From Fire & Earthquake - Francisco Garro 1556-1623

Francisco Garro Asperges me; Missa Saeculorum (primi toni); In principio erat verbum; Parce mihi Domine a 6; Vidi aquam; Missa Maria Magdalena; Francisco Guerrero Maria Magdalena 8–1599)

Ensemble Pro Victoria / Toby Ward
Jeremy West cornett; Stephanie Dyer sackbut; Oliver Wass baroque harp; Toby Carr lute; Matthew Farrell bass viol/violone; Richard Gowers chamber organ.
Delphian DCD34305
https://www.delphianrecords.com/

For many in early seventeenth-century Portugal the period of Spanish rule was a time of anguish; but it was also an age of opportunity. Francisco Garro was a Spaniard who crowned his career at the Royal Chapel in Lisbon when this thriving metropolis boasted a vibrant musical life.

Four centuries after his death, Yorkshire-born Toby Ward and the expert voices and instrumentalists of Ensemble Pro Victoria triumphantly blow the dust from partbooks that survived political upheavals and the disaster of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, revealing a masterly oeuvre that in its richness and expressivity quite justifies the honour in which Garro was held in his lifetime.

The opening track Asperges me sets the tone immediately — serene, polished, well-blended, spiritually centred — and from that moment this disc announces itself as something rather special. Ward commands an exceptionally fine ensemble, the singing so well controlled and the accompaniment so perfectly balanced that the architecture of each piece is shaped with both precision and inevitability. The diction is exemplary, the interaction between each vocal strand finely calibrated, and the resonance of the two masses is quite marvellous in the warm acoustic of All Hallows, Gospel Oak.

It is in the contrapuntal weaving of these masses that Garro's genius most fully declares itself. The polyphonic phrases unfurl effortlessly, line answering line with an ease that belies the considerable craft beneath, and Ward's singers navigate these intricacies with poise and evident relish.

The Missa Saeculorum carries a particular gravity, its expressive depth a reminder that this music was forged in an era when life's fragility was keenly felt. It is the Agnus Dei of the glorious Missa Maria Magdalena that closes this transcendent disc with its luminous singing.

Performed with flair and meticulous attention to detail, this is a recording of genuine importance — a disc of spiritual nourishment that rewards repeated listening.

Sit back and surrender to this rich and profoundly enhancing music.