Vasquez (Vázquez), Juan

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Vasquez (Vázquez), Juan

Vasquez (Vázquez), Juan, eminent Spanish composer; b. Badajoz, c. 1510; d. probably in Seville, c. 1560. He was a singer at Badajoz Cathedral by 1530, becoming sochantre in 1535; became a singer at Palencia Cathedral in 1539. After serving as maestro de capilla at the provincial cathedral in Badajoz (1545-50), he went to Seville and entered the service of Don Antonio de Zuñiga, a nobleman, in 1551. He was greatly admired as a composer of secular music, but also distinguished himself as a composer of sacred works. Vihuela intabu-lations of several of his secular works were publ. by Valderrabano in 1547 and by Pisador in 1552.

Works

VOCAL SECULAR (26) Villancicos i cancionesfor 3 to 5 Voices (Osuna, 1551); Recopilación de (67) sonetos y villancicosfor 4 to 5 Voices (Seville, 1560; ed. in Monumentos de la Música Española, IV, 1946). Sacred: Agenda defunc-torumfor 4 Voices (Seville, 1556; ed. by S. Rubio, Madrid, 1975).

Bibliography

E. Russell, Villancicos and Other Secular Polyphonic Music of J. V: A Courtly Tradition in Spain’s Sigio del Oro (diss., Univ. of Southern Calif., 1970); F. Pedraja Munoz, ed., /. V, polifonista pacense del siglo XVI (Badajoz, 1974).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire