Francesc Valls

Francesc Valls, also known as Francisco Valls, was a composer and music theorist born in Barcelona, probably around 1665, although some scholars propose a somewhat later date, around 1671, based on clues contained in his Missa regalis. He died in his native city on 3 February 1747. His figure belongs to the late Baroque in Spain, and his interest lies both in a very abundant output and in the theoretical debate it provoked.

His ecclesiastical career began in 1688, when he took charge of the music at the parish church of Mataró. That same year he became maestro di cappella at Girona Cathedral, and in early 1696 he took a similar post at the church of Santa María del Mar in Barcelona. When Joan Barter retired in December 1696, Valls was chosen to succeed him at Barcelona Cathedral: first as a substitute, then as interim, and finally, on 18 February 1709, as titular maestro. There are discrepancies about the date of his retirement: Martín Moreno places his departure around 1726, while León Tello postpones it until 1741.

Valls wrote a great many works, preserved in archives throughout Spain: masses, motets, psalms, villancicos, oratorios of which the texts survive, and numerous instrumental pieces, among them some seventy fugues and canons. Yet his contemporaries and posterity remember him above all for the controversy surrounding his Missa 'Scala aretina'. The point of contention was the entry of the second treble over an unprepared ninth in the 'miserere nobis' of the Gloria. In 1715 he was attacked by Gregorio Portero, maestro di cappella at Granada Cathedral, and the following year Joaquín Martínez de la Roca, organist of Palencia, joined in, arguing that music rests on established principles and general rules. Valls replied in defence of the freedom and honour of the musical art rather than of his own prestige. More than fifty Spanish musicians took part in the dispute in writing, and Alessandro Scarlatti himself, from Italy, even intervened. Other questions were also debated, such as whether the fourth should be considered a consonance, which Valls maintained, the use of B natural in the F scale, and the expression of the text.

His treatise Mapa armónico, composed around 1741-1742, was not published during the author's lifetime, but it circulated widely in Spain. It gathers abundant material on modal theory, harmony and counterpoint, basso continuo realisation, instruments, national styles, genres and performance, with numerous musical examples, many of them complete compositions. Today Valls is valued as one of the Spanish Baroque musicians whose theoretical and polemical work offers an exceptional window onto the musical practice of his time.