Pablo Esteve y Grimau (1730–1794) was a Spanish composer. Esteve was conductor and house-composer for the

Teatro de la Cruz The Teatro de la Cruz was, during its nearly 200-year existence, the principal theater for comedy in Madrid. History Founded by the Hermandad de la Soledad in 1584, it soon became the premier venue of its time for Spanish comedy. In 1743, it was ...

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

during the peak of the popularity of the ''

tonadilla Tonadilla was a Spanish musical song form of theatrical origin; not danced. The genre was a type of short, satirical musical comedy popular in 18th-century Spain, and later in Cuba and other Spanish colonial countries. It originated as a song type, ...

'' genre. The risque nature of the ''tonadilla'' meant that Esteve was once briefly jailed for sarcastic references to a duchess in one of his compositions. The actress who sang the ''tonadilla'' on stage escaped jail by claiming she paid no attention to what she was given to sing.Elisabeth Le Guin ''Boccherini's Body: An Essay in Carnal Musicology'' 2005 Page 155 "Although she was highly esteemed for her passionate, impulsive stage persona, she became quite another creature during the 1779 scandal involving Pablo Esteve, the librettist and composer with whom she worked most closely. Esteve had ..."

References

1730 births 1794 deaths Spanish Classical-period composers Spanish male classical composers Place of birth missing 18th-century classical composers 18th-century male musicians 18th-century musicians {{Spain-composer-stub