Hyperion Records

The first really notable maestro de capilla in Mexico was Hernando Franco. He was born in Spain in 1532, near Alcántara in Extremadura, the land of the conquistadores. As a boy chorister he served at Segovia Cathedral in Old Castile; there he met the brothers de Álamo who were to lead him first to Guatemala and then to Mexico City. Franco certainly was at Guatemala in 1573 and he spent his last ten years from 1575 as maestro at the new and incomplete Mexico City Cathedral. Some of Franco’s music is still to be found in Guatemala but his cycle of Magnificats (fourteen out of sixteen survive) and many other works are found in Mexico and Puebla together with his two settings of Salve regina.

from notes by Bruno Turner © 1990