Singing the Emperor's Song

Cristóbal de Morales, the most significant Iberian musician of his generation, composed one of the greatest Mass settings of the Renaissance, Missa Mille Regretz. Josquin’s melancholy chanson, Mille Regretz, was immensely popular across western Europe, and exercised a mesmerising influence on many composers. 

Morales was canny in selecting his model: the French love song for four voices was the favourite piece of  music of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V (1500–58), who was also king of Spain. In his Mass setting he wove an astonishing fantasia out of the brief original, paying tribute both to Josquin and his monarch, expanding the texture to six parts and creating vast canvasses of sound. The work was written for the choir of the Sistine Chapel, Rome, where Morales sang between 1535 and 1545. 

Along with the Missa Mille regretz we sing beautiful motets by Morales, who was described by contemporary music theorist Juan Bermudo as ‘the light of Spain in music’: a communion motet and a bright canonic setting of Regina caeli. And we will explore how other contemporary composers responded to Mille regretz: Gombert extending Josquin’s texture; Susato writing a response that follows directly on from the chanson’s last chord.