Vilancicos e Natal Português · Coro de Câmara Lisboa Cantat
A musical journey into the imagery of Jesus’ birth, through 17th-century Iberian music and Portuguese traditional and folk songs recovered by Portuguese composers of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Under conductor Jorge Carvalho Alves, vilancicos and motets from the Renaissance period will be performed, along with traditional Portuguese songs collected and recorded over the years, such as in the First and Second Christmas Cantatas, by Fernando Lopes-Graça, Magnificat em talha dourada by Eurico Carrapatoso, and compositions by Fernando Lapa. In each piece, we encounter scenes depicting various episodes around Jesus’ birth, such as the Annunciation, the arrival of the shepherds, the Holy Family, and the Three Wise Men.
Programme
Vilancicos e Motetes da Festa do Natal
O Magnum mysterium, Pedro de Cristo
Hodie nobis de coelo, Pedro de Cristo
Ay mi dios, Pedro de Cristo
Es Nascido, Pedro de Cristo
Pois sois mãe da flor do campo, unknown
Pois con tanta graça, Gaspar Fernandes
Negrinho tiray vos, Gaspar Fernandes
Sã qui turo, unknown
Natal Português
Cantatas de Natal, Fernando Lopes Graça
Do Varão nasceu a vara, traditional (Beira Litoral)
Pela noite do Natal, traditional (Alentejo e Beira Baixa)
Em Belém o Salvador, traditional (Ribatejo)
Os pastores em Belém, traditional (Vila Nova de Foz Côa, Alto Douro)
Nasceu, já nasceu, traditional (Vidigueira, Beja)
O Menino nas palhas, traditional (Beira Baixa)
Canções de Natal, Eurico Carrapatoso
Ó Bento airoso, traditional (Paradela, Miranda do Douro)
Ó meu menino, traditional (Pias, Serpa)
Canções de Natal, Fernando Lapa
Eu hei-de m’ir ao presépio, traditional (Elvas)
Nasceu-vos hoje um salvador, traditional
Pastores que andais na serra, traditional (Trás-os-Montes)
Coro de Câmara Lisboa Cantat
Founded in 2006 by the Lisboa Cantat Musical Association, this choir has a vast repertoire, featuring works ranging from the Baroque period to contemporary music. They have performed over 80 concerts and been led by conductors Cesário Costa, Henrique Piloto, Laurent Wagner, Nuno Côrte-Real, Clara Coelho, Marcos Magalhães, and chief conductor, Jorge Carvalho Alves.
Jorge Carvalho Alves
began his career as a choral director with the Syntagma Musicum Chamber Choir, which he founded in 1985 and with which he won first prize in the "New Values of Culture – Choral Music" competition in 1988, awarded by the Secretary of State for Culture. He works with various choirs, as a choral director, conductor, or singer.
Pedro Cristo (1545/1550-1618) Portuguese Renaissance composer and one of the most important polyphonists of the 16th and 17th centuries. He left an extensive polyphonic vocal repertoire for 3 to 6 voices, encompassing numerous motets, responsories, psalms, masses, hymns, passions, lamentations, alleluia verses, canticles, and spiritual vilancicos. He spent most of his life in Coimbra, at the Monastery of Santa Cruz.
Gaspar Fernandes (1566-1629) One of the most influential composers of music produced in South America in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. He was active in the cathedrals of Guatemala and Puebla, in present-day Mexico.
Fernando Lopes-Graça (1906-1994) A composer, pianist, conductor, and musicologist, Lopes-Graça was a unique figure in Portuguese culture. Strongly influenced by folk and traditional music, a significant portion of his work was written for symphonic choirs.
Eurico Carrapatoso (n.1962) This Portuguese composer is regarded as one of the most important of today. His compositions include symphonic works, operas, chamber music for various ensembles, and choral music. Since 1989, he has been a professor of Composition at the National Conservatory and regularly receives commissions from national and international cultural institutions. His work has been performed, published, and disseminated in several countries since 1992.
Fernando Lapa (n.1950) Portuguese composer with over 100 works encompassing nearly all musical genres: choirs, chamber ensembles, solo instruments, symphony orchestras, and electroacoustic music. He also composes soundtracks for film and theatre, as well as music for children, arrangements of traditional music, and a wide range of other arrangements, transcriptions, orchestrations, and adaptations.
Church of Santo Condestável Consecrated and inaugurated in 1951, the Church of Santo Condestável was built as part of the "New Churches" movement, a unique development within the modernist programme that sought to combine the proportions explored by modernism with the possibilities of new materials and techniques, while drawing on style revivalism. This neo-Gothic temple, designed in 1946 by architect Vasco Regaleira, houses the relics of D. Nuno Álvares Pereira, the Constable, in a reliquary tomb crafted in 1953 by sculptor Domingos Soares Branco. Noteworthy also are the stained glass windows illuminating the side altars, created by Almada Negreiros, depicting the Constable’s devotion to Christ and His Mother, as well as sculptures by Leopoldo de Almeida.