The musicologist Albert Recasens, researcher at the Instituto Cultura y Sociedad (ICS) of the University of Navarra will be in charge of staging with his musical ensemble La Grande Chapelle several pieces by José de Baquedano, master, composer and famous performer of the chapel of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. Recasens has been in charge of the research, the parallel musicological study and the coordination of the transcription of the works, following the scientific methodology he has applied in previous recoveries of other Spanish composers of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.
Among the works to be performed will be the recovery of the psalm Miserere for ten voices, a piece that was performed on Holy Thursday, Friday and Holy Saturday "to several choirs, spread throughout the church" and that, as Albert Recasens himself points out, will be performed "following the performance practice of the time and the composer's own annotations". Recasens also stresses that the concert on the 24th will have the same musicians as the original compositions and will include the vihuelas de arco (also called violas de gamba) that the composer foresaw for one of the lamentations of Holy Thursday, the Iod. Manum suam.
José de Baquedano
José de Baquedano was born in Puente La Reina (Navarra), an enclave on the Camino de Santiago. As a child, he began his training in a parish of this town and later sought work as a singer in Bilbao, San Sebastian, Vitoria and Segovia. Later he moved to Madrid, where he began to consolidate his prestige. Due to his merits, the chapter of the Cathedral of Santiago proposed him as chapel master in 1680, where he served until 1710.
