Bermudo S Masters and Models of Excellen PDF

BERMUDO’S MASTERS AND MODELS OF EXCELLENCE FOR KEYBOARD...
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BERMUDO’S MASTERS AND MODELS OF

EXCELLENCE FOR KEYBOARD PLAYERS IN
SIXTEENTH-CENTURY SPAIN*
Bernadette Nelson
CESEM, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e
Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
/ Wolfson College, University of Oxford
Abstract: Bermudo’s Declaración, published in 1555, is one of the most important tes-
timonies to teaching methods for keyboard players in mid-sixteenth-century Spain. Besides
learning from the best teachers and players, Bermudo considered that becoming acquainted
with vocal polyphony was a sine qua non for instrumentalists. The rigour demanded of him
ensured that students would get to know large quantities of both national and imported poly-
phonic repertories by playing them on the keyboard. His explanation of a system of scoring-up
and intabulating this music («poner obras») provides considerable insight into this didactic
process. Emphasis throughout is on learning to play and understand the music of the great
Franco-Flemish masters such as Josquin, Gombert and others, besides that of Morales and
other Spanish composers. It is clear that Bermudo had access to a large number of collections
of masses and motets that included the early prints of Antico, Petrucci, later Italian collections,
and the mass books of Morales, a number of which are revealed in his work. His knowledge
of mensural music (canto de órgano) was also obtained from the profound study of copious
treatises, including the works of Gaffurius and Glarean. In addition, he gives the names of
famous keyboard players of the time whom he saw as «excellent» masters. This study con-
* I wish to thank Màrius Bernadó, David Burn, John Griffiths and Juan Ruiz Jiménez for
communications during the preparation of this essay, and the anonymous readers of this journal
for their comments and suggestions. Part of this study was first presented at the International
Stimu Symposium Siglos de Oro (Utrecht, August 2008).
Revista de Musicología, vol. XXXIX, no 1 (2016), pp. 77-115

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78 BERNADETTE NELSON
cludes with a survey of repertories in the two main surviving keyboard collections—Venegas
de Henestrosa’s Libro de cifra nueva (1557) and Cabezón’s Obras de música (1578), both
of which provide ample evidence of how vocal polyphony was intabulated and rearranged for
keyboard performance.
Keywords: Juan Bermudo, instrumental teaching, keyboard music, tablature,

intabulation, polyphony, music printing.
LOS MAESTROS Y MODELOS DE EXCELENCIA PARA TAÑEDORES DE TECLA

SEGÚN BERMUDO EN LA ESPAÑA DEL SIGLO XVI
Resumen: La Declaración de Bermudo, publicada en 1555, es uno de los testimonios

más importantes de los métodos de enseñanza para los tañedores de tecla en España
a mediados del siglo XVI. Aparte de aprender de los mejores maestros y tañedores,
Bermudo consideraba que estar familiarizado con la polifonía vocal era un requisito
sine qua non para los instrumentistas. El rigor exigido por él garantizaba que los
estudiantes adquirirían conocimiento de una gran cantidad de repertorio polifóni-
co, tanto nacional como importado, a través de su interpretación en el teclado. Su
explicación del sistema para disponer estas obras en formato de partitura o cifrado
(«poner obras») proporciona una mejor comprensión a este proceso didáctico. En su
obra, Bermudo enfatiza la necesidad de aprender a tañer la música de los grandes
maestros franco-flamencos como Josquin y Gombert, entre otros, además de la de
Morales y otros compositores españoles. Queda claro que Bermudo tenía acceso a un
buen número de colecciones de misas y motetes que incluían algunos de los primeros
libros impresos de Antico, Petrucci, colecciones italianas posteriores, y los libros de
misas de Morales, como se pone de manifiesto en su obra. Su conocimiento teórico
del canto de órgano dimana también de un profundo estudio de numerosos tratados
que incluyen las obras de Gaffurio y Glareano. Bermudo cita también a los tañedores
de la época a quienes consideraba como «excelentes» maestros. Esta investigación
concluye con un estudio de los repertorios incorporados en las dos colecciones de
música para tecla más importantes conservadas: el Libro de cifra nueva (1557) de Ve-
negas de Henestrosa y las Obras de música (1578) de Cabezón, que nos proporcionan
numerosas evidencias sobre el modo en que la polifonía vocal se adaptaba y cifraba
para su interpretación al teclado.
Palabras clave: Juan Bermudo, enseñanza instrumental, música para tecla, tabla-
tura, intabulación, polifonía, imprenta musical.

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BERMUDO’S MASTERS AND MODELS OF EXCELLENCE FOR KEYBOARD... 79
No pueden […] dezir los musicos practicos ser la theorica contraria a la practica:
pues que tan excelentemente muestra el padre fray Iuan Bermudo.
Cristóbal de Morales1
At the beginning of the first chapter of Book 4 of his Declaración directed

at keyboard players, Bermudo asserts somewhat dramatically: «None shall
be crowned […] but he who fights manfully» («No será coronado […]
sino el que varonilmente peleare»)2. By evoking this familiar statement
from St Paul’s letter to Timothy that salvation can only be obtained by
determined effort and by observing the rules3, Bermudo aims to impress
upon his readers the lesson that whoever fails to study continuously will
not achieve the ultimate aim of his books, which is to play well and with
confidence, the «crowning» of all achievements. Furthermore, he advocates
that students should learn only from good players for whose teaching they
should be prepared to pay twice as much, cautioning them against learn-
ing from those whom he calls philistine players («barbaros tañedores»)4.
Above all, he insists that a player should obtain a thorough grounding in
mensural music (canto de órgano) and to become acquainted with and play
repertories of good vocal—especially «foreign»—polyphony5. In short,
1
From Epistola del egregio musico Morales, dated 1550, prefacing Book 5 of Juan Bermudo’s
1555 Declaración. See Bermudo, Juan. Comiença el libro llamado Declaración de instrumentos mu-
sicales. Osuna, Juan de León, 1555, lib. 5, fol. 128v. This work is referred to henceforward as
Declaración. Bermudo’s treatise is available in a facsimile edition: Fray Juan Bermudo: Declara-
ción de instrumentos musicales, 1555. Macario Santiago Kastner (ed.). Documenta Musicologica
XI. Kassel-Basel, Bärenreiter, 1957. Unfortunately, this facsimile omits Bermudo’s introductory
prologues). It is also available online: <http://petrucci.mus.auth.gr/imglnks/usimg/9/92/
IMSLP122404-PMLP244417-bermudo_declaracion_1555>.
2
Declaración, lib. 4 (De tañer el organo), cap. 1, fol. 60r: «De algunos avisos para los tañedores».
3
Bermudo (ibid.) gives this maxim to «el buen aventurado Apostol», without specifying
his source (St Paul’s Letter to Timothy, 2:5). More literally, this phrase was adapted from the
famous passage in St Paul’s letter concerned with competing athletes: «An athlete is not crowned
unless he competes according to the rules» (translation: English Standard Version), which was
frequently evoked in texts at the time. For example, it is interesting that Bermudo’s transliteration
almost exactly mirrors that by his contemporary, the famous Dominican theologian, mystic and
writer, Luis de Granada, in his Guía de pecadores: De la doctrina de la virtud, lib. 2, cap. 10. The
teaching of St Paul had played an important part in Bermudo’s El libro primero de la declaración
de instrumentos (Osuna, Juan de León, 1549) —henceforward, Libro primero. Bermudo was also
apparently an excellent preacher, which also explains the moralising tone adopted in his writing.
4
«Tomad por consejo special de no aprender esto de bárbaros tañedores [...] Mas vale dar
doblados dineros a vn buen tañedor [...]». Declaración, lib. 4, cap. 1, fol. 60r.
5
Bermudo also refers to contrapunto, knowledge of which was also considered by some to
be necessary for acquiring good playing skills (ibid.).

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knowledge and understanding of vocal polyphonic music were vital for

becoming an accomplished instrumentalist.
The substance of Bermudo’s recommendations for keyboard players in
the 1555 Declaración was previously presented in his Arte tripharia (1550)6.
Although clearly a revision, the later treatise at the same time enlarged
on guidelines found in his earlier work. However, it is also sometimes a
matter of deciding whether additional information to be found in this later
book was the result merely of expansion or of newly acquired knowledge
and ideas7.
Bermudo’s treatises appeared at a time when international repertories
of vocal polyphony proliferated in the Iberian Peninsula and were sung
and played in leading chapels, cathedrals, by practitioners of the vihuela,
keyboard and other instruments8, and were forming the basis of several
printed tablatures9. The role of «foreign» masters of polyphony perhaps
as auctoritates in musical composition and how a profound study of their
music could inform instrumental performance, technique and composition,
comes across as an overriding concern in his work. He saw this music
as a vital complement to the contrapuntal teaching of leading theorists
6
«Comiença un arte breve y compendioso para saber poner en el monacordio». Arte tripharia,
caps. 25-40. This book was intended for the instruction of Doña Teresa Manrique, a young
novice and niece of the dedicatee of this book, Doña Isabel Pacheco, Abbess of the Convent of
Santa Clara in Montilla.
7
For a recent and thorough study of the writings of Juan Bermudo, see Otaola González,
Paloma. Tradición y modernidad en los escritos musicales de Juan Bermudo, del Libro primero (1549) a
la Declaración de instrumentos musicales (1555). Kassel, Reichenberger, 2000. See also Stevenson,
Robert. Juan Bermudo. The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1960; Freis, Wolfgang, with Blackburn,
Bonnie J. «Bermudo, Juan». Grove Music Online [accessed: 15-12-2015]; and Otaola González,
Paloma. «A los deseosos de saber el arte de la música práctica y especulativa: la figura del
autodidacta en el siglo XVI». Francisco de Salinas. Música, teoría y matemática en el Renacimiento.
Amaya García Pérez and Paloma Otaloa González (eds.). Salamanca, Ediciones Universidad de
Salamanca, 2014, pp. 173-187: 183-186.
8
While focusing on the dissemination and influence of Josquin’s music in the Iberian
Peninsula, Robert Stevenson in his important seminal article, «Josquin in the Music of Spain
and Portugal». Josquin dez Prez. Proceedings of the International Josquin Festival-Conference. Edward
Lowinsky and Bonnie J. Blackburn (eds.). London, Oxford University Press, 1976, pp. 217-246,
draws attention to the wide proliferation and use of Franco-Flemish polyphony generally from
the early decades of the sixteenth century onwards.
9
Printed vihuela tablatures preceding Bermudo’s Declaración, which included arrangements of
imported polyphonic repertories, were: Narváez, Luis. Los seys libros del Delphín. Valladolid, Diego
Fernández de Córdoba, 1538; Mudarra, Alonso. Tres libros de música. Seville, Juan de León, 1546;
Valderrábano, Enríquez de. Libro de música de vihuela intitulado Silva de sirenas. Valladolid, Diego
Fernández de Córdoba, 1547; Pisador, Diego. Libro de música de vihuela. Salamanca, Guillermo
de Millis, 1552; and Fuenllana Miguel de. Libro de música para vihuela intitulado Orphenica lyra.
Seville, Martín de Montesdoca, 1554.

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whose principles formed the basis of his own profound exposition on

mensural music and counterpoint in the third book of his Declaración10.
The aim of the following study is three-fold: first, to consider Bermudo’s
statements and cited authorities in musical composition and performance
in the Declaración in the context of polyphonic sources available to him;
and secondly, to consider his teaching methods and recommendations to
keyboard players for using these sources. A survey of surviving repertories
in the Spanish keyboard books that bear witness to the use and influence
of vocal polyphonic music concludes this study.
I. Models for Imitation: «buena música de excelentes varones»
In making it abundantly clear that the only way to become proficient in

keyboard playing, and indeed in playing the vihuela, is through studying
vocal polyphony, Bermudo is advocating a great degree of self-tuition11.
This is a route he clearly took himself and it was a sound recommenda-
tion by other tutors. For example, Tomás de Santa María (Arte de tañer
fantasía, 1565) similarly recommended studying music by selected, or
choice, composers («escogidos autores») in order to enrich and improve
oneself daily in training to become a good keyboard player12. Luis Venegas
de Henestrosa in his Libro de cifra nueva (1557), the first known keyboard
tablature to be printed in Spain, compared training in music to training
in letters, advocating wide reading and therefore assimilation («para ser
uno letrado, es necessário que vea mucho, assí en la música»)13. Accord-
10
See Declaración, lib. 3, fol. 49v («Para el lector»). Bermudo’s chapters forming his third
book concerning «el arte de canto de órgano» were previously published in the Libro primero,
caps. 37-44. Both the Libro primero and the Arte tripharia are available online at TREMIR <http://
www.ums3323.paris-sorbonne.fr/TREMIR/TReMiR_Bermudo/aa_index.htm>.
11
For this aspect of Bermudo’s vihuela teaching, see Griffiths, John. «Juan Bermudo, Self-
Instruction and the Amateur Instrumentalist». Music Education in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Susan
Forscher Weiss, Russell E. Murray and Cynthia J. Cyrus (eds.). Bloomington-Indianapolis, Indiana
University Press, 2010, pp. 126-140; and Griffiths, John. Tañer vihuela según Juan Bermudo. Polifonía
vocal y tablaturas instrumentales. Zaragoza, Institución Fernando el Católico-CSIC, 2003, pp. vii-xi.
12
Santa María, Tomás de. Libro llamado Arte de tañer. Valladolid, Francisco Fernández, 1565,
cap. 5, fol. 7r (facsimile edition edited by Denis Stevens. London, 1972). See also Ester Sala,
María A. La ornamentación en la música de tecla ibérica del siglo XVI. Madrid, Sociedad Española
de Musicología, 1980, p. 41.
13
Venegas de Henestrosa, Luis. «Prologo». Libro de cifra nueva para tecla, harpa y vihuela.
Alcalá de Henares, Juan Bocar, 1557, fol. 3r. This is quoted in full in Anglés, Higinio. La música
en la Corte de Carlos V. Monumentos de la Música Española, 2. Barcelona, Consejo Superior de
Investigaciones Científicas, 1944; R/1965, p. 150.

