Spiritual Canticle by Saint John of the Cross

Amancio Prada arrived in Paris in 1970 to study at the Sorbonne. His neighbor and classmate, tired of hearing him sing at night, knocked on his door one day and gave him a copy of "The Life and Works of Saint John of the Cross." "Read and be quiet," he said. Prada, after leafing through it and reaching the pages of "Spiritual Canticle," was fascinated. In his solitude, and while reading the poetry collection, he could hear the music sung by Saint John of the Cross and fell in love with the melodies that emerged from his soul.

Amancio Prada's recital intensifies the music of the poems and brings them to life on stage. In the recital, as María Zambrano describes it, "Music and voice do not appear as additions, but are extracted from the poem itself. A marriage of words and musicality. And something else, undoubtedly inaudible. A marriage celebrated there, in the "high caves of stone," "on the mountain and the hill where pure water flows."

After more than forty years touring with "Cántico Espiritual de San Juan de la Cruz" (Spiritual Canticle of Saint John of the Cross), Prada conveys the collection of poems with a special emotionality in which her voice stands out. According to musicologist Inés Mogollón, this is his greatest asset: "with a beautiful tone and perfect diction, a voice that combines a deeply expressive and very personal form of lyrical recitation, a mastery of singing that makes the tremor of love, or if you prefer, mysticism, even more disturbing."

I live without living in myself

Verses from the soul that grieves to see God

Living flame of love

Songs that the soul makes in intimate union with God, her beloved spouse

Even though it's nighttime

Songs from the soul that longs to know God by faith

Dark night

In which the soul sings of the joyful fortune it had in passing through the DARK NIGHT OF FAITH, in its nakedness and purgation, to union with the Beloved.

Spiritual song

Songs between the soul and the Bridegroom

Where did you hide?

Oh, forests and thickets!

A thousand thanks pouring out

Oh, who can heal me!

Turn around, Paloma!

The Bride has entered.

Oh, nymphs of Judea!

The white dove

Let us rejoice, Beloved!

The musical work of Amancio Prada (Dehesas, León, 1949) as a composer and performer has always had a literary basis which, throughout his discography, has shaped an anthological journey through the poetry of the Iberian Peninsula, from the Cantigas of the early Galician-Portuguese troubadours (12th and 13th centuries), through the Romancero, Juan del Enzina, Jorge Manrique, San Juan de la Cruz, and Rosalía de Castro, to contemporary authors such as Federico García Lorca, Juan Ramón Jiménez, María Zambrano, Álvaro Cunqueiro, Carmen Martín Gaite, Agustín García Calvo, Luis López Álvarez, Antonio Pereira, and Juan Carlos Mestre.

Among other awards, he has received the Castelao Medal of Galicia (1995), the Castilla y León Arts Award (2005), the Grand Prix du Répertoire Sacem (2008), the Tenco Award (2010), and the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts (2011).