Juan Bautista José Cabanilles

Juan Bautista José Cabanilles was one of the great Spanish composers and organists of the seventeenth century. He was born in Algemesí, near Valencia, where he was baptised in September 1644, and he died in the city of Valencia in April 1712. His name appears in various forms in the sources, and for a time it was thought that a certain José Cabanillas was a different musician, a notion that is now considered unlikely.

His training is presumed to have begun as a choirboy, first in Algemesí and then at Valencia Cathedral. In May 1665 he was unanimously appointed second organist of the cathedral, although he was not yet a priest, a requirement the chapter demanded. He received the tonsure the following month and was ordained in September 1668. By April 1666 he already held the post of first organist, a position he kept until his death. Between 1675 and 1677 he was also responsible for the welfare and musical education of the choirboys. After 1703 his health declined, and he often needed a substitute. According to a now-lost manuscript by his pupil José Elías, he was invited to play in several French churches on the great feast days.

His music was highly prized by his contemporaries, as the wide circulation of his works in manuscript copies demonstrates. His output brings to a peak the Iberian organ tradition that runs from Cabezón to Aguilera de Heredia, Correa de Arauxo and Rodrigues Coelho. Living in the cosmopolitan city of Valencia allowed him to keep abreast of international currents, above all from southern Italy, and perhaps also from the Low Countries and Germany. Nevertheless, his style is distinctly Spanish: he extends the Renaissance aesthetic rather than adopting the Baroque idiom of other countries.

The greater part of his extensive output is for organ, and within it the tientos stand out, surpassing those of his predecessors in contrapuntal density and formal coherence. He cultivated with particular brilliance the tientos de falsas, which are brief and monothematic, with pronounced dissonances and unexpected harmonic progressions. His output also includes passacalles, paseos, gallardas and xácaras, variation forms over a continuo bass that probably had a liturgical rather than a dance function. In addition, eight sacred choral works survive, although they may represent only a part of the repertoire that once existed. Cabanilles is today regarded as the greatest master of the Spanish organ in the seventeenth century, and his work synthesises the Renaissance legacy with great richness of ideas.