus Dei.

To contrast with the Mass, we sing reduced-texture seasonal motets by Morales, along with works by his greatest Spanish successor, Victoria, and by Victoria’s successor at the Collegio Germanico in Rome, Annibale Stabile. An uplifting evening of festive polyphony that will be perfectly complemented by the mince pies and mulled wine available at the interval!