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ing to Bermudo, the processes of studying and appreciating the qualities

of vocal polyphonic music and learning to play properly were in effect
inextricable. It was also a way in which a student could learn to compose
well for his or her instrument14.
In his 1549 Libro primero, Bermudo calls attention to what he describes
as «foreign music», stating that in order for a player to enjoy it properly,
he must both understand (and be proficient at) his instrument and learn
how to intabulate. The composers he famously highlights here are «the
excellent Morales and the profound Gombert»:
No puede el tañedor gozar de la Musica estrangera, que ahora viene del ex-
celente Christoual de Morales, y del profundo Gomberto, y de otros estrangeros,
y de algunos naturales que en nuestros tiempos han certado: sino sabe entender
los instrumentos, y cifrar para ellos15.
He immediately goes on to explain that he considered Morales to

be a «foreigner» because, whilst it had the «gracious» and «sonorous»
qualities of Spanish music, his music did not lack the «profundity, ease
and artifice» characteristic of music by other «foreign» composers16. This
sentence was omitted (or revised) in 1555 to be replaced by his notable
but simultaneously intriguing selection of composers whose vocal music
the budding keyboard player should begin by studying in order to de-
velop his musicianship and technical abilities. This music was first some
of the villancicos of Juan Vásquez (although, as Bermudo explains, many
of these were simple owing to the nature of this compositional type)
and then music by the following named composers: Josquin, Willaert
(«Adriano»), Jacquet of Mantua, the «master» (Bernardino de) Figueroa,
Morales, Gombert, and others:
14
More considered reasons for learning from texted vocal polyphony, with special consideration
of the music of a Balthasar Telles, are given in the section to beginners on the vihuela, where he
describes how the player will learn to appreciate the qualities and poise of individual lines of
this music, about well-placed dissonances, and about how the music is restrained and contained
within an appropriate ambitus. At this point, he immediately goes on to praise the qualities
of Morales’s vocal music. See Declaración, lib. 4, cap. 71, fol. 99v. (See also below, n. 17). It falls
outside the scope of this essay to discuss Bermudo’s recommendations for vihuela players in
detail. Further on this, see Griffiths, J. «Juan Bermudo, Self-Instruction…».
15
Libro primero, Prologo II, fol. 10v. This expands on his recommendation in ibid., Prologo I,
fols. 5v-6r, where he also states that he had seen tablatures that recorded bad music: «Algunas
de las cifras que yo he visto no merecen el nombre de musica» (ibid., fol. 6r).
16
«Conte a nuestro Morales entre los estrangeros: porque si su Musica tiene la graciosidad,
y sonoridad de España: no le falta la profundidad, facilidad, y artificio de los estrangeros». Ibid.,
fol. 10v. Stevenson posits that Bermudo had not met Morales personally at that stage, which
would seem surprising. See Stevenson, R. Juan Bermudo…, p. 14.

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La Musica que aueys de poner: sea primero vnos villancicos del acertado
musico Iuan vasques, que aunque son faciles por ser en genero de villancicos: no
carecen de Musica para hazer fundamento. Despues poned musica de Iosquin, de
Adriano, de Iachet mantuano, del maestro Figueroa, de Morales, de Gomberth, y
de algunos otros semejantes17.
When the 1555 Declaración was published, this small group of Span-
ish and «foreign» composers would perhaps not have been a surprising
choice for those acquainted with many of the vihuela tablatures printed
between 1538 and 1552, and possibly also Fuenllana’s Orphénica lyra (1554)
whose book, along with Valderrábano’s Silva de sirenas (1547), Bermudo
recommends to vihuelists further on in the treatise18. These books amply
demonstrate how copious examples of imported vocal polyphony were
copied and arranged for performance. Many of the composers listed here
by Bermudo are in fact included in Fuenllana’s vihuela tablature19.
In the next main section of the Declaración (Book 5) Bermudo writes
that for his own part his «teacher» of composition had been the works of
three of these composers: Willaert («Adriano» again), Morales and Gom-
bert: «Para componer canto de organo tuve yo por maestro las obras de
Adriano, de Christoval de Morales, y de Gomberth». He does not mention
Josquin at this point, which is surprising20. In the same light, Bermudo
recommends theorists whose works include examples of contrapuntal
music (polyphony). It is clear that Bermudo had access to copious musical
17
Declaración, lib. 4, cap. 1, fol. 60r. As distinct from the previous recommendation in Libro
Primero, Bermudo no longer classifies Morales’s as «foreign», and on fol. 84v he famously describes
Morales as «luz de España en la musica». Comparable recommendations are made by Bermudo
to beginners of the vihuela, though with considerable emphasis at first on easy two and three-
part villancicos, progressing to those by Juan Vásquez and Baltasar Téllez (Balthasar Telles) and
then to the masses of Morales and «musica estrangera»—especially the works of Josquin and
finally «the excellent» Gombert whose music students should only use at a later stage because
of its complexity (Declaración, lib. 4, cap. 71, fol. 99v). Scarcely known today, Telles is recorded
as professor of music at Coimbra University, 1549-53. See Vasconcellos, Joaquim. Os múzicos
portuguezes. Oporto, Imprenta Portugueza, 1860-76, vol. II, p. 199; and Braga, Theophilo. Historia
da universidade de Coimbra nas suas relações com a instrucção publica portugueza. Lisbon, Academia
Real das Sciencias, 1898-1902, vol. II, p. 826.
18
Declaración, lib. 4, cap. 73, fol. 101r. Fuenllana’s book was published one year before the
Declaración.
19
Only one motet by Willaert is included in Fuenllana’s tablature, however, but there is
a large number in Valderrábano’s. Similarly, there is only one motet by Willaert in Mudarra’s
Tres libros de musica (1546).
20
Declaración, lib. 5, cap. 9, fol. 124v. While the names of Gombert, Figueroa and Morales
also feature in both the 1549 and 1550 books, Josquin and his music is referred to only in the
1549 Libro primero.

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material in the form of manuscript and printed music books and trea-
tises—including among the latter the works of Gaffurius and Glarean’s
more contemporary Dodecachordon (1547). He would therefore have had
contact with a substantial amount of «old» and «new» music21.
What was the context for this particular choice of composers? There
is evidently more than one way in which to contextualise Bermudo’s
recommendations here. Looking at it from an overall perspective, and in
view of the numbers of prints—including the vihuela books—available
at the time that featured the music of several «foreign» composers, this
list seems very selective. For example, considering that his music is well
represented in the tablatures as a whole, the name of Verdelot is surpris-
ingly omitted, besides those of Richafort and Mouton and other renowned
northern composers (although it is true that music by the latter two is
encountered more rarely)22. Bermudo also omits the names of two com-
posers whose chansons were especially favoured by the royal keyboard
player Antonio de Cabezón, Clemens non Papa and Crecquillon. Music
by these two composers is prominent in both the Libro de cifra nueva and
Cabezón’s posthumous Obras de música (1578) as well as in other Iberian
sources of around the mid-sixteenth century23. Furthermore, Cabezón was
one of Bermudo’s revered keyboard masters (see below).
Part of the reason for this selected choice of composers may lie pre-
cisely in the two principal types of sources of music available in Spain at
the time: the vocal polyphonic sources (predominantly imported printed
partbooks from Italy, but also including the earliest printed choirbooks,
21
Continuing his statement about his «master» for polyphonic composition, he also
recommends the treatises of Gaffurius, Abbot Berno de Reichenau and Tinctoris: «Con tener
obras buenas de canto de organo que seguir: trabajad de auer la practica de Franchino, la de
Berno abad, y la de Ioannes tinctor». Declaración, lib. 5, cap. 9, fol. 124v. Bermudo tells the
reader that his explanations are necessary in order to understand difficult concepts found in
old and new foreign books on counterpoint: «[…] para entender muchas difficultades que ay
en libros viejos de canto de organo, y aun en algunos nuevos extrangeros que han venido y
vernan». Declaración, lib. 3, fol. 49r, «Para el lector». Also among Bermudo’s favoured theorists
was Andrea Ornithoparcus.
22
He alludes in another context to «great Italian» composers. These might have included
the northern composers working in Italy. See Declaración, lib. 3, cap. 33, fol. 50r (also in Libro
primero, cap. 39, fol. 112r).
23
The popularity of the music of Clemens and Crecquillon for keyboard players is explored
in Nelson, Bernadette. «The Chansons of Thomas Crecquillon and Clemens non Papa in Sources
of Instrumental Music in the Iberian Peninsula, and Sixteenth-Century Keyboard Traditions».
Beyond Contemporary Fame. Reassessing the Art of Clemens non Papa and Thomas Crecquillon. Eric
Jas (ed.). Turnhout, Brepols, 2005, pp. 167-189.

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besides manuscripts), and the printed vihuela tablatures, with the latter
clearly depending on the former.
In considering these sources, it is striking that Bermudo’s listed compos-
ers echo those that recur on the title pages and in the main body of many
of the printed polyphonic books. Even the spelling and appearance of
these names are often similar. For example, in the new series of partbooks
(madrigals, masses, motets) issued by the Scotto and Gardano presses
in Venice in the late 1530s and early 1540s, all four named composers of
the generation succeeding Josquin—Morales, Willaert, Jacquet of Man-
tua and Gombert—are extremely prominent, with their work appearing
in single-composer editions of motets—especially the series issued by
Girolamo Scotto in 1539—and in printed anthologies featuring music by
two or more of these composers. Among the latter, the names of Morales,
Jacquet and Gombert may also appear on the title pages together or in
pairs, and all three composers are often described as «excellent musi-
cians»—excellentissimi musici24.
Two such examples are the sets of partbooks of masses published by
Girolamo Scotto in 1540: Excellentissimi musici Moralis hispani, Gomberti ac
Jacheti cum quatuor vocibus missae […] Liber primus, and the Quinque Missae
Moralis hispani, ac Jacheti musici eccellentissimi […] liber primus, cum quinque
vocibus…25. A further example is the book of five-part motets by Gombert,
Pentaphthongos harmonia that also names Jacquet and Morales on its title
page26. In addition, the spelling of Gombert’s name in Bermudo’s list—
«Gomberth»—reflects that on solo publications of his music, such as the
books of motets published by Scotto and Gardano from 1539 onwards27.
The familiar reference to Willaert by his first name «Adriano» is likewise
almost certainly to have been inspired by these sources. In many of the
earliest prints of madrigals issued in by Scotto and Gardano in 1536 and
24
The expression «excellentissimi musici» was used in Giunta’s Fior de motetti e Canzoni for
example (RISM [c. 1526]5) and «excellentissimos musicos» appears on the title page of Antico’s
Liber quindecim missarum (RISM 15161). It was also used more widely, including in 1555 by Du
Bosc & Guéroult (Geneva)—«excellens musiciens»—and Le Roy & Ballard (Paris). Bermudo uses
the qualification «excellent» in several contexts, a term frequently used of persons, including
writers, in Renaissance eulogies or titles of works. He is not necessarily specific about his musical
sources, whereas he does usually acknowledge his theoretical sources.
25
RISM 15403 and 15404.
26
Pentaphthongos harmonia, que quinque vocum motetta vulgo nominantur, additis nunc eiusdem
quoque ipsius Gomberti, necnon Jachetti & Morales motettis […] liber primus. Venice, G. Scotto, 1541
(=RISM G2982).
27
For details, see Bernstein, Jane. Music Printing in Renaissance Venice: The Scotto Press (1539-
1572). Oxford-New York, Oxford University Press, 1998, especially pp. 228-232 and 262-270.

