Make You Feel You Feel My Love

Live recording from the Shrine Church of St Anthony of Padua, New York City. KHORIKOS with Charlotte Greve, Saxophone. Conductor: Alec Galambos

Andrew Smith - The Vowels Of Sorrow - KHORIKOS Live With Charlotte Greve - CIVITAS 111123

Composed by Peter Warlock

Performed by KHORIKOS, dir. Jesse Mark Peckham
Recorded at The Shrine Church of St. Anthony of Padua, New York.
For more information, please visit www.khorikos.com

Bethlehem Down

Manuel de Zumaya (c. 1678–1755)
The Lamentations of the Prophet Jeremiah
Performed Live at St. Anthony's Shrine in Soho, New York City...

During the Baroque era, very few musical centers in the New World surpassed the sophistication of Mexico City.  While composers in the British colonies often created relatively rugged, fugal music, Mexican chapel masters composed vocal music of remarkable elegance and beauty which was widely disseminated from the northern California Missions to Guatemala in the south.  One composer who stands out in this history of 18th-century music is Manuel de Zumaya.

Born in Mexico City to parents of Native-American and Spanish descent, Zumaya is a perfect personification of the blend of European and New World cultures. As maestro de capilla at the Mexico City Cathedral—the most prestigious music position in the Western Hemisphere—he was a prolific composer of choral music.  Zumaya was a master of the baroque Italian style, as well as the Spanish renaissance style of Victoria and Morales.  His harmonic boldness, especially his use of augmented and diminished chords and secondary dominants, sets him apart from other Mexican polyphonists, and is evident in his stark Lamentations.

Although Zumaya chose a section of Lamentations that is more abstract and philosophical than mournful, the music is achingly sad. With the unaccompanied voices singing rich minor-mode harmonies, replete with the falling seconds (which William Kimmel claims have signified death throughout the history of Western music), one might imagine this piece being sung in a remote church in the desert—even though Zumaya composed it within the walls of an elegant cathedral in a large city.

Album Art work credit:
Paul Duncan
He is the God of the Second Chance and the Last Chance 2006
Charcoal on paper, 21 x 16”
www.paulduncanart.com

Want to hear more great music like this track? Reserve your copy of our Czech Tour CD at http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/new-live-album-of-the-khorikos-czech-tour/x/2685899

Bethlehem Down

KHORIKOS

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