There are scores that carve themselves into one’s mind at first hearing. Not because of a coup de théâtre or a theatrical gesture: it happens because they reveal an inner coherence, a secret logic in which form, word, and sound find an immediate unity. José de Torres’s Misa de Difuntos para las honras de Luis I belongs to this rare category. It is music that places itself before the listener without strain, with a naturalness that astonishes for its restraint and exactness: no excess, no superfluous rhetoric, no self-indulgence. Only the sober rigor of a liturgical tradition that knows the gravity of the act for which it was written.
The historical framework is essential.
Luis I of Spain, the first Bourbon born on Iberian soil, reigned for only a few months in 1724 before dying at the age of seventeen. The state funeral, celebrated in the Real Capilla in Madrid, required a complete, solemn liturgy, in which both the continuity of the Spanish tradition and the ceremonial needs of the new dynasty were reflected.
The recording released by Château de Versailles Spectacles reconstructs this architecture with rigor: it opens with the Sinfonía in G minor by José de Nebra in the orchestral arrangement prepared by Alberto Miguélez Rouco, proceeds with Torres’s Mass in its canonical sections — Introitus, Kyrie, Sequentia, Offertorium, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, Communio — integrated with organ versets from the Madrid tradition, and concludes with the Prosa de Difuntos a 8 by Francisco Corselli, which completes the liturgical journey with its sequence, from the Dies irae to the Pie Jesu.
What emerges is a unified, coherent arc that mirrors the structure of a royal funeral celebration without modernizing concessions or arbitrary reconstructions.

The conducting of Alberto Miguélez Rouco is exemplary in its clarity. Nothing is pushed beyond what the writing itself requires: the tempi remain disciplined, the Latin text preserves a natural articulation, and the relationship between voices and instruments is measured with constant care. The ensemble Los Elementos adheres to the project with admirable restraint: the continuo is firm without ever becoming intrusive, the instrumental lines emerge clearly but without superfluous color, and the contrapuntal density is handled with transparency.
The choir — the Chœur de l’Opéra Royal — and the young voices of the Pages of the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles help to define a compact, controlled sound, free of inappropriate monumentality. Everything is directed towards an idea of balance that lets the form speak, not the interpretative gesture.
Nebra’s organ versets fulfil their structural function with restraint: they are not virtuosic concessions, but true points of inflection that mark the ritual time and give breath to the whole, separating and at the same time linking the great sections of the Mass.

The vocal solo group — Emmanuelle de Negri, Judit Subirana, Jacob Lawrence, Lisandro Abadie, with the participation of Rouco himself — fits into this framework with natural ease.
De Negri offers a clear, luminous line, perfectly controlled in the upper register and impeccable in diction, both in the Introitus and in the more exposed moments of the Kyrie.
Subirana brings a dense, soft timbre, with a regular phrasing and a breath control that gives solidity to the more central passages of the Sequentia.
Lawrence maintains a straight, sober emission that lends itself well to the imitative writing and to the clarity of the polyphonic design.
Abadie provides depth without ever weighing down the tessitura, offering a stable foundation that contributes to the overall sense of measure.
When Rouco intervenes as a singer, he does so with the same discretion with which he conducts: he enters the texture without ever seeking artificial prominence, confirming the idea of a collective approach that is not centred on the figure of the conductor-soloist.
The work of the choir is particularly evident in the handling of dynamics: the most tense episodes, such as the Rex tremendae or the Liber scriptus, avoid any temptation towards dramatization and remain within a liturgical perspective, as if the sound arose from a functional rather than an interpretative necessity.

The Prosa de Difuntos a 8 by Francisco Corselli, with its sequence of brief, contrasting episodes, finds here a reading of great lucidity. In the imitative passages each line is recognizable without standing apart, while in the more homorhythmic sections there emerges a sense of gravity that is never ostentatious. The Lacrimosa maintains a composure that avoids sentimentalism, and the concluding Pie Jesu closes the entire journey with a limpid calm, free of any search for effect. It is a moment of suspension that does not loosen the tension but restores it to its essential dimension.