Antonio Rodríguez de Hita (1724-1787)
- Missa in Conceptione Beatae Mariae Virginis (1771)
Performers: Lа Grаndе Chаpеllе; Scholа Antiquа; Albеrt Rеcаsеns (director)
Further info: Rodriguez De Hita: Misa O Gloriosa Virginum
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Spanish composer and theorist. He attended the choir school of the
prebendary church of Alcalá de Henares and was maestro de capilla of
that church from 1738 to 1744. In 1744 he became maestro de capilla of
Palencia Cathedral; three years later he was ordained to the priesthood.
His works for Palencia Cathedral included Escala
diatónico-chromático-enharmónica (1751), a cycle of 75 short imitative
pieces for up to five wind players, as well as Latin sacred works and
villancicos. Following the liberal ideas defended by B.J. Feijoo in his
Cartas eruditas y curiosas, he justified innovations as long as they
provided aural pleasure, thus opposing the rationalist view of music.
This aspect of the treatise was criticized by the moderate A.V. Roel del
Río in his Razón natural i científica de la música (1760). During this
period, he applied unsuccessfully for more prestigious posts; eventually
in September 1765 he succeeded José Mir y Llusá as maestro de capilla
of the Monasterio de la Encarnación in Madrid, which enjoyed royal
patronage. Barely three years after his arrival, he began a short but
brilliant career as a composer of stage music, collaborating mainly with
the dramatist Ramón de la Cruz (1731-1794). These productions took
place during the enlightened period of rule under the Count of Aranda,
president of the Council of Castille between 1766 and 1773; their first
joint work, the serious zarzuela Briseida, was chosen to open the first
special summer season of daily performances at the municipal theatres of
Madrid. Rodríguez's second comic zarzuela, Las labradoras de Murcia
(1769), shows the clear influence of opera buffa. In his last important
stage work, Scipión en Cartagena (1770), Rodríguez collaborated with a
little-known writer, Pablo Agustín Cordero, who centred the work on the
conquest of the Spanish port of New Carthage (Cartagena) during the
Second Punic War.
With these four zarzuelas, Rodríguez became the Spanish composer with
the largest number of works premièred in the commercial theatres of
Madrid between 1760 and 1770, and at the end of the 1760s his zarzuelas
were the only ones that could rival the operas adapted from Piccinni and
Galuppi. With the two comic works he effectively established the comic
zarzuela, which was then cultivated in the 1770s by Fabián García
Pacheco, Ventura Galván, Antonio Rosales and others; these works in turn
opened the way to the zarzuela of the 19th century. After the poor
reception of Scipión en Cartagena, Rodríguez composed no more zarzuelas,
although he contributed some pieces to stage works, and wrote
interludes for the neo-classical tragedy Hormesinda by Nicolás Fernández
de Moratín (1770). The 1770s were his most productive years as a
composer of sacred music; notable among the surviving works are a large
number of villancicos, mostly for Christmas and Corpus Christi, as well
as works to Latin liturgical texts. From 1781 onwards his sacred
compositions were compiled in two bound volumes entitled Música práctica
de romance and Música motética práctica. The majority of his Latin
liturgical works, especially those for the Office and the masses, are
scored for two choirs and are in the stile antico. In works such as the
psalms, hymns, antiphons and Magnificat settings, homophonic choral
writing predominates, alternating with contrapuntal passages and solos
or duos. The influence of Italian operatic style is evident in the
villancicos and other Spanish sacred pieces as well as in some Latin
works, such as the Lamentations for Holy Week. Like other Spanish
composers of the time, Rodríguez varies the formal pattern of the
Baroque villancico, and in many instances a sequence of recitative and
aria replaces the coplas.
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