ristóbal de Morales
Cristóbal de Morales (1500 - 1553) was honored in Spain during his lifetime as one of the leading national composers along with Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548 - 1611) and Francisco Guererro (1528 - 1599). His importance is exemplified in books such as Orphénica Lyra (1554) by Miguel de Fuenllana or Silva de sirenas (1547) by Enríquez de Vallderábano. Fuenllana incorporated twenty-four intabulated pieces written by Morales into his book, Orphénica Lyra. Also, Juan Bermudo mentioned Morales in his Declaración de los instrumentos with huge respect. He called him “the light of Spain in music”.40 Although in a preface Bermudo was speaking of “the foreign music that today comes from the excellent Cristóbal de Morales, the profound Gombert, and other foreigners…. I count our Morales as a foreign composer because if his music has the charm and sonorousness of Spanish music it at the same time lacks nothing of the profundity, the technical polish, and the artifice of foreign music”41 Not only Spanish composers and musicians admired his work. Lodovico Zaconi also quoted Morales in his Prattica di musica (1592), and in 1594 Ippolito Baccusi cited Morales and Willaert in his third book of Vesper Psalms as the two principal masters of four-part writing during the century and professed them as models because of their purity in composing vocal polyphony.42 Widely admired during his life, Cristóbal de Morales was also deeply respected after his death within and outside of Europe. His music was already copied and performed in Mexico during the second half of the 16th century. In 1559, several of Morales’s compositions were chosen for a performance in Mexico City at an important commemorative ceremony honoring the deceased Charles V.. In general, the wide distribution of Morales’s music in Spain, Italy and Mexico is a testimony to his legacy.43
Cristóbal de Morales was born most likely in Sevilla, as we can clearly determine from the first pages of the Missarum, where he proclaimed himself as Sevillano. He was a pupil of Fernandez de Castilleja, Maestro de Capilla in Sevilla from 1514 until 1574.44 Morales was choirmaster at Ávila and Plasencia, and in 1535 he joined the papal chapel in Rome as a singer (in the same day when Pope Paul III commissioned Michelangelo to paint the wall of the Sistine chapel). There is a lack of evidence describing his life before moving to Rome, and what we do know is mostly based on speculation. Morales’s international reputation was established in Rome. His musical development in such a cosmopolitan environment was quite different from other younger Spanish composers such as Francisco Guerrero, Juan Navarro or Alonso Lobo, whose entire careers took place within the Peninsula Iberica.45 The year 1544 was one of the most important years in his career, as he published sixteen masses distributed over two Missarum printed by Valerio and Luigi Dorico in Rome. It is remarkable that none of these masses were based on motets composed by Spanish composers of the time. Nevertheless, three of his masses are based on the following Spanish melodies: la Caça, Dezilde al caballero and Tristezas me matan. However, we can find evidence based on compositions written by several renowned authors including: Philippe Verdelot, Jean Richafort and Jean Mouton. Morales was especially influenced by Josquin Desprez and even his masses based upon plainsongs make frequent and sophisticated references to this great Franco-Flemish composer.46
Morales was very influential composer in the international sense and his music was widely used in Rome during his years there which had a strong influence on Palestrina. The composers of the Roman School were strongly supported by the church after the Council of Trent.47 Despite his fame and success in Rome, there are several pieces of evidence about Morales’s dissatisfaction and financial problems, so he decided to return back to Spain just one year after the publication of his two books. The majority of financial aid during that time was given to Tomás Luis de Victoria instead of Morales, causing disparity between the two composers that is confirmed by the fact that Morales was so poor that he had to go into debt immediately upon his return to Spain.48 His decision to leave Rome may have been related, at least in part, to his serious health problems, as we can deduce from his survived letters, which Morales addressed to Cosimo I de Medici. In his third letter, he complains that for fourteen days he was not able to move his joints and attributes this to a type of gout. This letter is very informative in several respects. In contrast to previous letters, this one was not written in Morales’s hand and he himself supplies the explanation that “no se que cosa es poder mandar pies ni manos ny rodillas” (“I have not known what it is to control my feet, my hands or my knees” ). Morales continues describing his health problems in his fourth letter: “Treynta y dos Dias a que no me levanto del lecho de podagra con fiebre continua” (“Thirty two days I spent in bed suffering from gout and a continuous fever”).49 The question is, of course, exactly which illness Morales suffered from. Persisting symptoms of his illness could have been responsible for his career moves. He resigned the highly paid position of maestro de capilla of the Cathedral of Toledo just 23 months after commencement and went into the service of Duque de Arcos, Don Luis Cristóbal Ponce de León to Marchena, near Sevilla, where the climate was more favorable. The final months of his life from November 1551 to his death in September 1553, Morales occupied the post of Maestro de Capilla at the Cathedral of Málaga.50
