A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Morales, Cristofero

by James Robert Sterndale-Bennett

MORALES, Cristofero, born at Seville in the early part of the 16th century, and appointed a member of the papal chapel about 1540^[1] by Paul III. His published works, dating between the years 1539 and 1569, consist of 16 Masses (in 2 books), Magnificats, and several Motets published in various collections. Morales^[2] 'despised all worldly, to say nothing of light, music, and had nothing to do with it, regarding with anger those who applied that noble gift of God, the power of making music, to frivolous, and even to objectionable uses.' Ambitious that his works should be worthy of God and the papal chapel, he surely gained his end, and for nearly 350 years they have been annually sung^[3] in the place for which he designed them. In modern score Eslava gives six pieces; Rochlitz^[4] some extracts from a mass; Schlesinger^[5] the celebrated motet 'Lamentabatur Jacob,' which Adami describes as a 'marvel of art'; Martini^[6] three movements from the Magnificats. Two motets (à 3) 'Domine Deus' and 'Puer est natus' and a Magnificat are in score in the British Museum in Burney's Musical Extracts, vol. iv. (Add. MSS. 11,584).

An interesting portrait is given by Adami, and copied in Hawkins" History.

[ J. R. S.-B. ]

1. Adami's 'Osservazioni per ben regolare il coro della Capp. Pontif.' (Roma, Rossi 1711). The date of the 2nd book of Masses is here quoted as 1544. In the dedication to the Pope, Morales writes 'quod cum me jam pridem inter Chori tui musicos collocaveris.'
2. From preface to 2nd book of Masses.
3. 'Mottetti etc che si cantano nella Capella Sistlna e nella Basilica Vaticana'—a MS. in the British Museum (Egerton Collection 2460–61) containing a Magnificat sung on the vigil of Epiphany, and the motet 'Lamentabatur Jacob,' sung on the 4th Sunday in Lent.
4. Sammlung Gesangstücke, vol. i. nos. 27, 29.
5. In 'Musica Sacra,' Berlin 1853. Each motet can be had separately.
6. 'Esemplare … di contrappunto' (Bologna 1774). The three movements are used as theoretical examples, and numerous notes added on questions which they illustrate.