CABEZÓN, ANTONIO DE

Eminent Renaissance organist and composer; b. Castrillo de Matajudíos, near Burgos, Spain, March 30, 1510; d. Madrid, March 26, 1566. Although blind from childhood, he was appointed court organist to Isabel, consort of Charles V, in 1526 and settled in Ávila, where he married Luisa Núñez. In 1548 he became court organist to Philip II, whom he accompanied on journeys to Italy, Germany, France, England, and the Netherlands. He moved to Madrid in 1560 and remained there until his death. His son Hernando (1541–1602) succeeded him as court organist and published the most important source of his works, the Obras de música.… It contains keyboard arrangements of hymn-tunes and motets, variations (diferencias ) on popular tunes, and tientos, short pieces similar in style to the Italian canzona and ricercar, all written in Spanish keyboard tablature. His music exhibits in a purely instrumental style a mastery of counterpoint and genius of conception that foreshadows Bach and ranks Cabezón among the great composers for keyboard instruments.

Bibliography: Works. Obras de música para tecla, arpa, y vihuela, ed. h. de cabezÓn (Madrid 1578); Hispaniae schola musica sacra, ed. f. pedrell, 8 v. (Barcelona 1894–98) v. 3, 4, 7, 8, only complete modern ed. of Obras …; selected organ pieces in Edition Schott, 1621, 4826, 4948, and in Historical Organ Recital Series, ed. j. bonnet, 6 v. (New York 1940) v. 1, 6. Literature. s. kastner, Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. e. blom, 9 v. (5th ed. London 1954) 2:3–4; Antonio de Cabezón (Barcelona 1952). h. anglÈs, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. f. blume (Kassel-Basel 1949–) 2:595–602. g. chase, The Music of Spain (rev. ed. New York 1959). g. reese, Music in the Renaissance (rev. ed. New York 1959). w. apel, "Early Spanish Music of Lute and Keyboard Instruments," Musical Quarterly 20(1934) 289–301. a. c. howell, "Cabezón: An Essay in Structural Analysis," Musical Quarterly 50 (1964) 18–30. For a possible kinship of Cabezón and Cavazzoni, see the following: t. dart, "Cavazzoni and Cabezón," Music and Letters 36 (1955) 2–6. k. jeppesen, "Cavazzoni-Cabezón," Journal of the American Musicological Society 8 (1955) 81–85. t. dart, ibid., 148, a reply to Jeppesen. m. s. kastner, Antonio und Hernando de Cabezón: Eine Chronik dargestellt am Leben zweier Generationen von Organisten (Tutzing 1977); "Cabezón," in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. s. sadie v. 3 (New York 1980), 572–573. d. m. randel, ed., The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music (Cambridge, Mass. 1996) 126. l. robledo, "Sobre la letanía de Antonio de Cabezón," Nassarre, Revista Aragonesa de Musicología, 5 (1989), 143–149. m. a. roig-francolÍ, Compositional Theory and Practice in Mid-Sixteenth-Century Spanish Instrumental Music: The Arte de tañer fantasía, by Tomás de Santa María and the Music of Antonio de Cabezón (Ph.D. diss. Indiana University 1990); "Modal Paradigms in Mid-Sixteenth Century Spanish Instrumental Composition: Theory and Practice in Antonio de Cabezón and Thomás de Santa María," Journal of Music Theory, 38 (1994) 249–291.

[a. doherty]