Francisco Gabriel Gálvez (c. 1510 – 1578) was a Spanish

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

composer of

sacred music Religious music (also sacred music) is a type of music that is performed or composed for religious use or through religious influence. It may overlap with ritual music, which is music, sacred or not, performed or composed for or as ritual. Relig ...

and was the ''

maestro di cappella (, also , ) from German ''Kapelle'' (chapel) and ''Meister'' (master)'','' literally "master of the chapel choir" designates the leader of an ensemble of musicians. Originally used to refer to somebody in charge of music in a chapel, the term ha ...

'' of

Cuenca Cathedral Cuenca Cathedral is a Gothic cathedral in the city of Cuenca, located in the Province of Cuenca in the Castile-La Mancha region of south-eastern central Spain. The building is one of the earliest Spanish examples of Gothic architecture, bui ...

from 1560 until his death. His only extant score is a five-part motet, ''Emendemus in melius''.

Life and works

Little is known about Gálvez's early life. The musicologist Miguel Martínez Millán (1911–1985) assumed that he was born in or near the Spanish city of Cuenca where there were several members of a Gálvez family active in the musical life of its cathedral. He served as a musician at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome before being summoned to Spain in 1560 to serve as the ''maestro di cappella'' of Cuenca Cathedral. He remained in that post for the rest of his life, although from September 1863 to March 1564 he absented himself to Aragon in a dispute over his pay. He returned when the cathedral offered him a substantial increase and back pay for the period of his absence. He later received another substantial increase to match an offer for his services from the Cathedral of Segovia. According to Martínez Millán, Gálvez died shortly after 10 July 1578, and the following September

Ginés de Boluda Ginés de Boluda (1545 in Hellín – c. 1606) was a Spanish church musician and composer. He was maestro de capilla'' at the Cathedral of Cádiz by 1578, taking up the same post at Cuenca Cathedral in that year succeeding Francisco Gabriel Gá ...

was appointed his successor. Gálvez is buried in the Cuenca Cathedral beside an altar in the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

to the left of the

choir A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which sp ...

. He was the first of the cathedral's ''maestri di cappella'' to be buried there. Gálvez had presented the cathedral with a bound collection of his works in 1561 and a book of his hymns and

Magnificat The Magnificat (Latin for " y soulmagnifies he Lord) is a canticle, also known as the Song of Mary, the Canticle of Mary and, in the Byzantine tradition, the Ode of the Theotokos (). It is traditionally incorporated into the liturgical servic ...

settings in 1567. Both are now lost. The only surviving score by Gálvez is a five-part motet, ''Emendemus in melius'', composed for the first Sunday in Lent and held in the archives of the

Sistine Chapel Choir The Sistine Chapel Choir, as it is generally called in English, or officially the Coro della Cappella Musicale Pontificia Sistina in Italian, is the Pope's personal choir. It performs at papal functions in the Sistine Chapel and in any other churc ...

. The choir performs the work on its 2019 recording ''O Crux Benedicta''. A transcription by Jesús María Muneta of the manuscript score was published in ''Tesoro Sacro Musical'' (a journal of the Sociedad Española de Musicología) in 1975. According to Giuseppe Baini, the director of the Sistine Chapel Choir from 1818 to 1844,

Palestrina Palestrina (ancient ''Praeneste''; grc, Πραίνεστος, ''Prainestos'') is a modern Italian city and ''comune'' (municipality) with a population of about 22,000, in Lazio, about east of Rome. It is connected to the latter by the Via Pre ...

took the basic theme of his four-part

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...

''Emendemus in melius'' (composed in 1594) from Gálvez's earlier work. This analysis was later disputed by the Spanish musicologist Samuel Rubio (1912–1986) who wrote that the two works have too little in common. He also questioned the attribution of the motet to Gálvez. The name of the composer on the manuscript score is written as "Cabreli Cálvez", who according to Rubio, may have been a different person.

Life and works

References

Further reading