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1537, for instance, he is simply called «Adriano». These include Il secondo

libro de madrigali di Verdelot insieme con alcuni altri bellisimi madrigali di
Adriano et di Constantio Festa (Venice, Scotto, 1536)28. (He is also called
«Adriano» in Valderrábano’s vihuela book). However, by the early 1540s
he was often given his full name in printed sources, but in a variety of
spellings. On the other hand, Jacquet de Mantua usually appears as «Ja-
chet» (also «Jachetti» and «Jachetus») on title pages of partbooks printed
in the early 1540s; but by 1543 his name changed to «Jachetus galicus» and
from the 1550s to «Iachet da Mantoa»29. In this context, it is interesting
to find that music by the majority of these composers—Josquin, Morales,
Gombert, but to a lesser degree Willaert30 and Jacquet—are prominent in
the two publications for vihuela specifically recommended by Bermudo:
Valderrábano’s Silva de sirenas and Fuenllana’s Orphénica lyra31. In addi-
tion, the other extremely important composer in Valderrábano’s book
is Verdelot with as many as eleven pieces, whereas there are only four
in Fuenllana’s book. Both tablatures include arrangements of Verdelot’s
popular motet, Si bona suscepimus, which is also to be found in the Libro
de cifra nueva and Cabezón’s Obras (see also below).
As for the native Spanish composers that Bermudo names, the singular
emphasis on Juan Vásquez’s villancicos heading his list of recommenda-
tions is interesting. Although it is clear that Bermudo considered this
music appropriate for beginning practitioners of keyboard instruments
and the vihuela to learn to play, this emphasis could additionally have
been a marketing ploy given that Bermudo’s publisher, Juan de León,
had recently issued a book of Vásquez’s villancicos: Villancicos i canciones
(1551)32. As many as twelve works by Vásquez are included in Fuen-
llana’s vihuela tablature (Seville, 1554), which was likewise printed after
Vásquez’s book. (By contrast, there is just one piece by Vásquez in Valde-
rrábano’s earlier 1546 tablature). Whilst Fuenllana’s choice of composers
of vocal polyphony for intabulation and arrangement to a large degree
resonates with Bermudo’s recommendations for players, his book also
28
RISM 15367. Willaert’s music had a long publication history, beginning with Antico and
Petrucci.
29
For example, RISM 155417 and 15551.
30
Interestingly, Willaert’s name does not appear in Bermudo’s list of composers and music
recommended for vihuela players (Declaración, lib. 4, cap. 71, fol. 99v).
31
Declaración, lib. 4, cap. 73, fol. 101r.
32
Vásquez, Juan. Villancicos i canciones […] a tres y a quatro. Osuna, Juan de León, 1551.
However, Vásquez is not mentioned in either of Bermudo’s two earlier treatises.

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includes a number of other composers, including three other important

Spaniards—Mateo Flecha, Pedro and Francisco Guerrero.
The other Spanish musician on Bermudo’s list of recommended com-
posers, Bernardino de Figueroa, is less familiar today as very little of his
music has been recovered33. Figueroa was active in Granada as maestro
de capilla of the royal chapel by 1544 until sometime in the 1550s, having
previously been a singer there for some twenty years. By 1548 he was
also affiliated with the cathedral34. He was a composer of some distinc-
tion, and Bermudo revered him as a «master» and one who had «unique
skills» («unico en abilidades»)35. Moreover, he clearly had an important
role to play in the preparation of Bermudo’s work: he examined and
wrote two Epistolas for the 1549 treatise, which was dedicated to John III
of Portugal, and, along with that of Cristóbal de Morales, his name ap-
pears on the title page of the 1555 Declaración as one who had examined
and approved that work («[…] examinado y aprouado por los egregios
musicos Bernardino de Figueroa y Christoual de morales»).
Bermudo’s polyphonic sources
Whatever the reasons for his choices of composers, Bermudo could have
had access to many different sources of vocal polyphony, in print and in
manuscript, in addition to keyboard and vihuela books, besides theoretical
treatises. By studying the Declaración as a whole, one may obtain additional
knowledge of some of the music sources owned or at least studied by Ber-
mudo. Besides Josquin, these included prints and manuscripts of music by
composers of an older generation, composers of the Franco-Flemish post-
Josquin school («composiciones estrangeros») and music by Morales and
33
The only known work by Figueroa is a four-voice setting of the responsory for the Office
of the Dead (Matins), Memento mei Deus, in E-MA 11, where it is attributed to «[el] Arçobispo
Bernardino».
34
Figueroa is particularly associated with his musical activities at Granada in the 1540s. In
1552, he was appointed Archbishop of Nazareth, residing in Barletta on the southern Adriatic coast
where he might have examined Bermudo’s Declaración—although, given the date of Morales’s letter
(1550) prefacing Book 5, it is possible that he was already thoroughly acquainted with the treatise.
In 1571 he went to Brindisi where he died. Robert Stevenson notes that the archives at Barletta
and Brindisi could warrant musicological attention (Stevenson, J. Juan Bermudo…, p. 24). Further
on Figueroa, see Ruiz Jiménez, Juan. «Patronazgo musical en la Capilla Real de Granada durante
el signo XVI. 1. Los músicos prebendados». Encomium musicae. Essays in Honor of Robert J. Snow.
David Crawford and G. Grayson Wagstaff (eds.). Hillsdale, Pendragon Press, 2002, pp. 350-356.
35
Declaración, lib. 4, cap. 43, fol. 84v.

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other contemporary Spanish composers. In addition to his recommended

composers for beginners to play and learn on the keyboard and vihuela,
his references to collections and to specific pieces of music sometimes oc-
cur in passing as an illustration of a point he is making while elucidating
such matters as proportion, notation and other aspects of mensural music
and composition (including correct part writing, canon and dissonance).
In some places he contrasts the characteristics of «musica antiqua» with
contemporary compositional practice. His reading of the treatises of Gaf-
furius, Glarean and others clearly influenced his writing in many of these
matters. Gaffurius, to whom he refers as «Franchino» throughout, was
clearly his favoured authority, and the Practica musicae informs a great deal
of his musical knowledge and discussion in his work36.
For example, he evidently owned (or had access to) copies of «old
masses» by «foreign» composers («missas antiguas estrangeras»)37, which
included a copy of Antico’s Liber quindecim missarum (Rome, 1516) and
«otras (missas) de Iusquin»38—in other words, the series of three part-
books of Josquin’s masses originally issued by Petrucci between 1502 and
151439. One of Josquin’s masses, Missa L’homme armé super voces musicales,
is specifically referred to by Bermudo as «missa super voces musicales»,
providing a translation of part of the title given to it in the first book of
masses printed in 150240. Apart from prints in the new series of partbooks
issued by Scotto and Gardano, some of the polyphonic books Bermudo
knew may also have numbered the series of motets and masses by a num-
ber of different composers issued by Petrucci in Venice and Fossombrone
in the early sixteenth century41.
36
For Bermudo’s theoretical sources, see Otaola González, P. Tradición y modernidad…,
pp. 41-63.
37
Declaración, lib. 3, cap. 37, fol. 52v. When he refers to «libros viejos de canto de organo»
at the beginning of Book 3 («Para el lector», fol. 49v), he means treatises on counterpoint here,
and not books of polyphony.
38
«Missas en el libro de las quinze, y otras de Iusquin» (Declaración, 1555, lib. 3, cap. fol.
53r). This exact reference also occurs in the Libro primero, cap. 41.
39
Petrucci’s three sets of Josquin’s masses printed in 1502, 1505 and 1514 (RISM J666, J670
and J673) were reissued by Pasoti and Dorico in 1526.
40
Declaración, fol. 5r, lib. 3, cap. 37, fol. 53v. Here Bermudo is explaining aspects of augmentation
and canon, illustrating especially the Credo in Josquin’s mass. While most copies of this mass in
Josquin’s first book of masses provide the title in full («Lomme arme. Sup voces musicales»), the
title with the music in the superius partbook in the 1502 edition is «Josquin sup voces musichales».
41
For a study of the reception of Petrucci’s music books in Spain see Knighton, Tess.
«Petrucci’s Books in Early Sixteenth-Century Spain». Venezia 1501: Petrucci e la stampa musicale.
Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi, Venezia, Palazzo Giustinian Lolin, 10-13 Ott. 2001. Giulio
Cattin and Patrizia Dalla Vecchia (eds.). Venice, Fondazione Ugo e Olga Levi, 2001, pp. 623-642.

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Judging by music contained in the vihuela books beginning with

Narváez’s Los seys libros del Delphín (1538), it is evident that these musi-
cians also had access to early mass prints. For example, of the relatively
few intabulations of Franco-Flemish polyphony in Alonso Mudarra’s tab-
lature Tres libros de música (Seville, 1546), which was also produced by
Bermudo’s publisher Juan de León, three of the masses (by Josquin and
Févin) feature in Antico’s 1516 Liber quindecim missarum, while the fourth
mass is found only in Josquin first book of masses42. (Mudarra became
a canon at Seville cathedral in 1546, shortly before the publication of his
tablature). Bermudo also owned a copy of Glarean’s Dodecachordon among
his many theory books, which of course contains numerous examples of
mensural music, notably from works by the older generation of «foreign»
composers, especially Josquin43. One of the most unexpected or unusual
references in the 1555 Declaración is to an «Alleluya de los Apostoles» by
Heinrich Isaac. This comes in the general context of a discussion based
on Gaffurius (referring there also to the latter’s teacher Bonadies) con-
cerning coloration44.
The only published collections of Morales’s music to which Bermudo
specifically alludes are the two Missarum Liber books first issued in
Rome in 154445, which he refers to as «his sixteen masses» («sus diez y
seys missas»). While he states that Morales was one of his «teachers»
for composition, he also recommends sections from this set of masses as
suitable for intabulation for the vihuela. In one instance, for example, he
highlights «works for six-voices in the last two masses in the first book»,
meaning sections from Missa Mille regretz and Missa Si bona suscepimus46.
The other mass he singles out is Morales’s Missa de beata virgine in the
context of his section on mensural music (Book 3)47. The knowledge
42
Mudarra’s intabulations from masses in the Liber quindecim missarum are Josquin’s Missa
Fayson regretz and Missa de beata virgine, and Févin’s Missa Ave Maria. The third Josquin mass in
Mudarra’s collection, from Petrucci’s first book of masses, is Missa La sol fa mi re.
43
References to Glarean’s treatise occur in various parts of the Declaración, passim.
44
It is difficult to equate the description Bermudo provides with any of the Alleluias for
feasts of the Apostles included in Isaac’s Choralis Constantinus (published in 1550-55, although
composed by 1509). This reference is also in his Libro primero (cap. 42, fol. 123r). His reference
to Bonadies was inspired by his reading of Gaffurius.
45
Missarum liber primus and Missarum liber secundus. Rome, Dorico, 1544 (= RISM M3580
and M3582). This series of sixteen masses was republished in Lyon by Moderne in 1545 (RISM
15456 / M3581) and 1551 (RISM 15512 / M3583).
46
He refers obliquely to these masses on fol. 98r of the Declaración (lib. 4, cap. 69).
47
He refers to the «Osanna» of his five-voice Missa de beata virgine with respect to its
sesquialtera notation. Declaración, lib. 3, cap. 42, fol. 55v.

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shown by Bermudo of some of Morales’s unpublished music indicates

that he must also have had access to this music in manuscript form,
dating possibly from the composer’s post-Roman years in Spain48. This
includes the four-voice Requiem commissioned by the fourth count of
Ureña, Juan Téllez Girón, which Morales showed to Bermudo personally,
and some of his polyphonic hymns. Bermudo refers to a section in the
Requiem in the context of describing a particular point of contrapuntal
procedure49, and singles out two of the hymn settings for their skilful
canonic writing50.
Given their close friendship, it is almost inevitable that Morales would
also have indicated a number of the prints published in Venice to Ber-
mudo, especially those in which his own music was printed and where,
as described, it was often combined with works by Gombert and Jac-
quet51. Bermudo’s knowledge of the works of the other «foreign» (more
contemporary) composers might have been more random even though he
regarded them as representative of «excellence» in composition; there are
no direct references to individual works by any other composers in his
work. Nevertheless, it is clear through his writings that Bermudo knew
a large repertory of music by Morales, Figueroa, Josquin and Gombert,
intimately52. See Table 1 for a summary of music and music sources refe-
renced in Bermudo’s Declaración.
48
Morales returned to Spain after 1545. He was appointed chapelmaster first at Toledo
Cathedral in 1547, then to the Duke of Arcos at Marchena. In 1551 he became chapelmaster at
Málaga Cathedral, where he later died.
49
Declaración, lib. 5, cap. 32, fol. «139» bis (= fol. 140r).
50
Here he is referring to verses in his settings of Jam Christus astra and Sacris solemniis.
Ibid., cap. 31, fol. 137v. Further on these hymns see Códice 25 de la Catedral de Toledo: Polifonía de
Morales, Guerrero, Ambiela, Boluda, Josquin, Lobo, Tejeda. Michael Noone (ed.). Madrid, Fundación
Caja Madrid, 2003, pp. 92 and 99. As evinced by Fuenllana’s tablature and the Falla codex,
some of Morales’s unpublished music circulated fairly widely in Andalusia. For an inventory
of the Falla codex, see Christoforidis, Michael; and Ruiz Jiménez, Juan. «Manuscrito 975 de la
Biblioteca de Manuel de Falla: una nueva fuente polifónica del siglo XVI». Revista de Musicología,
17, 1-2 (1994), pp. 205-236, and Ruiz Jiménez, Juan. «The Mid-Sixteenth-Century Franco-Flemish
Chanson in Spain: The Evidence of Ms. 975 of the Manuel de Falla Library». Tijdschrift van de
Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 51, 1 (2001), pp. 25-41.
51
For a discussion about the dissemination and acquisition of printed editions of Morales’s
music in the Iberian Peninsula from c. 1544 onwards, see Knighton, Tess. «Morales in Print».
Cristóbal de Morales. Sources, Influences, Reception. Owen Rees and Bernadette Nelson (eds.).
Woodbridge, Boydell and Brewer, 2007, pp. 161-175.
52
Besides Josquin and Morales, Bermudo shows knowledge of characteristics of Gombert’s
music in both the Declaración and his two earlier treatises (see Table 1).

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Table 1. References to composers, polyphonic music and sources in Bermudo’s Declaración.
Composers/ music Descriptions Reference Context Interpretation

A. VOCAL POLYPHONY

Franco-Flemish «missas antiguas Decl., Lib. 3, cap. 37, fol. Mensural mu- Early mass prints issued by Antico and
(masses) estrangeras» 52v sic (augmenta- Petrucci
Josquin & others «missas de el libro de las Decl., Lib. 3, cap. 37, fol. 53 tion) Liber Quindecim missarum (Rome, Andrea
(masses) quinze, y otras missas de Antico, 1516: RISM 15161)
Josquin (masses) Iosquin» Josquin: Missarum I-III (Venice/ Fossom-
brone, Ottaviano Petrucci, 1502-1514: RISM
(ref. from 1549 Libro J666, J670, J673)
primero, cap. 41, fol. 120v) (Rome, Giunta, Pasoti & Dorico, repr. 1526:
RISM J669, J671, J675)
«Iusquin en la missa Decl., Lib. 3, cap. 37, fol. Josquin: Missa L’homme armé super voces
super voces musicales» 53r musicales
(Misse Josquin (1502) / Liber primus missarum)
Isaac (mass Proper) «Henrrico ysaac en vn Decl., Lib. 3, cap. 39, fol. Mensural mu- Heinrich Isaac: Alleluia (mass Proper) for
alleluya de los Apostoles 54r sic (color) feast of the Apostles [possibly taken from a
[…]» theoretical work]
Josquin «musica de Iosquin, Decl., Lib. 4, cap. 43, fol. Learning to a) Printed (part) books of motets and masses
Willaert de Adriano, de Iachet 60r play the key- by Willaert, Jacquet of Mantua, Morales,
Jacquet of Mantua mantuano, del maestro board and Gombert & others issued in Venice by the
Bernardino de Figueroa, de Morales, de intabulate Scotto and Gardano presses, c. 1530s-1550s
Figueroa Gomberth, y de algunos (e.g. RISM 15367, 15403, 15404, 15429, etc.).
Morales otros semejantes» Gombert: e.g. RISM G2977 & G2981 (1539);
Gombert & others «Viene vn Christoual de Decl., Lib. 4, cap. 43, fol. G2973 (1540); G2978, G2979, & G2982 (1541);
(unspecified reper- Morales, que es luz de 84v Jacquet: e.g. RISM J6 & J9 (1539); J8 (1540);
tory) España en la Musica, y vn Willaert: e.g. RISM W1106 & W1108 (1539)
Bernardino de Figueroa, & others
que es vnico en abilidades
[…]» b) MSS (Figueroa, Morales)
Willaert «Para componer canto Decl., Lib. 5, cap. 9, fol. Polyphonic Printed (part) books of motets and masses
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Morales de organo tuue yo por 124v composition by Willaert, Morales and Gombert (as above)
Gombert maestro las obras de
(unspecified repertory) Adriano, de Christoual de
91
Morales, y de Gomberth»
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92
Josquin «Entre la musica es- Decl., lib. 4, cap. 71, fol. Learning to Printed (part) books of motets and masses
Gombert trangera que hallareys 99v intabulate for by Josquin and Gombert (as above)
(unspecified reper- buena para poner: no the vihuela
tory) oluideys la de el gran mu-
sico Iusquin que començo
la musica. Lo vltimo que
aueys de poner sea Musica
del excelente Gomberth.
Por la difficultad que tiene
para poner en la vihuela,
por ser derramada: la
pongo en el vltimo lugar»
Gombert «En obras de Gomberth Decl., lib. 5, cap. 32, fol. Polyphonic Printed (part) books of motets and masses
BERNADETTE NELSON
(unspecified reper- hallareys fa contra mi «139» bis (= fol. 140r) composition by Gombert (as above)
tory) muchas vezes […]»i (dissonance: fa
contra mi)
Morales (masses) «En las missas del egregio Decl., lib. 3, cap. 42, fol. Mensural mu- Morales: Missarum liber I & II
musico Christoual de 55r sic (proportion) (Rome, Valerio Dorico, 1544: RISM M3580
Morales […]» (ref. from 1549 Libro pri- & M3581; or Lyon, Jacques Moderne, 1545/
mero, cap. 45, fol. 126v) 1551: RISM M3581/ M3583)
«en el Osanna de beata Decl., lib. 3, cap. 42, fol. Morales: Missa de beata virgine [a5] (Missarum
virgine, y en los demas que 55v liber I)
en sus diez y seis missas (ref. from 1549 Libro pri-
puso […]» mero, cap. 45, fol. 127r)
«cifrassen algunas obras Decl., lib. 4, cap. 69, fol. Learning to Morales: two masses a6 [Missa Mille regretz
a seys bozes de las dos 98r intabulate for & Missa Si bona suscepimus]
missas vltimas del libro the vihuela (Missarum liber I)
primero del doctissimo
Christoual de Morales»
«En las missas del egregio Decl., lib. 4, cap. 71, fol. Morales: Missarum liber I & II
musico Christoual de 99v
Morales hallareys mucha
Musica que poner: con
tantas, y tan buenas quali-
dades […]»
Morales (Requiem) «el excelente musico Decl., lib. 5, cap. 32, fol. Polyphonic Morales: Requiem a4 (MS)
Christoual de morales en «139» bis (= fol. 140r) composition

vna missa de Requiem (dissonance: fa
que hizo para el señor contra mi)
Conde de Vrueña en el
verso del introyto que
dize Te decet […]»
Morales (hymns) «Christoual de morales Decl., lib. 5, cap. 31, fol. Polyphonic Morales hymns: [Jam Christus astra] & Sacris
hizo dos primores en vn 137v composition solemniis (MS)
hymno del spiritu sancto (canon)
[…] En vn verso de Sacris
solemnijs puso dos cantos
llanos…»
Juan Vásquez (vil- «vnos villancicos del Decl., lib. 4, cap. 43, fol. Learning to Juan Vásquez: Villancicos i canciones (Osuna,
lancicos) acertado musico Iuan 60r play the key- Juan de León, 1551)
vasques» board and
intabulate
Vásquez «busque los villancicos Decl., lib. 4, cap. 71, fol. Learning to Juan Vásquez: Villancicos i canciones (1551)
Balthasar Telles de Iuan Vazquez que son 99v intabulate for &
(villancicos & other de Musica acertada, y las (ref. to Telles’s music also the vihuela Balthasar Telles (MS)
vocal polyphony) obras de vn curioso mu- in 1550 Arte tripharia, cap.
sico que se llama Baltasar 32, fol. 29v)
Tellez»
B. VIHUELA BOOKS
Enríquez de Valde- «El que quisiere començar Decl., lib. 4, cap. 73, fol. Learning to Valderrábano: Silva de sirenas (Valladolid,
rrábano a cifrar […] vea los libros 101r intabulate for Francisco Fernandez de Cordova 1547)
Miguel de Fuenllana de los señalados musicos the vihuela Fuenllana: Orphénica lyra (Seville, Martín de
Anriquez de valderraua- Montesdoca, 1554)
no, y de Miguel de fuen-
llana»
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i
Bermudo refers to other specifics of Gombert’s polyphonic music in his two earlier treatises: the large numbers of notes characterising
the voice lines and phrases (Libro primero, cap. 49, fol. 139r), bringing to mind Finck’s famous description of Gombert avoiding rests in his
93
music («Is enim vitat pausas»), and the use of mixed modes (Arte tripharia, cap. 36, fol. 33r).
Surviving inventories of music books of important ecclesiastical institu-

tions, cathedrals, and private chapels of prominent individuals, looking
at a period up to the mid-1550s, provide us with sufficient evidence to
affirm that printed choirbooks and partbooks notably from Italy (Venice
in particular, but also Rome and northern Europe) were widely circulated
in Spain by the second quarter of the sixteenth century. As witnessed by
these inventories, it is likely that Antico’s printed choirbook of 1516, the
Liber quindecim missarum, was popularly acquired. This was certainly the
case at Granada Cathedral by the 1530s, local of course to Figueroa, and
also at Zaragoza and Calahorra Cathedrals to the north of Spain and
elsewhere. The latter cathedral would appear also to have had copies of
the three prints of Josquin’s masses53. By 1546, Zaragoza Cathedral also
had some of the prints of masses and motets referenced by implication in
the Declaración that highlight the names of Willaert, Gombert and Jacquet
on the title pages, besides Morales54. These sets of inventories also witness
the acquisition of Gardano’s famous Motteti del frutto (Venice, 1538-39)
in Calahorra Cathedral, for example, apart from a run of the Lyonese
printer Moderne’s Motetti del fiore (1532-42) containing music by many of
these masters. In addition, cathedrals in Spain acquired the two books of
Morales’s masses quite soon after they were first published in 154455. An
even greater percentage of the earlier prints were once represented in the
famous Sevillian library of Ferdinand Columbus before 153956.
II. Keyboard masters and Bermudo’s teaching methods
When the Declaración was being prepared, no other books of key-

board music or keyboard tutors had been printed in Spain apart from
Bermudo’s earlier work. However, it is surprising that Bermudo shows
no knowledge at all of Gonçalo de Baena’s keyboard tablature, the Arte
nouamente pera aprender a tanger, published in Lisbon in 1540, which, like
53
For these inventories, see Ros-Fábregas, Emilio. «Libros de música en bibliotecas españolas del
siglo XVI». Pliegos de Bibliofilia, 15-17 (2001-2002), vol. 16, p. 37, 38-40 (Granada Cathedral, 1531 and
1535); and pp. 43-44 (Zaragoza Cathedral, 1546); and vol. 17, pp. 19-20 (Calahorra Cathedral, 1556).
54
Ibid., vol. 16, p. 44.
55
See Knighton, T. «Morales in Print…», pp. 164-166, (Toledo, Cuenca and Ávila cathedrals,
1545); Ros-Fábregas, E. «Libros de música», vol. 16, p. 43 (Zaragoza Cathedral, 1546); vol. 17,
p. 20 (Calahorra Cathedral, 1556)
56
See Chapman, Catherine Weeks. «Printed Collections of Polyphonic Music Owned by
Ferdinand Columbus». Journal of the American Musicological Society, 21, 1 (1968), pp. 34-84.

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Bermudo’s Libro primero of 1549, had been dedicated to the Portuguese

king, John III57. Nonetheless, it is clear that he was aware of the keyboard
skills of a number of players in various parts of Spain, varying types of
tablature notation and of existing keyboard practice, including in liturgical
contexts58. Bermudo says that he never took much notice of music actu-
ally composed at the keyboard because it was usually flawed (containing
«grandes faltas»)59, unless, of course, it was the work of proficient players.
It was only from such excellent men—«excelentes hombres»—that the
student was to take instruction60.
Immediately following the list of his selected masters of vocal poly-
phony at the opening chapter of Book 4 of the 1555 Declaración discussed
above, Bermudo names five «excellent» keyboard players and organists
known to him to whom the student should ideally aspire. In order, these
were first, two Andalusians, Don Juan (Doyz) and Pedro de Villada, or-
ganists at Málaga Cathedral and Seville Cathedral respectively, and then
Mosen Pedro de Vila in Barcelona and the two royal keyboard players
Francisco de Soto and Antonio de Cabezón, «and others». He carefully
says that he is not listing any player not personally known to him.
Excelentes tañedores llamo a don Iuan racionero en la yglesia de malaga, al

racionero Villada en la yglesia de Seuilla, a Mosen vila en Barcelona, a Soto y
Antonio de cabeçon tañedores de su magestad, y a otros semejantes que por no
cognoscer los en este no señalo61.
It is interesting that in his Epistola to Bermudo’s earlier Libro primero

(1549), Bernardino de Figueroa had recommended only one of these, Don
57
See Knighton, Tess. «A Newly Discovered Keyboard Source (Gonzalo de Baena’s Arte
nouamente inuentada pera aprender a tanger, Lisbon, 1540): A Preliminary Report». Plainsong and
Medieval Music, 5, 1 (1996), pp. 81-112, and Gonçalo de Baena. Arte para tanger (Lisboa 1540). Tess
Knighton (ed.). Lisbon, Colibri & CESEM, 2011.
58
See below. He had studied at the university in Alcalá de Henares, for instance, from
where he visited Toledo, and he shows knowledge of practices in the cathedral in Toledo. See
Declaración, lib. 5, cap. 16, fol. 128r.
59
In his 1555 Declaración Bermudo recalls a conversation he had had with Morales on this
issue when he complained that organists sometimes played forbidden contrapuntal progressions
such as parallel fifths and octaves. However this did not cause the same «pain» to the listener as
it would in vocal polyphonic performance (Declaración, lib. 5, cap. 16, fol. 128v). This was written
after Morales had died («Dixo me vna uez el egregio músico de buena memoria Christoual de
morales»).
60
«Musica de tañedores compuesta sobre el monachordio no la pongays (sino fuere de
excelentes hombres) porque tienen grandes faltas». Declaración, lib. 4, cap. 1, fol. 60r.
61
Declaración, lib 4, cap. 1, fols. 60r-60v.

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Juan, along with the famous poet and organist Gregorio Silvestre62. Then
at the outset of the section on the art of playing the monachordio (i.e. early
clavichord) in the 1550 Arte tripharia, Bermudo added two more names
to Figueroa’s list of recommended players: Cabezón and (Pedro de) Vi-
llada63. By the time of the 1555 Declaración, however, Silvestre’s name was
dropped in favour of Francisco de Soto and Pedro de Vila (see Table 2).
There is no accounting for this apparent anomaly. Portuguese by birth,
Silvestre was appointed organist at Granada Cathedral in 1541 at the age
of twenty-one where he would presumably have worked closely with
the chapelmaster, Bernardino de Figueroa64, and both he and Juan Doyz
helped Figueroa assess Bermudo’s 1549 book. Silvestre was clearly an ac-
complished musician and player. However, no music either by Silvestre,
Doyz or Villada has yet been recovered, but it is recorded that Silvestre
wrote a tablature65. Pedro de Vila, Soto and Cabezón, on the other hand,
are known today chiefly for their works included in the two main key-
board collections from sixteenth-century Spain, the Libro de cifra nueva and
62
«Y en lo que toca a los instrumentos lo vieron Gregorio Silvestre, y don Joan tañedores
sabios en tecla». Libro primero, fol. 12r (Epistola). He also refers to two fine Andalusian vihuela
players, Martín and Hernando de Jaén.
63
«La que al presente podeys poner: sea de Don Joan, de Gregorio silvestre musicos de
tecla en Granada, de Villanda racionero en la yglesia de Sevilla, de Antonio cabeçon, musico
de su magestad […]. Musica de otros tañedores y cantores avra buena para tañer, que por no
cognoscer los, o no aver visto su música, en este no señalo». Arte Tripharia, cap. 25, fol. 24r. Doyz
is mentioned as being from Granada here, not Málaga.
64
Silvestre (1520-1569) came to Spain with his father, physician to King John III of Portugal,
on the occasion of the marriage of the king’s daughter, Isabel, to Charles V in 1525/6. It is
possible that he had been became acquainted with the work of royal court musicians in Portugal
such as Gonzalo de Baena whose Arte nouamente inuentada (1540) remains a testament to the
art of intabulating «foreign» polyphony during the earlier decades of the sixteenth century
in Portugal. See Knighton, T. (ed.). Gonçalo de Baena.
65
See Nelson, Bernadette. «Music Treatises and Artes para tanger in Portugal Before the
18th Century: An Overview». Arte Tratadistica. Rafael Moreira and Ana Duarte Rodrigues
(eds.). Lisbon, Scribe, 2011, pp. 197-222: 209 and 221). For biographies of Villada and Silvestre,
see López-Calo, José. La música en la Catedral de Granada en el siglo XVI. 2 vols. Granada,
Fundación Rodríguez Acosta, 1963, vol. I, pp. 198-205. For Villada, see also Francisco Guerrero
(1528-1599): Opera omnia. Motetes I-XXII. José María Llorens Cisteró (ed.). Monumentos de
la Música Española 36, Barcelona, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1978, pp.
54-56. See also Marín Ocete, Antonio. Gregorio Silvestre: estudio biográfico y crítico. Granada,
Publicaciones de la Facultad de Letras, 1939. The only other Andalusian organist Bermudo
mentions in his work is Vela Núñez († before 1532), who was organist at the cathedral in
Granada prior to Diego de Torres and Pedro Villada, nominated in 1532 (Declaración, lib. 4,
cap. 52, fol. 89v, and López-Calo, ibid., p. 198).

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Cabezón’s Obras66. A Libro de tientos by Vila, probably also in tablature,

was once kept in John IV of Portugal’s music library in Lisbon67.
Table 2. Keyboard players recommended by Bermudo.
Bermudo’s treatises Names of recommended keyboard players

Libro primero, 1549 Juan Doyz; Gregorio Silvestre
Arte tripharia, 1550 Juan Doyz; Gregorio Silvestre; Pedro de Villada; Antonio de
Cabezón
Declaración, 1555 Juan Doyz; Pedro de Villada; Antonio de Cabezón; Pedro de Vila;
Francisco de Soto
For keyboardists especially, the main publications in Spain containing

varying degrees of teaching material were indeed Bermudo’s 1555 Decla-
ración (and his earlier work), Santa María’s Arte de tañer fantasía and the
two tablatures of Venegas and Cabezón. Certain similarities of instruction
to be found between these books is indicative that they were created at an
intense time in the compilation of practical musical instruction manuals
and experimentations in tablature notation, which is first evident from
the late 1530s onwards in the series of vihuela books headed by Milán’s
El maestro (1536) and Narváez’s Los seys libros del Delphín (1538)68. Similar
turns of phrase are even to be found between Santa María, Bermudo and
in the introductory matter of the Obras de música. One may also bear in
mind that Santa María began his book in the 1540s and Venegas’s book
was ready for publication at about the same time as when Bermudo’s
Declaración appeared. Moreover, Santa María’s book was «approved» by
the royal keyboard players Hernando and Antonio de Cabezón. There
were clearly a number of other tablatures in circulation, which might have
included Silvestre’s own tablature, besides Vila’s. It is further possible
that Silvestre was aware of experiments in tablature notation undertaken
in Lisbon by the royal court musician Gonçalo de Baena.
66
Only Cabezón’s music appears in the Obras. Some of the works of the Cabezóns, as well as
organ music from Bermudo’s Declaración, were copied into the two Portuguese score manuscripts
P-Cug MM 48 and MM 242. See Kastner, Macario Santiago. «Los manuscritos musicales nos
48 y 242 de la Biblioteca General de la Universidad de Coimbra». Anuario Musical, 5 (1950), pp.
375-408; and Rees, Owen. Polyphony in Portugal, c. 1530 – c. 1620: Sources from the Monastery of
Santa Cruz, Coimbra. New York-London, Garland, 1995, pp. 272-277 and 326-337. See also below.
67
See Ribeiro, Mário de Sampaio. Livraria de música de El-Rei D. João IV. Estudo Musical,
Histórico e Bibliográfico. 2 vols. Lisbon, Academia Portuguesa da História, 1967, vol. II (facsimile),
Caixão 16, nº 443, «Tentos de Orgão de petro Villa Doctor».
68
See above, nº 9.

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In addition to ideas about musical training and performing matters,

the authors of these instrumental sources emphasise the importance
of understanding the art of counterpoint through learning the rules,
and of examining repertories of vocal polyphonic music—the principal
tenet of Bermudo, and indeed of Fuenllana, who likewise advocated
playing and studying copious repertoires of vocal polyphony («poner
obras compuestas»)69 as part of the learning process. Knowledge of this
would provide players with a rich experience that would enable them to
play well, to compose with confidence, and to learn how to explore the
keyboard and play in more improvisatory styles. However, especially
where players were not singers, the process of learning to transcribe
vocal polyphonic works from choirbook or partbook presentation into
a more useful form of notation evidently became a preoccupation of
many musicians and theorists. Several methods of recording polyphonic
music into tablature were experimented with. Bermudo, Venegas de
Henestrosa, Santa María and Hernando de Cabezón all upheld that the
ideal way for becoming familiar with works of vocal polyphony was
to learn to sing them, and to learn the rudiments of counterpoint and
musical theory. At the beginning of his Declaración de la cifra, Hernando
de Cabezón wrote that it was a foregone conclusion that players who
came to the works notated in tablature in his book were already versed
in singing and in theoretical matters:
Para inteligencia y uso de la cifra deste libro se ha de presuponer que el que

quisiere poner las obras de él en tecla, harpa o vihuela, ha de saber cantar y tener
muy conocidos, y en la memoria los signos de la música…70.
As testified by some of the several more evolved glosado arrangements

and the fantasías and tientos in the various instrumental sources built on
or inspired by vocal models (see part III, below), straight intabulation of
a vocal work into cifras was but a preliminary stage in the full transfer-
69
Orphénica lyra, 1554, fol. 6v.
70
Antonio de Cabezón: Obras de música para tecla, arpa y vihuela… recopiladas y puestas en
cifra por Hernando de Cabezón su hijo. Madrid, Francisco Sánchez, 1578, fol. viii. See Antonio de
Cabezón: Obras de musica para tecla, arpa y vihuela. 3 vols. Higinio Anglés (ed.). Monumentos de
la Música Española, 27-29. Barcelona, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1966, vol.
I, p. 25. There is also a newer edition: Antonio de Cabezón (1510-1566). Obras de música para teca,
arpa y vihuela (Madrid, Francisco Sánchez, 1578). Javier Artigas Pina et al. (eds.). 4 vols. Zaragoza,
Institución Fernando el Católico-CSIC, 2010.

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ence of this genre to idiomatic keyboard performance71. Santa María’s

particular teaching lay in guiding the student towards being able to play
«de improviso», or «de fantasía»—skills that again could only satisfac-
torily be executed after a thorough assimilation of rules and expressions
of contrapuntal composition. He wrote that without such knowledge it
would be «impossible to be perfect in this art»72. It is well known that
the music of Josquin informed much of his discourse and teaching, and
he probably owned a fair number of printed books containing Josquin’s
music73. He also evidently studied other Franco-Flemish music, referring
in his book to motets by Verdelot, for example 74. As is evident in his
Declaración, Bermudo, however, strongly disapproved of the practice of
glossing vocal polyphony on the keyboard75.
Learning to play and transcribe vocal polyphony: «poner obras»
Probably the most informative source demonstrating ways in which

students might approach learning to play vocal polyphony on the key-
board is indeed Bermudo’s Declaración. In it, he describes three principal
methods in which a player might become adept at this skill. The first,
which was especially suitable for singers and for those who were well
versed in contrapuntal composition (having studied his teaching on this
in his book), and who understood the keyboard, was to place the book
of polyphony (presumably in choirbook format) on the console and play
directly from it at sight:
La primera es teniendo el libro de canto de organo delante. El que tañedor

quisiere ser, si es buen cantor, que sabe de composicion: con estudiar lo ya dicho
71
It falls outside the scope of this essay to discuss in detail the all-important art of «glossing»
in keyboard music and indeed on keyboard composition inspired by vocal polyphonic models.
For further literature on the subject see Ester Sala, M. La ornamentación…; Nelson, B. «The
Chansons of Thomas Crecquillon…», pp. 173-177. See also Table 3 below.
72
«Cosa cierta y averiguada es el canto de organo, ser tan importante y necessario para el
tañedor, assi para entender lo que tañe, como para poner obras y sacar provecho, que sin ello
es impossible ninguno en este arte ser perfecto…». Arte de tañer fantasía, cap. 5, fol. 7r. See also
Ester Sala, M. La ornamentación, pp. 31 and 38.
73
Santa María refers specifically only to Josquin’s two motets Ave Maria and Miserere mei
Deus a6 and his Missa Fa re mi re (Arte de tañer fantasía, lib. I, fol. 70v; and lib. II, fol. 6v).
74
Verdelot’s Si bona suscepimus and Gabriel archangelus (Arte de tañer fantasía, lib. I, fol. 70v).
75
Declaración, lib. 4, cap. 43, fol. 84v.

