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

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 ...

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 a ritual. Reli ...

and was the ''

maestro di cappella ( , , ), from German (chapel) and (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 has evolved considerably in i ...

'' of

Cuenca Cathedral The Cathedral of Saint Mary and Saint Julian is a Roman Catholic cathedral in the city of Cuenca, Spain, Cuenca, Spain. The building is one of the earliest Spanish examples of Gothic architecture, built at a time when the Romanesque architecture ...

from 1560 until his death. His only extant score is a five-part

motet In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the preeminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to the Eng ...

, ''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 Cuenca may refer to: People * Cuenca (surname) Places Ecuador * Cuenca Canton, in the Azuay Province ** Cuenca, Ecuador, capital of Cuenca Canton and Azuay Province ** Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cuenca Peru * Cuenca District, Huarochirí ...

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 Santa Maria Maggiore (), also known as the Basilica of Saint Mary Major or the Basilica of Saint Mary the Great, is one of the four major papal basilicas and one of the Seven Pilgrim Churches of Rome. The largest Marian church in Rome, it is ...

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 Aragon ( , ; Spanish and ; ) is an autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. In northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces of Spain, ...

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 (from Latin ''chorus'', meaning 'a dance in a circle') is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform or in other words ...

. 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 or Canticle of Mary, and in the Byzantine Rite as the Ode of the Theotokos (). Its Western name derives from the incipit of its Latin text. This ...

settings in 1567. Both are now lost. The only surviving score by Gálvez is a five-part

, ''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 chur ...

. 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 Abbate Giuseppe Baini (21 October 1775 – 21 May 1844) was an Italian priest, music critic, conductor, and composer of church music. He was born in Rome. He was instructed in composition by his uncle, Lorenzo Baini, and afterwards by G. Jannacon ...

, the director of the Sistine Chapel Choir from 1818 to 1844,

Palestrina Palestrina (ancient ''Praeneste''; , ''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 Prenestina. It is built upon ...

took the basic theme of his four-part

mass Mass is an Intrinsic and extrinsic properties, intrinsic property of a physical body, body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the physical quantity, quantity of matter in a body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physi ...

''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