CEREROLS Missa martyrum. Missa angelorum. Regina caeli. Alma Redemptoris mater. Salve regina. Ave regina caelorum & • Pere Lluís Biosca, dir; CCh Francesc Valls; David Malet (org) • LA MÀ DE GUIDO 2080 (55:14)

& CABANILLES Tiento sobre el Pange lingua. IRIBERIA Tiento de falses

Joan Cererols (1618–1680) is regarded as the founder of the Montserrat school of composition, a body of music that came out of the choir school at the cliff-side monastery near Barcelona. Typically, he was schooled as a choirboy, then entered the monastic community and eventually became choirmaster, contributing original works to the music for worship at the abbey. Some monks often spent time in a house that was maintained in Madrid, where they expanded their horizons by contact with the royal chapel. If this had not been the case, their music would have been completely lost when the French troops burned the monastery in 1811. As it happened, Cererols wrote six masses on the first six modes. The two recorded here (on modes 4 and 6) are set for five voices, while the other four masses use four voices, all with organ continuo. His double-choir settings of the four Marian antiphons, used every day at Compline, are also heard on this disc, framed by two tientos, organ pieces by contemporary composers. (The masses begin and end the program.)

The chamber choir is made up of 13 young mixed voices who sing with considerable verve. There is nothing solemn about their vocal production. Nor is there anything pretentious about the music. The setting of the mass texts is propelled forward with clarity, while the antiphons are somewhat more lavish in building musical structures around the words. This illustrates the Montserrat school’s approach to sacred music, a tradition that endures to the present day, when three monks still living have created an entire body of sacred music in Catalan for the New Order of Mass. This is a worthwhile addition to the recorded repertoire of the Montserrat school. J. F. Weber