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en este libro, y entender el monachordio: puede poner en el obras, con solamente

tener delante el libro76.
It was of course a painstaking process, and in order to be able to read

all the voice parts at the same time no doubt required a high degree of
mental agility. However, Bermudo assures the reader that it was worth-
while and rewarding, and would ensure musical fluency:
Esta manera de poner es muy trabajosa, porque lleuan mucha cuenta mirando
todas las bozes: pero es gananciosa. Hazen con ella gran caudal de Musica77.
The second method, suitable for those who were not versed in com-
position or the first method (and who were beginners, or did not want to
work so hard), was to score-up the music into a partitura system: «virgu-
lar el canto de organo». The musical example given in the Declaración, a
setting of the four-part song Aunque me veys en tierra, also illustrates the
third method («poner por cifras») below, and shows how bar lines were
to be drawn through the various voice parts in descending order (tiple
to basis) at the semibreve78. The player could then play directly from this
score at the keyboard:
Si de composicion no sabe, y no esta exercitado en poner, sino que comiença,

o no quiere trabaxar tanto: ha primero de virgular el canto de organo […] y assi
repartido por sus compases, puesto delante sobre el monachordio, de manera que
no impida las cuerdas, lo puede poner79.
Both of these methods were apparently common at the time.

However, Bermudo’s third recommendation, which was a characteristic
of nearly all Iberian instrumental collections at the time, was to transfer
the polyphonic music to a system of tablature (cifras): «La tercera manera
es poner por cifras». Here Bermudo exemplifies a type of number tabla-
ture that is apparently unique to the Declaración80, but surprisingly does
not elaborate on the system adopted in both the Libro de cifra nueva and
76
Declaración, lib. 4, cap. 41, fol. 82v. It is perhaps curious that Bermudo’s own compositions
for organ at the back of the Declaración are notated in choirbook format.
77
Ibid. (cont.).
78
Bermudo uses the old Latin term basis, which is derived from the Greek; see Declaración,
lib. 4, fols. 83r-83v.
79
Ibid., fol. 82v.
80
Ibid., fol. 83r. For explanations of other systems of tablature in the Declaración, see ibid.,
fol. 62r and fols. 84r-84v.

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Cabezón’s Obras, which was presumably common by that time81. He saw

several practical advantages in this method, both for the proficient player
and for the less experienced student. First of all, it was useful when a
player wanted to play a motet «de improviso»—that is, sight-read without
previously having sung or studied the piece—because it was possible to
do so without making mistakes. Secondly, precisely because it took up
a quarter of the amount of space required, it was a paper-saving device,
which was clearly an important concern in those days when some publish-
ing ventures had to be postponed owing to paper shortages82. Finally, and
despite Hernando de Cabezón’s injunction cited above, it was considered
a convenient method for teaching beginners how to play the keyboard and
those who were not singers of polyphonic music. (There were also many
vihuela players, apparently, who did not understand solfa83). Venegas
de Henestrosa also made the very important point that familiarity with
different cifra systems of notation would enable the keyboard player to
play from the vihuela books, for example, and therefore acquire further
knowledge of polyphonic repertories84.
What of the evidence? The second method Bermudo recommends—
scoring-up the music into a partitura system—was certainly a popular
method of transcription by the mid sixteenth century, and both he and
Venegas de Henestrosa describe and exemplify this system in their books.
However, there is surprisingly little to show for this stage in the transfer-
ence of notational procedures in Iberian sources with the possible excep-
tion of two mid-sixteenth-century manuscripts in Portugal, P-Cug MM
81
Venegas provides an explanation of his own system of tablature (which was widely adopted
and continued in the seventeenth century) in his «Comiença la declaración de la cifra». Libro
de cifra nueva, 1557, fol. 6r-12r. See Anglés, H. La música en el Corte de Carlos V…, pp. 156-165.
See also Dart, Thurston; Morehen, John; and Rastall, Richard. «Tablature: 2. Keyboard / (iv)
Spain, 1550-1700». Grove Music Online [accessed: 15-12-2015].
82
Declaración, lib. 4, cap. 41, fol. 83r. This is one reason why Santa María’s book was delayed
and possibly why Bermudo’s projected sixth and seventh books of the Declaración did not
materialise. There is only a brief survey of Bermudo’s teaching recommendations to keyboard
players in Otaola González’s book Tradición y modernidad en los escritos musicales de Juan Bermudo,
pp. 303-308. While this book is extremely useful for providing an overview of Bermudo’s teaching
in general, aspects concerning organ music in the context of its integration with vocal music
(i.e. chant) in the church, including mode and transposition, are not included. It falls outside
the scope of this essay to discuss this aspect of an organist’s duties and training.
83
See Declaración, lib. 4, cap. 41, fol. 83r (col. 2).
84
Venegas, Libro de cifra nueva, fol. 9r, cited in La música en el Corte de Carlos V… H. Anglés
(ed.), p. 160. See Griffiths, John. «Venegas, Cabezón y la música “para tecla, harpa y vihuela”».
Cinco siglos de música de tecla española / Five Centuries of Spanish Keyboard Music. Proceedings of
the FIMTE Symposia 2002-2004. Luisa Morales (ed.). Garrucha, Leal, 2007, pp. 153-167: 158.

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48 and MM 242. These two Portuguese manuscripts contain a plethora of

copies, in score, of imported vocal polyphonic music in addition to purely
instrumental music, including ricercari by Jacques Buus and organ music by
Antonio de Cabezón, Bermudo and the royal Portuguese organist António
Carreira. The majority of vocal music found in these two sources can be
traced to printed polyphonic collections issued in northern Europe, Italy
and Spain, although a number of pieces are unique to them85.
Interpretations of the aims and origins of this pair of manuscripts,
which originated at the Monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra, have been
made in recent musicological studies. It was initially proposed that these
manuscripts were intended primarily for the use of keyboard players
owing to the system of notation used: for example, this partitura system
became the norm in the majority of later (seventeenth-century) keyboard
sources in the Iberian Peninsula86. However, Owen Rees has shown that
they were probably compiled for or by the friars at the monastery for
the study of composition and counterpoint, and also to find models for
new compositions87. He demonstrates how there are too many errors in
some of the transcriptions included in these two manuscripts to support a
theory that they were solely intended as «organ books» for performance.
A third interpretation of the intention of these manuscripts embraces the
possibility that some of the scored-up repertory included in them did in
fact originate precisely in Bermudo’s «poner obras» context described
above88. Moreover, given the inclusion in these manuscripts of music
found in both the Declaración and the Libro de cifra nueva (especially by
Cabezón), we may conclude that students and teachers connected with
these Coimbra sources would certainly have been acquainted with the
85
Details of concordance search are included in the inventories of MM 48 and MM 242 in
Rees, O. Polyphony in Portugal…, pp. 272-277 and 326-337.
86
See Kastner, M. S. «Los manuscritos…».
87
See Rees, O. Polyphony in Portugal…, pp. 342-360. See also, Id. «Printed Music, Portuguese
Musicians, Roman Patronage: Two Case Studies». Early Music Printing and Publishing in the
Iberian World. Iain Fenlon and Tess Knighton (eds.). Kassel, Reichenberger, 2006, pp. 275-298:
277-283.
88
See Nelson, B. «The Chansons of Thomas Crecquillon…», pp. 178-181, which also includes a
summary of the differences of opinion to be found between Kastner’s and Rees. For a perspective
on the use of imported music for the development of the Portuguese tento, see Oliveira, Felipe
Mesquita. «Some Aspects of P-Cug, MM 242: António Carreira’s Keyboard tentos and fantasias
and the Close Relationship with Jacques Buus’s ricercari from his Libro Primo (1547)». Interpreting
Historical Keyboard Music. Sources, Contexts and Performance. Andrew Woolley and John Kitchen
(eds.). Farnham, Ashgate, 2013, pp. 7-18.

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teaching of both Bermudo and Venegas, besides Diego Ortiz89. In all events,
as witnessed by Baena’s tablature (Lisbon, 1540), a tradition of intabulat-
ing vocal polyphony for keyboard performance was already in place in
Portugal by the mid-1530s. Sources exemplifying this process of transcrip-
tion survive elsewhere in Europe and are thought to have originated in
musical pedagogy (learning contrapuntal procedures and composition)
and also for intabulating purposes and even choral conducting90.
With regard to Bermudo’s third method—transferring vocal polyphonic
music to a cifra system for ready use by an instrumentalist—considerable
evidence for this exists in the two surviving monuments of keyboard music
in sixteenth-century Spain: Venegas’s Libro de cifra nueva and Cabezón’s
Obras, although music included in these sources no doubt represents just
the tip of the iceberg of repertories played at the time91. A survey of the
polyphonic repertories in these two sources forms the concluding part
of this study.
III. Intabulations and arrangements of vocal polyphony in the Libro de

cifra nueva and Obras de música: a survey
Some indication of the circulation and popularity of vocal works

intabulated and arranged for instrumental—keyboard—performance in
sixteenth-century Spain is provided by a survey of works included in
these two tablatures. These works are listed on Table 3 (Appendix): first,
music by Spanish composers (Section I); and second, music by interna-
tional composers (Section II). This music is subdivided into the following
types: (A) straight intabulations of vocal music; (B) glosado arrangements;
and (Section II only) (C) tientos. It is clearly within the latter genre that
the extent to which vocal models were thoroughly absorbed to become
the basis of new compositional excursions may be appreciated. While
it is difficult to pinpoint precisely which sources of vocal polyphony
89
See also Nelson, B. «The Chansons of Thomas Crecquillon…», p. 183. In addition to the
copies of polyphonic music, the Coimbra sources include copies of ornaments and divisions
copied from Ortiz’s Trattado de glosas (1553).
90
See Lowinsky, Edward. «Early Scores in Manuscript». Journal of the American Musicological
Society, 13, 1/3 (1960), pp. 126-173.
91
While the majority of music was intended for keyboard performance, other music would
have been suitable for playing on the harp and vihuela, as indicated on the title pages of these
books. For further intended books by Venegas and Cabezón, see below.

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might have been available and used by these composers and players92,
it is extremely likely that a fairly large proportion of this repertory also
became known through similar intabulations and arrangements circulat-
ing internationally. Indeed, a number of works became what John Ward
has described as «classics of the instrumental literature» as they are to be
found in tablatures in many instrumental sources throughout Europe93.
For example, the choice of many of Cabezón’s keyboard arrangements
of popular secular models—such as chansons by Clemens, Claudin de
Sermisy and Lassus—has much in common with traditions in England,
which of course he visited, and elsewhere in northern Europe94. Works that
became widely known internationally, particularly as instrumental pieces,
are identified as «international classic» in the fifth column of Table 3.
As this table reveals, there is only a relatively small number of intabula-
tions and arrangements of Spanish vocal polyphony (Section A) recorded
in these tablatures, with the majority in the Libro de cifra nueva. Of these,
only about ten may be regarded as strictly idiomatic to the keyboard,
inclusive of instrumental figuration and ornamentation. These include
Francisco Fernández Palero’s glosado arrangements of a Magnificat verse
by Morales and a hymn, Veni redemptor, glosado, settings of two psalms
by Luys Alberto, and Cabezón’s two glosado arrangements of Juan de
Urrede’s Pange lingua setting (one in each tablature), probably the most
famous piece of sacred polyphony to circulate in the sixteenth-century
Iberian Peninsula95. (This survey excludes cantus-firmus arrangements of
hymns in glosado style or fabordones). In addition, the Obras includes the
only known compositions by Antonio de Cabezón’s brother, Juan: glosado
arrangements of two five-voice Spanish songs —Pues a mi desconsolado
and Quien llamó al partir partir. It is extremely surprising that Morales’s
music barely features at all in these two publications.
92
Table 3 refers to the earliest possible prints in most cases.
93
See Ward, John. «The Use of Borrowed Material in Sixteenth-Century Instrumental Music».
Journal of the American Musicological Society, 5 (1952), pp. 88-98: 89. Ward’s article remains as
an important overall view of intabulations and arrangements of vocal music in instrumental
literature during the period.
94
See Nelson, Bernadette. «“D’où vient cela?” —Franco-Flemish influences in English and
Spanish Keyboard Music during the Sixteenth Century». Cinco Siglos de Música. Luisa Morales
(ed.), pp. 47-69. Among vocal works used by Cabezón was Philippe van Wilder’s famous Je file
quand Dieu, which he might have encountered on his travels to northern Europe and England
(ibid., p. 54).
95
See Rubio, Samuel. «Las glosas de Antonio de Cabezón y de otros autores sobre el “Pange
lingua” de Juan de Urreda». Anuario Musical, 21 (1966), pp. 45-59, and Kreitner, Kenneth. «The
Musical Warhorses of Juan de Urrede». Fontes Artis Musicae, 51, 1 (2004), pp. 9-16.

