Un niño nos es naçido – An Iberian Christmas
The Renaissance Singers, David Allinson
St Sepulchre-without-Newgate (Holy Sepulchre), 13 December 2025
J.G de Padilla Christus Natus Est
C. de Morales Sancta et immaculata virginitas
F. Guerrero Missa Sancta et immaculata
C. de Morales Ave Maria, gratia plena
T.L. de Victoria Ecce Dominus veniet
R. de Ceballos O Virgo Benedicta
A. de Silva Alma redemptoris Mater
P. Ruimonte Luna que reluces
F. Guerrero Al resplandor de una estrella; Niño Dios d’amor herido; Alma mirad vuestro Dios
Diego José de Salazar ¡Salga el torillo hosquillo!
This imaginative programme from the always excellent Renaissance Singers aimed “to dispel the cynicism of modern Christmastide with a mixture of superb motets, mass music and villancicos drawn from the Spanish golden age”. Most of the music was based on musicians of Seville’s Cathedral, Santa Maria de la Sede, notably the composer Cristóbal de Morales and his pupil Francisco Guerrero, whose Missa Sancta et immaculata was the focus of the first half of the concert.
For their Spitalfields Festival debut, The Marian Consort brought their programme ‘Christmas with the Shepherds’ (based on last year’s CD release) to St Leonard’s, Shoreditch at the conclusion of a national tour. In a very well conceived and planned programme, they traced the influence of Jean Mouton on composers of the following century, notably Cristóbel de Morales, whose Missa Quaeramus cum pastoribus formed the nucleus of the programme. After the opening motet Alma Redemptoris Mater by Victoria, the latest of the composers represented, we heard Mouton’s motet Quaeramus cum pastoribus, a work that stayed in the repertoire of the Sistine Chapel for more than 100 years and survives in 27 manuscripts and printed sources now to be found as far apart as Aberdeen and Guatemala. It is the best known of a series of ‘Noë’ motets found in the Sistine Chapel archive, the result of the Medici Pope Leo X whose after-dinner entertainment 
Andrew Benson-Wilson : Early Music Reviews + 