Cabanilles y Barrerá, Juan Bautista José (EN)

Cabanilles y Barrerá, Cavanilles, Cabanillas, Cayanillas, Juan Bautista José, baptized 6 September 1644, Algemesí (near Valencia), †29 April 1712 Valencia, Spanish composer and organist. In 1665, he was unanimously elected organist of the Valencia Cathedral; he held this position until his death. In 1668, he was ordained a priest. He was a mentor to many Spanish organists and achieved great fame in his country.

Cabanilles’s organ works have been little studied, as only one-third of the total number of surviving works is available in modern editions. The least known are the versos, though it is known that they span a wide range, from short, very simple preludes based on a cantus firmus to complex, multi-part works with varied textures. Cabanilles’s tientos are better known. Among them are three fundamentally different types: tientos de falsas, tientos partidos, and tientos llenos. Tientos de falsas have a relatively uniform structure, with four voices moving in long notes, with predominantly linear voice-leading and extensive imitation. Frequent chromatic changes in individual scale degrees (true chromaticism appears rather rarely) and leaps by diminished and augmented intervals are among the means by which Cabanilles achieves strongly dissonant progressions, which are the essence of this genre. In tientos partidos, also known as tientos de medio registro, the 14th-century method of organ construction, which persisted in Spain until the 17th century but had already disappeared in other countries by the 15th and 16th centuries, was employed to introduce a new concertante style. In this type of instrument—whether with one or two manuals – the individual stops covered only half the keyboard, from C1 downward or from C-sharp1 upward. This design made it possible to achieve, on a single manual, the effect of a solo instrument (usually a wind instrument, particularly often a trumpet) accompanied by the organ, as well as the sound of a trio or a quartet of independent melodic lines. As a result, tientos partidos constitute an equivalent, unseen outside of Spain, of the early Italian chamber or solo sonatas by composers such as Fontana or Torelli, and their significant number in Cabanilles’s oeuvre (approx. 60) is linked to the exceptionally limited practice of chamber music on the Iberian Peninsula in the 17th century. Among Cabanilles’s 22 published tientos partidos, three-part works predominate, i.e., those with only one voice (soprano or bass) treated as a solo part, whose line abounds in virtuosic figurations. Tientos llenos are intended for organs with manuals not divided into different registers. Two major groups can be distinguished among them: works in which the development of imitated thematic phrases and virtuosic single-line runs based on sustained chords play an equal role, and those in which imitations of a single phrase – transformed through variations and incorporated into successive developments – play a predominant role. Some tientos llenos are based on a cantus firmus migrans; in others, known as ‘de contras’, the composer focuses on pedal technique. A characteristic feature of all types of tientos is the juxtaposition of successive phrases based on contrast; with the exception of the de falsas type, which lacks stronger textural contrasts, changes in meter and tempo are frequent. Other common features include variation, which manifests differently across various types, and the expansion of the piece through the repeated performance of a short section across different degrees of the scale, resulting in significant modulatory mobility but also monotony.

Cabanilles’s dances, not only the passacaglia or folia, but also 2- and 3-beat paseos, galliards (in even meter!), or the xácara, derived from the primitive music of plebeian comedies but already artistically transformed, are cycles of variations based on a fixed bass and harmonic pattern.

Cabanilles’s work is a phenomenon specific to Spain, if only because of his adoption and development of the genres of tientos initiated in the late 16th century by S. Aguilera (de falsas) and F. Peraza (partido), or because of his penchant for variation. At the same time, however, stylistic details are noted that converge with those characteristic of works by Buxtehude, even from such a geographically distant region.

Literature: “Anuario Musical” XVII (an annual publication dedicated to Cabanilles), 1962; H. Anglés La musica organistica della Spagna nei secoli XVI–XVII e l’opera di Cabannilles, Rome 1962; G. Frotscher Geschichte des Orgelspiels und der Orgelkomposition, 3rd ed. Berlin 1966; M.J. Corry The Keyboard Musie of J. Cabannilles, 1966 (thesis at Stanford University of California); W. Apel Geschichte der Orgel- und Klauiermusik bis 1700, Kassel 1967, English translation London 1972; M.C. Bradshaw J. Cabannilles. The Toccatas und Tientos, “The Musical Quarterly” LIX, 1973 no. 2; A. Garcia-Ferreras J.B. Cabannilles Sein Leben und Werk. Die Tientos fur Orgel, «Kölner Beiträge zur Musikforschung» LXK, Regensburg 1973; R. Parkins Cabezón to Cabannilles. Ornamentation in Spanish Keyboard Music, “Organ Yearbook” XI, 1980; J. López-Calo El tiento y sus derivados (intento, fuga…), in: El órgano español, ed. A. Bonet Correa, Madrid 1987; J. Climent Barber Cabannilles, una via al clasicismo, in: De música hispana et aliis, celebratory publication for J. López-Calo, eds. E. Casares Rodicio and C. Villanueva, vol. 1, Santiago de Compostela 1990; K.H. Müller-Lancé Beitrag zu den Kompositionsarten der Verse und ihrer Anordnung in der Handschrift. J.B. Cabannilles, 1644–1712. Versos para órgano, vol. I, Barcelona 1986. Erstausgabe von…, “Anuario musical” XLVII, 1992; M. Bernal Ripoll La ornamentación en las obras de Cabannilles, “Anuario musical” LIII, 1998, LIV, 1999.