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Diogo Dias Melgás (often Melgaz) (Cuba (Portugal), 1638 - Évora, 1700) was a Portuguese composer of late-Renaissance sacred polyphony.

Life

Diogo Dias Melgás was born in Cuba, Alentejo, on 14 April 1638. He was a choirboy at the Colégio da Claustra in Évora in 1646. He took holy orders at the Cathedral of Évora, where he stayed the rest of his life, being a student of Manuel Rebelo, and holding the position of mestre de capela for about 30 years. He died blind and extremely poor on 3 February 1700. He was the last of the great Portuguese polyphonic masters, who began to flourish in Évora in the second half of the sixteenth century.

Work

A large part of Melgás's work is lost. The surviving works - masses, motets, graduals - are kept in the archives of the Cathedrals of Évora and Lisbon, and were published in modern notation by the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian in 1978 (Opera Omnia, Portugaliae Musica XXXII).

Recordings

1994, Music of the Portuguese Renaissance, Pro Cantione Antiqua, Hyperion CDA66715
- includes 14 works by Melgás
2004, A Golden Age of Portuguese Music, The Sixteen, CORO COR16020
- includes 3 works by Melgás
2008, The Golden Age, The King's Singers, Signum Classics
- includes 2 works by Melgás