Regina Caeli (Virtual Choir) - Francisco Guerrero (1528-1599)

If Francisco Guerrero, a composer of many masterpieces, has a single masterpiece, his eight-voice Regina Caeli is it. Throughout the 16th Century, composing in eight independent voices was considered artistic perfection, and this is Renaissance composition at its finest. Guerrero quotes the plainchant antiphon for Eastertide in its entirety. It is heard most clearly at the beginning with the first treble entrance before they shed the constrictions of the plainchant and soar into the heavens on laetare (rejoice). Still, except for those rare moments, the plainchant acts as a musical scaffold ornamented by skillfully wrought contrapuntal decoration. Though Regina Caeli is not double-choir writing, Guerrero skillfully tricks us. He constructs his choirs from S2, A1, T2, B1, and then S1, A2, T1, B2. But what is mainly heard throughout is a vivid array of intricately moving vocal lines tightly stitched together in several sequences of subdivided notes revealing a multi-hued tapestry of sound.