SANCTUS & BENEDICTUS from Missa Benedicta

Youtube performance by Coro melos Gloriae (Mexico City) from a different editionFrancisco López Capillas (1608-1674) is widely believed to be the first native-born New World composer, and his mass for four voices, Missa Benedicta, is one of his most beautiful works. This Sanctus-Benedictus is excerpted from Steven Paxton’s new performance edition of the complete work, omitting the lengthy Credo.

Capillas served as chapelmaster at the Cathedral of Mexico City for many years, accounting for the addition of Capillas to his name. This mass, along with other masses, motets and Magnificats, still survive in the archives of the cathedral, as well as in various libraries in Spain. Though composed at a time when many European composers were developing the new styles which we now identify as Baroque, Capillas composed in a more conservative style, patterned after the late works of Palestrina. This particular mass, a so-called parody mass, is actually based on themes from Palestrina’s motet Benedicta sit Sancta Trinitas, composed a century earlier than the work of this Mexican master.

TOTAL DURATION: about 3 minutes