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Of the numerous works by Franco-Flemish composers in these two

sources on the other hand (Section B), it is clear to see that music by Jos-
quin—motets and sections of masses—and Crecquillon dominates, both
with twelve pieces each. The only other composers fairly well represented
are Clemens non Papa, with seven songs, and Verdelot, with five works.
Like Morales, Gombert is very surprisingly poorly represented, with just
two pieces.
The only famous work by Josquin represented in Venegas’s book is
the four-voice Missa de beata virgine: there are two glosado arrangements
of Kyrie sections from this mass and a Tiento sobre Cum Sancto spiritu de
Beata virgine by Palero, with the latter providing testimony to the preoc-
cupation of the keyboard player-composer in creating an independent
keyboard piece initially inspired by a vocal work. The clear connections
between the keyboard tablatures of Venegas and Cabezón can be seen
through Cabezón’s own Tiento sobre Cum sancto spiritu of the same Jos-
quin mass and a further glosado arrangement of it in the Obras. Ward
has already commented on the fascination of sixteenth-century Spanish
instrumentalists with this particular Gloria from Missa de beata virgine96,
and it is interesting that an arrangement of «Et in terra» is to be found
in Baena’s 1540 tablature97. Into the latter tiento category also fall Palero’s
Tiento super Philomena (on Richafort) and the Tiento sobre Malheur me bat
(on Ockeghem?) attributed to Antonio de Cabezón (see Table 3, Section
II: C.) The varied attempts at reconciling the innate structure of the model
with an interest in developing its thematic material independently is one
of the testimonies to the very great preoccupation that musicians had
with Franco-Flemish music during the sixteenth century.
There are just three Franco-Flemish motets included in the Libro de cifra
nueva: Jacquet of Mantua’s Aspice domine, Verdelot’s Si bona suscepimus,
and Mouton’s Quaeramus cum pastoribus. These all consist of glosado ar-
rangements by the royal chapel organist at Granada, Francisco Fernández
Palero98. In the wake of Venegas’s tablature, all three were again included
in the Obras de música, with as many as two different glosado settings of
Mouton’s motet by Cabezón99. These particular vocal works were popular
throughout Spain at the time, and both Verdelot’s and Mouton’s motets
96
See Ward, J. «The Use of Borrowed Material…», pp. 93-95.
97
See Knighton, T. Gonçalo de Baena, nº 40.
98
These are the only three in a special section called Motetes.
99
For more on the connections between these two books see Griffiths, J. «Venegas, Cabezón
y la música», pp. 153-167: 161-165.

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were chosen as models for mass parody treatment by Morales100. Fur-

ther, all three are to found among the vihuela collections, and Mouton’s
Quaeramus became an «international classic»101.
Besides the above-mentioned Mouton, Verdelot and Jacquet motets in
Cabezón’s Obras, there are arrangements of a further three by Clemens,
Lupus Hellinck and Richafort, one more by Verdelot (Sancta Maria virgo
virginem) and a series of five by Josquin. The latter include two glosado
arrangements each of Josquin’s five- and six-voice Marian sequences Bene-
dicta es, Inviolata, and Stabat mater102, pars III of his grand five-voice Virgo
salutiferi, and a glosado arrangement of the six-voice Ave Maria (pars II
of Pater noster), which often circulated independently. These works by
Josquin were among the most popular in Europe at the time. It is not
surprising to find that the majority of music based on sacred vocal poly-
phonic repertories included in Cabezón’s Obras is Marian, given the prime
importance of devotion to the Virgin in liturgical and festal celebrations.
Indeed, in the cases of Antonio de Cabezón (blind from infancy), his son
Hernando and the royal chapel organist in Granada, Francisco Fernández
Palero, for example, it is likely that performance of this music in the royal
courts and chapels would very much have informed their experiences
and hence choices of works to play and intabulate. The same observation
may be made of Baena’s (1540) tablature although here the choice and
ordering of the Franco-Flemish polyphonic intabulations has even more
a bearing on didactic considerations103. Likewise, similar choices to be
found in these publications—especially among the fully worked glosado
or tiento arrangements—may reflect upon liturgical function and intention.
Of the numerous Franco-Flemish secular works in the Libro de cifra nueva
and Obras de música, chansons by Crecquillon and Clemens dominate. In
the Libro de cifra nueva there is a group of eight by these two composers
recorded as straight intabulations, in addition to the arrangement for two
vihuelas of the twelve-part Belle sans per by Crecquillon and Jannequin’s
famous «le chant des oiseaux» (Resveillez vous). Three of these songs reap-
100
Morales’s Missa Aspice domine was based on a motet by Gombert, not by Jacquet of Mantua.
101
It was also included in the tablatures of Valderrábano (1547), Pisador (1552), and Fuenllana
(1554).
102
These three Marian sequences appear together with other works by Josquin for five and
six voice parts in the first German print in choirbook format: Liber selectarum cantionum quas
vulgo Mutetas… Augsburg, Grimm & Wyrsung, 1520.
103
See Knighton, T. «A Newly Discovered Keyboard Source…». In Baena’s book, the pieces
are by and large arranged according to difficulty, proceeding from two-voice to four-voice settings.

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pear as glosado pieces in the Obras, along with several other such settings.
In addition to Clemens’s famous Je prens en grey, other «international clas-
sic» pieces in glosado arrangements include Sandrin’s Doulce mémoire, Van
Wilder’s Je file quand Dieu (attributed to Willaert) and Lassus’s ubiquitous
Susanne un jour (see Table 3: B).
The popularity of this music is evidently a reflection of the circula-
tion and popularity in performance of the chanson nouvelle in the Iberian
Peninsula. Furthermore, Crecquillon, one of the foremost chanson com-
posers of the middle decades of the sixteenth century, was Charles V’s
chapel master in Spain between 1540/1541 and 1550. A large number of
his chansons appeared in anthologies published by Susato and Phalèse
in the 1540s and 1550s, which were popularly copied and arranged in
the Spanish instrumental and other Iberian sources. The intended broad
application in performance of this repertory is communicated on the title
pages of some of Phalèse’s prints where it is written that this music was
«convenables tant aux instruments comme a la voix»104, and by Susato’s in-
dication that the repertory was «propices a tous instruments musicaulx»105.
It is striking that a significant number of his chansons (twenty-five) were
also copied into score in the two Coimbra manuscripts, P-Cug MM 48
and MM 242 already mentioned106. The presence of Verdelot’s madrigals
as models for glosado arrangements in Cabezón’s Obras would probably
be a reflection of the circulation of Scotto’s (madrigal) collections begin-
ning in the 1530s and 1540s. It is interesting also that there is number of
correlations of repertory to be found with sources for ministriles players
in sixteenth-century Spain, which likewise demonstrate a penchant for
imported Franco-Flemish repertories, chansons especially107.
Finally, although there is surprisingly little in the way of transcrip-
tion, arrangement or re-composition of actual sacred vocal polyphony
in Venegas’s Libro, one may recall that this book was in fact the first in
an intended series of seven books of which the fourth was to consist of
masses (presumably intabulations of masses by Josquin and others), the
fifth of arrangements of large-scale works of sacred music for between
eight and fourteen vocal parts by Phinot, Crecquillon and others, the sixth
of four-, five- and six-voice chansons, and the seventh of obras glosadas
among other types of composition. The third book was also to include
104
See RISM 155212-15 and 155520-21.
105
Susato, La fleur des chansons, 1552 (RISM 15527-11).
106
See Nelson, B. «The Chansons of Thomas Crecquillon…», pp. 169, 174-175, and 180-182.
107
See Ruiz Jiménez, J. «The Mid-Sixteenth-Century Franco-Flemish Chanson in Spain…».

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arrangements of Spanish secular genres108. Similarly, it is conceivable that

Hernando de Cabezón had prepared at least one other book of keyboard
music by his father109.
What this survey clearly shows is the extent to which vocal poly-
phony—in particular, the imported repertories by Josquin and other
northern composers—became the raison d’être of a significant corpus of
keyboard music arranged and performed during the middle decades of
the sixteenth century. Although what survives is a partial representation
of works known and used by players, we can see how the initial stages of
learning to intabulate this music, «poner obras», as described by Bermudo,
were just an opening into a world in which idiomatic glosado patterning
shaped the music into more idiomatic expressions of keyboard composi-
tion. While Bermudo in the Declaración appears in fact to have disapproved
of this latter practice, it was one that was assiduously taught by Santa
María in his Arte de tañer fantasía (1565), in Diego Ortiz’s Trattado de glosas
and through the example of the Cabezóns and Palero among others. In
addition, vocal polyphonic music became the inspiration for large-scale
tientos and fantasías, many of which were initially based on the openings
of a much-admired vocal polyphonic work.
The preoccupation of instrumentalists in Spain and Portugal with
building up their repertories with transcriptions and (re)arrangements
of vocal polyphony would have been the outcome of a combination of
several factors—not least among these the increasing availability of musi-
cal sources (printed books and manuscripts) and traditions from northern
Europe and Italy. Moreover, several cathedrals and other important choral
institutions of the day also took a lead in copying numerous reperto-
ries of Franco-Flemish polyphonic music into their choirbooks for use
in liturgical worship. Regard for the music of Josquin and others was of
course not a new phenomenon; but mid-century Iberian musical sources
also attest to a large repertory of music by composers of the so-called
«post-Josquin generation» of Franco-Flemish composers who include the
Gombert, Willaert and Jacquet of Mantua mentioned by Bermudo, as well
as others such as Verdelot, several of whom had made their careers in
Italy, and whose music proliferated in the earlier partbooks of Scotto and
Gardano. Apart from the rapid dissemination of these sources, much of
108
Libro de cifra nueva, Prologo, fol. 3v; see Anglés, H. La música en la corte…, p. 152. Phinot’s
music was very well distributed in those days, and highly favoured by musicians and theorists,
including Finck and later Cerone. However, this is not reflected in surviving Iberian sources.
109
See Griffiths, J. «Venegas, Cabezón y la música…», p. 162.

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this influence in musical taste was also undoubtedly greatly indebted to

the sojourns of the Burgundian-Habsburg courts from the late fifteenth
century onwards in various parts of Spain and from 1517 with the visits
of the court of Charles V, which would have brought with it a whole new
world and dimension of sound and musical practice110. Actual patterns
in the dissemination of keyboard styles and techniques in Spain before
the Bermudo, Venegas and Cabezón monuments were released, however,
are at present difficult to trace. Nevertheless, we may suppose that this
foreign influence—both through the paradigm of keyboard traditions at
the royal Habsburg court and through the example of instrumental mu-
sic found in the earliest Petrucci publications onwards—was also keenly
experienced, given the climate of the sharing of repertories and ideas
and the itinerant schedules of many musicians both within the Iberian
Peninsula itself and internationally.
110
An important link with the young Antonio de Cabezón might have been made during
his years in Palencia when Charles V’s court visited the city over three successive years (1522-
24). The earliest sources of German keyboard music (c. 1513-1532) also include arrangements
of vocal music by Josquin and others. See Caldwell, John. «Keyboard music». Grove Music
Online [accessed: 15-12-2015].

