Pure gold

This collection of essays was conceived as an homage to Bruno Turner who has done so much to promote knowledge of sacred music of the Golden Age Iberian world. As choral director, editor and broadcaster, Turner brought this music to the attention of the wider musical public and made it available to choirs all over the world through his specialized publishing firm, Mapa Mundi. Scholars of Iberian sacred music are equally indebted to him for his research, especially on sources, plainchant and liturgy of the Iberian Peninsula and the New World; indeed, he can be considered the eminence grise of musicology in this field. The essays by seventeen scholars, all of whom have been influenced by and are indebted to his life’s work, bring together the latest research and thinking on wide-ranging aspects of sacred music by Iberian and Hispanic American composers in three main areas: sources and repertories; music and liturgy; motets and musical tributes. These contributions, which enrich and deepen current knowledge of Iberian music of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, are framed by a Prelude by the composer Ivan Moody and a Postlude that takes the form of an interview between Turner and the writer, critic and translator Luis Gago.