Cristal Bello

LA GUIRLANDE

The composers included in this recording belong to a generation born around 1700. These musicians were very much influenced by Neapolitan authors such as Leonardo Vinci, Francesco Durante or Leonardo Leo, whose music enjoyed a wide diffusion throughout the whole Hispanic world during the first half of the 18th Century. It was these composers who, on a more regular basis, began writing in Spain for the flute, an instrument which has a special presence in this album. The flute was gradually introduced in the Spanish musical chapels from the decades of 1720-1730, its use being registered later in the musical chapels in Ibero-America. The aria Cristal Bello, preserved in the Basilica de Santa María de Guadalupe (Mexico) is a fine example of the use of this instrument in Ibero-America, written by the violinist and composer Ignacio Jerusalem y Stella, born in Lecce (Naples) in1707. By 1736 he was already residing in Cataluña, and later travelled to Ceuta and Cádiz together with his family. According to recent studies by José Antonio Gutiérrez and Javier Marín, Jerusalem may have worked as a military musician during these years, attached to the regiment in Zamora. In 1742 Jerusalem set sail for Mexico in order to work at the Coliseum of Mexico City. In 1749 he was named acting Director of Music at the Mexico Cathedral, a post he occupied permanently from 1750 until his death in 1769. During his charge, Jerusalem modernized Mexican sacred music, crucially introducing the new trends of Italian origin which were already dominating the Iberian Peninsula.

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