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Table 3. Arrangements of Vocal Music in Libro de cifra nueva (1557) and Obras de musica (1578).
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110
I. Spanish canciones and sacred polyphonya
Composer of vocal Vocal work Arranger in Nºs in modern Occurences in Vihuela RISM prints
work (a4 unless indicated) Libro & Obras editionsb books & related 16th-cen- (earliest/
tury Iberian sources selected)
A. INTABULATION (unembellished)
Anon. Villancico I: Jesu Cristo, hombre y Dios Venegas Libro (nº 90) -- --
Anon. Canción II [Villancico]: Míralo, cómo Venegas Libro (nº 113) -- --
llora (a6)
Anon. Canción III [Villancico]: De la Virgen Venegas Libro (nº 122) -- --
que parió
BERNADETTE NELSON
Anon. Canción XIV: Mundo, ¿qué me puedes Venegas Libro (nº 133) -- --
dar? (a5)
Anon. Te Matrem Dei laudamus Venegas Libro (nº 138) -- --
Anon. (?Cabezón) Salve regina A. de Cabezón Libro (nº 98) -- --
Cristóbal de Mo- Hymn XVIII: Sacris solemniis Joseph vir Venegas Libro (nº 92) E-Tc 25: complete poly- --
rales [trope of Vs. 2 of Sacris solemniis iuncta phonic hymn settingc
sint gaudia by Morales]
B. GLOSADO
Anon. Villancico II: Al revuelo de una garza (a3) Venegas Libro (nº 137) -- --
Anon. (?Cabezón) Rugier (=title?) A. de Cabezón Libro (nº 120) -- --
Anon. (?Palero) Hymn VII: Veni redemptor quaesumus Francisco Palero Libro (nº 91) -- --
Luys Alberto Psalm II: Qui habitat (a5) Venegas Libro (nº 94) -- --
Luys Alberto Psalm III: Cum invocarem (a5) Venegas Libro (nº 94) -- --
Juan de Cabezón(?) Canción: Pues a mi desconsolado J. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº -- --
XXXVII)
Juan de Cabezón(?) Canción: Quien llamó al partir J. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº -- --
XXXVIII)
Morales Magnificat: 5 tono [Vs. 1: Anima mea] Palero Libro (nº 48) (3 other Morales Magnificat M3594
sections in Fuenllana, 1554) (1545)
Juan de Urrede Hymn: Pange lingua A. de Cabezón Libro (nº 80) MS tradition in Spain
A. de Cabezón Obras (nº 41) (widespread)
II. International chansons and sacred polyphony
Composer of vocal Vocal work Arranger in Nos. in modern edi- Occurences in Vihuela RISM prints

work (4vv unless indicated) Libro & Obras tions books & related 16th-cen- (earliest/
A. INTABULATION
[Jacob Clemens non Chanson VIII: A demy mort Venegas Libro (nº 127) -- 154516
Papa]
[Clemens non Papa] Chanson XII: Frisque gallard Venegas Libro (nº 131) E-GRmf 975 15415
(international «classic»)
[Clemens non Papa] Chanson VI: Je prens en grey Venegas Libro (nº 125) Daza (1576); Obras (1578: 2 154316
glosado settings); E-GRmf
975; (international «clas-
sic»)
[Clemens non Papa] Chanson X: Jhuvons beau jeu Venegas Libro (nº 129)d -- 154516
[Thomas Crecqui- Chanson V: Alix avoit aux dens Venegas Libro (nº 124) E-GRmf 975; P-Cug MM 154516
llon] 242
Crecquillon Chanson: Belle sans per (a12)e Venegas (for two Libro (nº 111) -- unicum
vihuelas)
[Crecquillon] Chanson IX: Demandez vous Venegas Libro (nº 128) -- 154316
[Crecquillon] Chanson XI: Pour ung plaisir Venegas Libro (nº 130) E-GRmf 975 154316; 154514
[Crecquillon] Chanson VII: Ung gay bergier Venegas Libro (nº 126) E-GRmf 975 154316
Janequin Chanson IV: Resveillez vous (Le Venegas Libro (nº 123) -- J443 (1528)
chant des oiseaux) (international «classic»)
B. GLOSADO
Clemens non Papa Chanson (unidentified): Canción A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº V) -- MS? (There
francesa are also 3
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unidentified
chansons by
Clemens in
111
P-Cug 242)
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112
Clemens non Papa Chanson: Je prens en grey A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº II) Libro (1557); P-Cug MM 154316
H. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº III) 2426
Clemens non Papa Motet: Sana me domine (a5) A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XX) -- 155416
Crecquillon Chanson: Je suis aymé (a5) A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XXXII) -- 154514
Crecquillon Chanson XIII: Mort m’a privé Palero Libro (Nº 132) -- 154314
Crecquillon Chanson: Pis ne me veult venir A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XXVII) E-GRmf 975 154516?
(a5) H. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XXXV)
BERNADETTE NELSON
Crecquillon Chanson: Pour ung plaisirg A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº VII) E-GRmf 975 154316; 154514
(international «classic») (possibly
154616)
Crecquillon Chanson: Prenez pitié du mal A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº I) E-GRmf 975; P-Cug MM 154411
242
Crecquillon Chanson: Si parvenir (sic: Si par A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº IV) P-Cug MM 242 154411
sufrir)
Crecquillon Chanson: Ung gay bergier A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº VIII) -- (international «classic») 154316
Nicholas Gombert Chanson: Ayme qui vouldra (a5) A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XXIX) -- MS? (uni-
cum?)
Gombert Chanson: Triste depart (a5) A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XXXI) -- MS? (uni-
cum?)
Jacquet of Mantua Motet: Aspice domine (a5) Palero Libro (nº 114) Fuenllana (1554) 15329 (+
A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XIX) numerous)
Josquin Motet: Ave Maria (ii of Pater A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XLII) -- 15371
noster) (a6)
Josquin Motet: Benedicta es (a6) Fuenllana (1554) 15204; 15371
(i) pars i A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XXXIX)
(ii) partes i, ii, iii A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XL)

Josquin Motet: Inviolata (a5) -- 15204; 15383
(i) partes i, ii, iii A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XVIII)
(ii) pars i A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XXV)
Josquin Motet: Stabat mater dolorosa (a5) -- 15192; 15204;
(i) partes i, ii A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XVII) 15383
(ii) pars i A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XXIV)
Josquin Motet: Virgo salutiferi (a5) -- 15193 (etc)
pars iii - Nunc caeli regina A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XXII) 15346
Josquin Missa de Beata Virgine: Kyrie I Palero Libro (nº 100) Mudarra (1546) J673 (1514);
15161; J675
(1526)
[Josquin] Missa de Beata Virgine: Kyrie II Palero Libro (nº 101) Valderrábano (1547: J673 (1514);
Fantasia) 15161; J675
(1526)
Josquin Missa de Beata Virgine: Cum A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XV) Mudarra (1546); J673 (1514);
sancto spiritu (Gloria) Obras (1578: tiento) 15161; J675
Baena (1540: «Et in terra» (1526)

Josquin Missa L’homme armé super A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XIII) -- J666 (1502)
voces musicales: Hosanna J669 (1526)
Josquin Missa L’homme armé super voces A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XIV) -- J666 (1502)
musicales: Benedictus J669 (1526)
Josquin Missa L’homme armé super voces A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XII) -- J666 (1502)
musicales: Agnus (Agnus Dei III: J669 (1526)
«Clama ne cesses»)
Orlande de Lassus Chanson: Susanne un jour (a5) H. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XXIII) E-GRmf 975 1560b
A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XXIV) (international «classic»)
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Lupus (Hellinck) Motet: In te domine speravi (a5) A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XXI) -- 15329
(partes i & ii)
113
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114
Lupus = Johannes Chanson: Au joly bois (a5) A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XXVIII) -- c. 1540
Lupi
Jean Mouton Motet: Quaeramus cum pastori- Palero Libro (nº 116) Valderrábano (1547: 2 15213; 15291
bus (partes i & ii) A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº X) Fantasias) [+ numer-
A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XI) ous]
Jean Richafort Motet: Jerusalem luge (a5) A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XXIII) -- 15341
Cipriano de Rore Ancor che col partire A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº VI) -- 154714
Pierre Sandrin Chanson: Doulce mémoire H. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº IX) E-GRmf 975 153810
P-Cug MM 242 (Ortiz:
BERNADETTE NELSON
ricercar)
Philippe Verdelot Motet: Sancta Maria virgo virgi- A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XLI) -- 15282
num (a6)
Verdelot Motet: Si bona suscepimus (a5) Palero Libro (nº 115) Fuenllana (1554) 15329
A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XVIII)
Verdelot Madrigal: Ardenti miei sospiri A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XLIV) -- 154116
(a6) (anon.) [etc]
Verdelot Madrigal: Dormend’un giorno a A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XXX) -- 15407
Baia (a5)
Verdelot Madrigal: Ultimi miei sospiri A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XLIII) -- 154116
(a6)
Philip Van Wilder Chanson: Je file quand Dieu (a5) A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XXVI) -- MS circula-
(attr. Willaert in (international «classic») tionh
Obras) 15722
Adrian Willaert Chanson: Qui la dira? (a5) A. de Cabezón Obras (Glos. nº XXXVI) Obras (1578: tiento)
C. TIENTO
Josquin Missa de Beata Virgine: Cum Palero Libro (nº 54): Tiento Mudarra (1546) J673 (1514);
sancto spiritu (Gloria) glosado Obras (1578: glosado) 15161; J675
A. de Cabezón Obras (nº 69): Tiento (1526)
sobre… (international «classic»)

Johannes Ockeghem? Chanson: Malheur me bat (a3) A. de Cabezón Libro (nº 43): Quarto -- 15011 (Ocke-
tono sobre… ghem)
Richafort Motet: Philomena praevia Palero Libro (nº 53): Tiento P-Cug MM 48 15214 (etc)
super…
Willaert Chanson: Qui la dira? A. de Cabezón Obras (nº 61): Tiento -- 15361
sobre…
Claudin de Sermisy Chanson: D’ou vient cela A. de Cabezón Obras (nº 85): Section Valderrábano (1547) 15283 (etc)i
Discantes (international «classic»)
Recibido: 22 diciembre 2015

Aceptado: 1 marzo 2016
a
Unless indicated, all music on this table is a4. Music originating in improvisatory cantus-firmus arrangements (such as hymns and
popular songs) or psalm-tone settings in traditional fabordón is not included.
b
For editions, see Antonio de Cabezón (1510-1566). Obras de música…, H. Anglés (ed.), and new edition, Antonio de Cabezón (1510-1566).
Obras de música…, Artigas Pina et al. (eds.) in 4 vols. (2010).
c
See Noone, Michael. «Luis Venegas de Henestrosa’s Intabulation of Morales’s Sacris solemniis and its recently-discovered vocal source».
Cinco siglos de música de tecla…, pp. 11-26.
d
See Nelson, B. «The Chansons of Thomas Crecquillon…», pp. 174-175 and 186 (Table I).
e
Chanson based on lied Kain Adler in der Welt, see Ham, Martin. «Thomas Crecquillon in Context. A Reappraisal of his Life and of Selected
Works». Ph. D. Diss., University of Surrey, 1998. See also Nelson, B. «The Chansons of Thomas Crecquillon…», p. 175.
f
The glosado arrangement copied into MM 242 resembles that by Antonio de Cabezón in the Obras. See Nelson, B. «“D’où vient cela?”...»,
ISSN 0210-1459
p. 54; and «The Chansons of Thomas Crecquillon…», p. 181.

g
«Jamais», mistakenly entered as title of chanson in the Index of Libro, see Nelson, B. Ibid., p. 186 (Table I) and nº 3-4.
h
See Nelson, B. «“D’où vient cela?”...», p. 54.
115
i
See ibid., p. 49 (Table 1: Dont vient cela, c. 1528 – c. 1570).

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At the beginning of the first chapter of Book 4 of his Declaración directed

Revista de Musicología, vol. XXXIX, no 1 (2016), pp. 77-115

knowledge and understanding of vocal polyphonic music were vital for

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whose principles formed the basis of his own profound exposition on

I. Models for Imitation: «buena música de excelentes varones»

In making it abundantly clear that the only way to become proficient in

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ing to Bermudo, the processes of studying and appreciating the qualities

He immediately goes on to explain that he considered Morales to

Revista de Musicología, vol. XXXIX, no 1 (2016), pp. 77-115

Revista de Musicología, vol. XXXIX, no 1 (2016), pp. 77-115

Revista de Musicología, vol. XXXIX, no 1 (2016), pp. 77-115

Revista de Musicología, vol. XXXIX, no 1 (2016), pp. 77-115

1537, for instance, he is simply called «Adriano». These include Il secondo

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includes a number of other composers, including three other important

Bermudo’s polyphonic sources

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other contemporary Spanish composers. In addition to his recommended

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Judging by music contained in the vihuela books beginning with

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shown by Bermudo of some of Morales’s unpublished music indicates

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Composers/ music Descriptions Reference Context Interpretation

BERMUDO’S MASTERS AND MODELS OF EXCELLENCE FOR KEYBOARD...

BERMUDO’S MASTERS AND MODELS OF EXCELLENCE FOR KEYBOARD...

Surviving inventories of music books of important ecclesiastical institu-

II. Keyboard masters and Bermudo’s teaching methods

When the Declaración was being prepared, no other books of key-

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Bermudo’s Libro primero of 1549, had been dedicated to the Portuguese

Excelentes tañedores llamo a don Iuan racionero en la yglesia de malaga, al

It is interesting that in his Epistola to Bermudo’s earlier Libro primero

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Revista de Musicología, vol. XXXIX, no 1 (2016), pp. 77-115

Cabezón’s Obras66. A Libro de tientos by Vila, probably also in tablature,

Bermudo’s treatises Names of recommended keyboard players

For keyboardists especially, the main publications in Spain containing

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In addition to ideas about musical training and performing matters,

Para inteligencia y uso de la cifra deste libro se ha de presuponer que el que

As testified by some of the several more evolved glosado arrangements

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ence of this genre to idiomatic keyboard performance71. Santa María’s

Learning to play and transcribe vocal polyphony: «poner obras»

Probably the most informative source demonstrating ways in which

La primera es teniendo el libro de canto de organo delante. El que tañedor

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en este libro, y entender el monachordio: puede poner en el obras, con solamente

It was of course a painstaking process, and in order to be able to read

Si de composicion no sabe, y no esta exercitado en poner, sino que comiença,

Both of these methods were apparently common at the time.

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Cabezón’s Obras, which was presumably common by that time81. He saw