biography
pronunciation:
[morales]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1500–53)
|
| biography:
| Composer, born in Seville, SW Spain. Regarded as one of the great polyphonists, along with Victoria and Guerrero, he was chapel master in the cathedrals of Avila (1526–30) and Plasencia (1530–2), and incumbent of the Church of San Martín in Salamanca. In 1553 he went to Rome and joined the Papal Chapel. When Paul III negotiated the Treaty of Nice with Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, and Francis I, King of France, Morales was commissioned to compose a commemorative work, Jubilate Deo for six voices. He returned to Spain (1545) as chapel master of the Cathedral of Toledo, then served the Duque de Arcos in Marchena, and was finally chapel master of the Cathedral of Málaga (1551). His work was known and distributed throughout Europe in many editions, and his Magnificats were sung in Spanish churches until the middle of the 18th-c. His technique was one of great perfection, in the service of a strong personality, and of a poignancy then unknown in religious music. His work is divided into Masses, motets, Magnificats, and secular lyrics. He is considered the precursor of Palestrina, especially in his Masses, which possess an extraordinary strength of expression. |
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