Filipe de Magalhães
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Filipe de Magalhães (Azeitão, c.1571 - Lisbon, 1652) was a Portuguese composer of sacred polyphony.
[edit] Life
Filipe de Magalhães was born in Azeitão, Portugal in 1571. He studied music at the Cathedral of Évora with Manuel Mendes and he was a colleague of the renowned polyphonists Duarte Lobo and Manuel Cardoso. In 1589 he replaced Manuel Mendes as mestre da Claustra da Sé. He then went to Lisbon where he was member of the Capela Real choir and then mestre de Capela da Misericórdia. On the 27th of March 1623 he was appointed mestre da Capela Real (master of the Royal Chapel), where he stays until 1641.
While at Évora, he was the teacher of Estêvão Lopes Morago, Estêvão de Brito and Manuel Correia, who maintained the music school of the Cathedral of Évora in the 16th and 17th centuries.
[edit] Work
Magalhães dedicated himself to the composition of sacred polyphonic works for the liturgy. Most of them were published in collections such as the Missarum Liber, which was dedicated to Philip III of Spain (Philip II of Portugal), and the Cantica Beatissima Virgines, published in Lisbon in 1639. He also wrote a book of plainsong, Cantus Ecclesiasticus, which was published in five different editions (the first ones in Lisbon in 1614 and in Antwerp in 1642, and the last one in 1724).
The catalog of the Music Library of king John IV of Portugal also mentions one 8-voice Mass, 6-voice Lamentations for the Maundy Thursday, one 7-voice Christmas villancico and five 5- and 6-voice motets. All these works were lost during the 1755 Lisbon earthquake.
