Juan Esquivel Barahona
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Juan eEsquivel Barahona (c. 1560 – after 1623) was the most prominent of the last generation of
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...
church composers of the
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
era. Although he never served in one of the major Spanish cathedrals, his music was known throughout Spain during the early seventeenth century.


Life

Juan de Esquivel was born in or near
Ciudad Rodrigo Ciudad Rodrigo () is a small cathedral city in the province of Salamanca (province), Salamanca, in western Spain, with a population in 2016 of 12,896. It is also the seat of a judicial district. The site of Ciudad Rodrigo, perched atop a rocky r ...
, an ancient cathedral city southwest of
Salamanca Salamanca () is a Municipality of Spain, municipality and city in Spain, capital of the Province of Salamanca, province of the same name, located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is located in the Campo Charro comarca, in the ...
. He began service as a choirboy in the cathedral in 1568 and, according to choir chaplain Antonio Sánchez Cabañas, he was a student of Juan Navarro, the cathedral's choirmaster during Esquivel's youth. Esquivel's first appointment as ''maestro de capilla'' came in 1581, when he was named to the post in
Oviedo Oviedo () or Uviéu (Asturian language, Asturian: ) is the capital city of the Principality of Asturias in northern Spain and the administrative and commercial centre of the region. It is also the name of the municipality that contains th ...
, the capital of the province of
Asturias Asturias (; ; ) officially the Principality of Asturias, is an autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in northwest Spain. It is coextensive with the provinces of Spain, province of Asturias and contains some of the territory t ...
in Northern Spain. He left that position in 1585 and took a similar position at Calahorra Cathedral in
La Rioja La Rioja () is an autonomous communities in Spain, autonomous community and provinces of Spain, province in Spain, in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. Its capital is Logroño. Other List of municipalities in La Rioja, cities and towns in the ...
. In 1591 he returned to Ciudad Rodrigo as choirmaster, where he remained until his death.


Music

Esquivel composed only sacred music. His output survives in three publications, printed in Salamanca during the early seventeenth century; a fourth book (Salamanca, 1623) of motets and instrumental music was reported by Sanchez-Cabañas in his manuscript history of Ciudad Rodrigo, but no copies of this have been found. Since he began his career during a time when Spanish churches were adopting the Roman liturgy as prescribed by the
Council of Trent The Council of Trent (), held between 1545 and 1563 in Trent (or Trento), now in northern Italy, was the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation at the time, it has been described as the "most ...
, his music reveals an attempt to reconcile Spanish
polyphonic Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice ( monophony) or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ...
traditions of the sixteenth century with Tridentine preferences for clarity of text and brevity of statement. This is especially true in his motets, which are among the shortest in the repertoire. His principal influences were
Cristóbal de Morales Cristóbal de Morales (c. 1500 – between 4 September and 7 October 1553) was a Spanish composer of the Renaissance. He is generally considered to be the most influential Spanish composer before Tomás Luis de Victoria. Life Cristóbal de Mor ...
and Francisco Guerrero, although some influence of his teacher, Navarro is sometimes evident. Esquivel's appreciation of Guerrero is apparent in his use the older master's motets as sources for
parody mass A parody mass is a musical setting of the mass, typically from the 16th century, that uses multiple voices of a pre-existing piece of music, such as a fragment of a motet or a secular ''chanson'', as part of its melodic material. It is distinguis ...
es. Esquivel, however, was never reluctant to set a text for which a previous composer had gained some fame. Esquivel's polyphonic style is characterized by a succinctness in his melodic subjects, an occasional use of noncadential
chromaticism Chromaticism is a compositional technique interspersing the primary diatonic scale, diatonic pitch (music), pitches and chord (music), chords with other pitches of the chromatic scale. In simple terms, within each octave, diatonic music uses o ...
and parallel motion between voices. His music has some similarity to Portuguese polyphony of his time.


Publications

* ''Motecta festorum et dominicarum cum communi sanctorum, IV, V, VI, et VIII vocibus concinnanda'' (Salamanca, Artus Tabernielis, 1608) * ''Missarum Ioannis Esquivelis in alma ecclesia Civitatensi portionarii, et cantorum praefecti, liber primus superiorum permissu, Salmanticæ, ex officina typographica Arti Taberniel Antverpiani, anno a Christo nato M.DC.VIII'' (Salamanca: Artus Tabernielis, 1608) * ''Ioannis, Esquivel, Civitatensis, et eiusdem sanctæ ecclesiæ portionarii, psalmorum, hymnorum, magnificarum et B. Mariæ quatuor antiphonarum de tempore, necnon et missarum tomus secundus'' (Salamanca: Francisco de Cea Tesa, 1613) * Lost book of hymns, motets, falsobordone items, and pieces for instruments (Salamanca, 1623)


Discography

Various works have been recorded over the years, for example by
Pro Cantione Antiqua Pro Cantione Antiqua of London (PCA) is a British choral group which was founded in 1968 by tenor James Griffett, counter-tenor Paul Esswood, and conductor and producer Mark Brown. Their first concert was at St Bartholomew's, Smithfield with Bri ...
in the 1970s as part of a 2-CD Spanish collection entitled ''El Siglo De Oro''. However, a 2019 recording ( Hyperion CDA68326) by the British choir De Profundis is claimed by its performers to be the first album to be devoted solely to Esquivel's music: ''Esquivel: Missa Hortus conclusus, Magnificat & motets''. The choir is accompanied by Nicholas Perry ( bajón) and directed by Eamonn Dougan. The album features a
parody mass A parody mass is a musical setting of the mass, typically from the 16th century, that uses multiple voices of a pre-existing piece of music, such as a fragment of a motet or a secular ''chanson'', as part of its melodic material. It is distinguis ...
based on the motet "Hortus conclusus" by Rodrigo de Ceballos. It was well received by the critics.


