| The Cantoría ensemble will perform a repertoire based on this manuscript, with polyphonic sacred pieces, which was recovered in 2017 | The concert will be this Tuesday at 7:00 p.m.
in the Basilica of San Miguel in MadridThe Cantoría ensemble, a formation dedicated to baroque music, will perform this Tuesday at the International Festival of Sacred Art of the Community of Madrid with a program based on 'The Totana manuscript', an old manuscript with polyphonic works from the 16th century that was discovered in 2017 in the Church of Santiago El Mayor in Totana and that includes scores totally unknown until that moment.
The manuscript was found by the director of the Historical Music Workshop of the University of Murcia, Jorge Losana, also a member of Cantoría, and the UMUe has collaborated in its recovery and dissemination of the musical works it includes, according to the educational institution in a release.
The manuscript was restored by the Autonomous Community in 2019.The Totana manuscript consists of some thirty sacred polyphony musical works, among which are motets, psalms for vespers and two masses.
Historically, the territory of Sierra Espuña has been located in a border enclave, a crossroads of the Spanish Levant.
The manuscript could be the product of this cultural exchange, in whose pages works of Valencian origin coexist with other compositions by authors from the surroundings of Seville, Córdoba and Granada.The program that Cantoría will perform includes the most representative psalms of the manuscript, along with two antiphons, two motets and a magnificat, completed with an invocation and a hymn in plain song.
Four of the works will be premiered in modern times at the concert.The concert is held in collaboration with INAEM, the Institute of Cultural Industries of the Region of Murcia, the University of Murcia, the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), the Milà i Fontanals Institution and the musicologist Antonio Pardo.
