Obra de 8º tono alto: Ensalada

This exuberant piece by Sebastián Aguilera de Heredia (1561-1627) comes two weeks too late: I was actually planning to upload this crazy work - as the first piece of music on my newly acquired Spanish sample set - for Carnival. But then I injured my finger and when I was able to practise again, the piece turned out to be a little more difficult than I had expected, so my Carnival greeting will now only be available during Lent...

Aguilera de Heredia comes from Zaragoza and worked there between 1603 and 1620 as the main organist at the Catedral del Salvador (also known as "La Seo de Zaragoza").

His Obra de 8º tono alto also has a genre designation in its title that is actually known from the field of vocal music: In the Siglo de Oro, the term "ensalada" was used to describe a polyphonic, instrumentally accompanied vocal piece that, in the manner of a quodlibet, mixed all kinds of popular songs and melodies in colorful alternation like a salad. Often intended for the celebration of Christmas, these pieces were to a certain extent musical dramas in miniature form, in which moral and spiritual questions are dealt with, but also mixed in with all kinds of ironic, popular and coarse passages - including the quite carnival-like mockery of secular and ecclesiastical authorities.

Aguilera de Heredia transposes this vocal genre into the realm of instrumental music - creating an almost intoxicating whirl of dance rhythms that are at times exuberant, even lascivious, at other times graceful or even pompously striding along in constantly changing meters, infiltrated by echoes of the South American and African musical styles popular in Spain at the time. And perhaps a little penance really is in order after such music...