References


Bibliography

* Bruner, G. Edward, DMA: "Editions and Analysis of Five Missa Beata Virgine Maria by the Spanish Composers: Morales, Guerreo, Victoria, Vivanco, and Esquivel." DMA diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1980. acsimile: University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, MI, US* O'Connor, Michael B. "The Polyphonic Compositions on Marian Texts by Juan de Esquivel Barahona: A Study of Institutional Marian Devotion in Late Renaissance Spain." Ph.D. diss., The Florida State University, 2006. SU Electronic dissertations linkhttps://web.archive.org/web/20120521202201/http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/theses/available/etd-08282006-160857/ * Pure Gold: Golden Age Sacred Music in the Iberian World. A Homage to Bruno Turner. Edited by Tess Knighton and Bernadette Nelson. Kassel: Edition Reichenberger, 2011. ISBN 978-3-937734-88-0 88 * Rodilla León, Francisco: “Nuevos datos sobre la capilla musical de la catedral de Calahorra a finales del siglo XVI. El magisterio de Juan Esquivel de Barahona (1585-1591)”, in ''Nassarre-Revista Aragonesa de Musicología'', Volumen: 26–27, 2004, pp. 403–430. * Rodilla León, Francisco: ''El libro de motetes de 1608 de Juan Esquivel de Barahona (c. 1560 – c. 1624): Estudio y transcripción,'' Centro de Estudios Mirobrigenses - Ayuntamiento de Ciudad Rodrigo, 2005. * Rodilla León, Francisco: “Estudio, transcripción e interpretación de los motetes de Juan Esquivel de Barahona (c. 1560- c. 1624)”, en ''Revista de Musicología'', Vol.: 28, nº 2, , Madrid: 2005, pp 1541–1562. * Rodilla León, Francisco: “Dos libros de polifonía de Juan Esquivel de Barahona: Missarum Ioannis Esquivelis... (1608) y ..Psalmorum, Hymnorum, Magnificarum... (1613), in Estudios Mirobrigenses (CECEL-CSIC), Vol.: 2, , Salamanca: 2008, pp. 163–176. * Rodilla León, Francisco
Juan Esquivel de Barahona
in '' Diccionario Biográfico Español''. Available online and in print (Tomo XVII, Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 2011, págs. 810–814). * Rodilla León, Francisco: ''Medio siglo de esplendor musical en la catedral de Ciudad Rodrigo (1574–1624). Los maestros de capilla Juan Navarro,
Alonso de Tejeda Alonso is a Spanish name of Germanic origin that is a Castilian variant of ''Adalfuns''. The original Visigothic name ''Alfonso'' suffered the phonetic change of the phoneme /f/ into the mute /h/ in the Early Middle Ages (around 9th Century), w ...
y Juan Esquivel.'' Centro de Estudios Mirobrigenses-Ayto. de Ciudad Rodrigo (Salamanca). Ciudad Rodrigo, 2012. * Rodilla León, Francisco (estudio y edición): ''Opera Omnia. Juan Esquivel de Barahona (c. 1560 – c. 1624). I''. Officium Defunctorum. ''Edición de 1613''. Ediciones críticas, Editorial Alpuerto, Madrid, 2018. * Sanchez Cabañas, Antonio. ''Historia de la M.N.Y.M.L. Ciudad de Ciudad-Rodrigo, comprensiva de su situacion, antigüedad, variedad de poseedores que ha tenido, y otras particularidades dignas de atencion por D. Antonio Sanchez Cabañas, Capellan de número de la Sancta Iglesia Catedral de la misma Ciudad''. Mss. 1708–1710. (c. 1626) * Snow, Robert J. ''The 1613 Print of Juan Esquivel Barahona''. Detroit Monographs in Musicology 7. Detroit: Information Coordinators, 1978. * Stevenson, Robert M. “Spanish Polyphonists in the Age of the Armada.” ''Inter-American Music Review'' 12/2 (1992), 17–114. * Walkley, Clive.
Juan Esquivel: An Unknown Spanish Master Revisited
''
Early Music Early music generally comprises Medieval music (500–1400) and Renaissance music (1400–1600), but can also include Baroque music (1600–1750) or Ancient music (before 500 AD). Originating in Europe, early music is a broad Dates of classical ...
'' 39/1 (February 2001), 76–92. * Walkley, Clive. ''Juan Esquivel: A Master of Sacred Music during the Spanish Golden Age.'' Woodbridge, England: Boydell Press, 2010.


External links


BBC Radio Cambs


Interview about the Hyperion CD


Scores

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Esquivel Barahona, Juan de Spanish Renaissance composers Spanish male classical composers 1560s births 17th-century deaths People from the Province of Salamanca