Hyperion Records

Scored for four high voices (with two superius parts), Almeida’s Miserere mei Deus is one of several such settings for up to eight voices by this composer in the Vila Viçosa archives. On Good Friday Psalm 50 was traditionally sung to the seventh Psalm tone; the juxtapositions between the familiar contour of the seventh tone and Almeida’s polyphonic setting may seem strange to modern ears, but such juxtapositions are a characteristic feature of many alternatim Psalm settings from this time (both for voices and for organ) which sometimes use a harmonic language seemingly at odds with the chant mode.

from notes by Bernadette Nelson © 1996