Track Listing

1. Felix Namque, for mixed choir
2. Exultate, Iusti, in Domino
3. Dixit Dominus, for mixed choir
4. Salve Regina, for 8 voices
5. Sancta Et Immaculata, for mixed choir
6. Ave Regina Caelorum, motet for mixed choir
7. Missa Ave Regina, for mixed choir: Kyrie
8. Missa Ave Regina, for mixed choir: Gloria
9. Missa Ave Regina, for mixed choir: Credo
10. Missa Ave Regina, for mixed choir: Sanctus
11. Pater Peccavi, motet for mixed choir
12. Domine Dominus Noster, for mixed choir

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #272097 in Music
• Released on: 2006-05-09
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Album Description
"Particularly lovely...very appealing." - EARLY MUSIC AMERICA

"Warm, involving, fresh...and unaffected." - AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE

Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla, Maestro de Capilla at Puebla Cathedral, presided over the most important center of music production in the New World during the mid-seventeenth century. His sacred works, almost all for double choir, show him to be a masterful composer, and were preserved by order of the church in the years leading up to Padilla’s death in 1664. All the works on this disc are for double choir of eight voices and represent the height of musical pageantry as it was experienced at Puebla. They are recorded here for the first time! Cappella has championed the music of Padilla for over a decade and gave the modern North American premieres of these works during their last two concert seasons. They also presented a yearlong residency on the music of Padilla at the University of California, Riverside. Cappella was founded in 1993 as Los Angeles Chamber Singers’ early music ensemble. Together, they form L.A.’s premier chamber choirs. The works recorded here complement ! Cappella’s effort to document this repertoire in historically-informed performances, begun with Music of the Mexican Baroque. The recording was made in the near-perfect acoustics of Mary Chapel on the Brentwood campus of Mount St. Mary’s College and was produced by the same team that brought you the best-selling Grammy®-nominated Lauridsen: Lux Aeterna. Padilla’s own motet Ave Regina caelorum forms the basis for his parody mass. The psalm settings share the same virtuosic approach as the mass; the remaining two works are brief responds. The album’s subtitle, Sun of Justice, is drawn from Felix namque’s refrain and refers to themes of enlightenment and judgment carried in many of the texts.

From the Artist
49TH ANNUAL GRAMMY WINNER!!!

Customer Reviews

Grammy Winner, indeed!
This fine recording actually DID win a GRAMMY award on February 11, 2007 for Best Small Ensemble Performance. I cannot recommend this highly enough. Cappella is doing some of the best early choral music interpretation coming out of the United States, and is championing the work of a little known and unjustly neglected composer of the New World with elegance and stylistic flair. Kudos!

NOT first recordings!
I have yet to hear this recording, and shall purchase it today. I'm confident it is both an excellent recording and a fine performance.

I particularly look forward to hearing it, because I have been a great admirer of Padilla's music, and particularly the polychoral works, for more than 35 years.

There is, however, a glaring error in the "Editorial Review" for this recording. By NO means is this a "first recording!" Several previous recordings of some of this repertoire have been released over the years, including a particularly beautiful performance of the "Exsultate Iusti in Domino" released (probably) in the 1960s on vinyl (obviously) by the Roger Wagner Chorale (that was a wonderful album of 16th- and early 17th-century Mexican and Central and South American choral and operatic works).

Moreover, astute choral conductors have known about this repertoire for many years, and there have been perfectly acceptable performance editions of some of Padilla's choral works available for decades.

That said, I'm hopeful this repertoire will become MUCH more widely-known! It is truly spectacular music, every bit the equal of some of the European works on which it is modelled. And it is important to realize that Padilla and many of his Western-hemisphere contemporaries were often second- and even third-generation residents of the Americas.

So--even though I haven't heard it yet--this gets five stars just for being recorded and released!

Grammy Winner
LA Chamber Chours Capella have produced a cd that shows this beautiful, etherial music at it's best. They deserved the Grammy.