Pedro de Cristo
Updated on 31/10/2024- Other names
- Dates
- Notes
Pedro de Cristo’s baptismal name was Domingos. He was the son of António Nunes and Isabel Pires, born in Coimbra around 1550, although the exact date is unknown. On 4 September 1571 he professed at the Augustinian Monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra, adopting the name by which he is known (preceded by the honorific “Dom” after his novitiate). It is highly likely that he studied there under Francisco de Santa Maria, the chapel master from the mid-1560s until his death on 13 February 1597.
Pedro de Cristo succeeded Francisco de Santa Maria as chapel master at Santa Cruz in Coimbra and also held the same position intermittently at the Monastery of São Vicente de Fora in Lisbon. His movements between the two cities are difficult to trace. In 1605, the General Chapter ordered him to transfer from São Vicente de Fora back to Santa Cruz. He was in Coimbra in both 1612 and 1615, as he signed the chapter procuration granted to the canons representing the Monastery of Santa Cruz in the General Chapters of those years. In 1615, he was also granted permission to return to Lisbon. He died in Santa Cruz on 16 December 1618 from an acute infection following a fall in the main cloister.
In addition to being a composer, he is also documented as a player of keyboard instruments, dulcian, harp, and recorder.
- Bibliography
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Azevedo, Pedro de, “Rol dos Cónegos Regrantes de Santo Agostinho, por D. Gabriel de S. Maria”, Boletim da Segunda Classe da Academia das Sciências de Lisboa, 11 (1918), 105-77, at 174-75Pinho, Ernesto Gonçalves de, Santa Cruz de Coimbra, centro de actividade musical nos séculos XVI e XVII (Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1981), pp. 176-84Rees, Owen, Music by Pedro de Cristo: An Edition of the Motets from Coimbra, Biblioteca Geral da Universidade, MM 33 (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998), pp. xv-xxii (list of works by Pedro de Cristo)Rees, Owen, “Newly Identified Holograph Manuscripts from Late-Renaissance Portugal”, Early Music, 22 (1994), 261-77
- External references
- Works in this database