© SF / Marco Borrelli

Mille regrets de vous abandonner · et d’être éloigné de votre visage amoureux. · J’ai si grand deuil et peine douloureuse
qu’on me verra vite mourir.

Tausendfaches Bedauern, dass ich dich verlassen muss · und den Anblick deines liebenden Gesichts verliere. · Ich erleide solch große Trauer und schmerzliche Qual,
dass man meine Tage als gezählt erkennen wird.

Chanson Mille regretz

WHITSUN FESTIVAL 2022

About the Production

‘God save the great Sevilla, / […] may fame carve you a rich throne / and ivory be its case. / Poets and a thousand others embrace / Your fame that is so bright / From holy Rome they take flight / For Sevilla, full of grace’. With these verses, the Spanish poet Bartolomé Torres Naharro extolled the city at the beginning of the 16th century — the city that, according to legend, was founded by Heracles. His pride was not too excessive when you consider that there was much lively interaction between Seville and papal Rome, not least in the field of music.
Cristóbal de Morales began his career as a choirboy at Seville Cathedral before he was engaged at the Sistine Chapel for a decade from 1535, thereafter returning to Spain as a famous composer of what would later be known as the ‘Palestrina School’. His Missa Mille regretz, however, is not based on a chorale or any other sacred model, but on a French love song that was a favourite melody of Emperor Charles V. Among Morales’s students, one ‘Sevillano’ name stands out: Francisco Guerrero, who was still seen as Spanish despite travelling to Italy and far beyond to the Holy Land, while Morales was deemed by his contemporaries to be almost Italian. Guerrero’s Missa de la batalla escoutez is also based on a popular chanson, namely Clément Janequin’s La Guerre. Both works are recognized as early outstanding achievements of the Spanish Golden Age.

Interval

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