Estêvão Lopes Morago () (c. 1575 in

Vallecas Vallecas was a municipality of Spain that disappeared as such in 1950, when its annexation to the municipality of Madrid took place. Nowadays, the territory is roughly occupied by two districts: Puente de Vallecas (population 240,917) and V ...

, Spain – 1630 in

Viseu Viseu () is a city and municipality in the Centro Region of Portugal and the capital of the Viseu District, district of the same name, with a population of 100,105 inhabitants in the entire municipality, and center of the Viseu Dão Lafões Interm ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

) was a Spanish-born composer who studied, lived, worked and died in Portugal. He is one of the most important polyphonists in the music history of Portugal. Another representative of the high level of cultural interchanges between the two countries, as some of the highest figures of the peninsular cultural history have moved around between the two countries freely and mostly in a way unrelated to the political events of the time (

Diego Velázquez Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (baptised 6 June 15996 August 1660) was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the Noble court, court of King Philip IV of Spain, Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. He i ...

was of Portuguese origin; and

Alonso Sánchez Coello Alonso Sánchez Coello ( 1531 – 8 August 1588) was an Iberian portrait painter of the Spanish and Portuguese Renaissance. He is mainly known for his portrait paintings executed in a style which combines the objectivity of the Flemish traditio ...

are some of the examples).

Life

Lopes Morago was born in Vallecas, near

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, but he passed the vast majority of his life in Portugal. He was a student of Filipe de Magalhães at the Cathedral of Évora, where he obtained his licentiate degree. After that, in August 1599, he went to the Cathedral of Viseu where he was appointed

canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the material accepted as officially written by an author or an ascribed author * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western canon, th ...

and ''

mestre de capela ( , , ), from German (chapel) and (master), literally "master of the chapel choir", designates the leader of an ensemble of musicians. Originally used to refer to somebody in charge of music in a chapel, the term has evolved considerably in i ...

''. In 1626, the

chapter Chapter or Chapters may refer to: Books * Chapter (books), a main division of a piece of writing or document * Chapter book, a story book intended for intermediate readers, generally age 7–10 * Chapters (bookstore), Canadian big box bookstore ...

of the Cathedral allowed him to go to

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

to publish his works. These included the ''Livro Comum'' and the ''Vesperal'', which have survived. The place and year of his death are uncertain. There are indications that Morago moved to Spain and died there about 1628. However, a later document (1630) states that Morago had retired to a

Franciscan The Franciscans are a group of related organizations in the Catholic Church, founded or inspired by the Italian saint Francis of Assisi. They include three independent Religious institute, religious orders for men (the Order of Friars Minor bei ...

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of Monasticism, monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in Cenobitic monasticism, communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a ...

in Viseu (''Convento de Orgens'') and died there.

Works

Morago composed

motet In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the preeminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to the Eng ...

s, responsories,

psalm The Book of Psalms ( , ; ; ; ; , in Islam also called Zabur, ), also known as the Psalter, is the first book of the third section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) called ('Writings'), and a book of the Old Testament. The book is an anthology of H ...

Magnificat The Magnificat (Latin for "y soulmagnifies he Lord) is a canticle, also known as the Song of Mary or Canticle of Mary, and in the Byzantine Rite as the Ode of the Theotokos (). Its Western name derives from the incipit of its Latin text. This ...

s, and a

Requiem A Requiem (Latin: ''rest'') or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead () or Mass of the dead (), is a Mass of the Catholic Church offered for the repose of the souls of the deceased, using a particular form of the Roman Missal. It is ...

. His work is considered to be highly innovative in the

Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, comprisin ...

. The musicologist Manuel Joaquim considered his motet ''Oculi mei'' "genial and worthy of the renown of

Palestrina Palestrina (ancient ''Praeneste''; , ''Prainestos'') is a modern Italian city and ''comune'' (municipality) with a population of about 22,000, in Lazio, about east of Rome. It is connected to the latter by the Via Prenestina. It is built upon ...

's ''O vos omnes'', or ''Hoc die''". The British composer

Ivan Moody Ivan L. Moody (born Ivan Lewis Greening on January 7, 1980) is an American singer and songwriter who is the lead vocalist of heavy metal band Five Finger Death Punch (FFDP). He performed for several other bands including Motograter and Gho ...

wrote: ''...what causes special impact in the music of Morago is the usage of the dissonance, and (...) an interest in antiphonary effects. Motets such as ''Oculi mei'', of ambiguous key and intercalated with numberless diminished fourths, demonstrate perfectly the expressiveness of this harmonic audacity. The alternances of this kind of intense imitative composition painstakingly elaborated with sudden twitches of rhythmical homophony are also typical of the works ''Versa est in luctum'' and ''Commissa mea''; in fact, the work of Morago for penitential and funerary texts is extremely sensitive.'' The works of Morago are kept in the archives of Viseu. The

Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (), commonly referred to simply as the Gulbenkian Foundation, is a Portugal, Portuguese institution dedicated to the promotion of the arts, philanthropy, science, and education. One of the List of wealthiest c ...

published most of them in the book ''Obras de Música Religiosa'' (Portugaliae Musica IV, 1961).

Recordings

*1993, Portuguese Renaissance Music, Voces Angelicae, Teldec Classics International 4509-93690-2 **includes 5 works by Morago. *1994, Music of the Portuguese Renaissance, Pro Cantione Antiqua, Hyperion CDA66715 **includes 10 works by Morago

References

*''Enciclopédia Verbo Luso-Brasileira de Cultura'', vol. 20, "Morago (Estêvão Lopes)", ed. Verbo, Lisboa/São Paulo, 1998 *https://web.archive.org/web/20070810034821/http://musicantiga.com.sapo.pt/Musicantiga-Estevao_Lopes_Morago.htm

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lopez Morago, Esteban Spanish Renaissance composers Spanish Baroque composers 1570s births 17th-century deaths Spanish male classical composers Portuguese classical composers 17th-century Portuguese classical composers 17th-century Spanish classical composers 17th-century male musicians