Biography
Sebastian Aguilera de Heredia received his appointment as organist at Huesca Cathedral in 1585. By 1603 he had advanced to master organist and priest at the Cathedral of La Seo, where his standing positioned him as Spain’s most distinctive religious composer in the opening decades of the seventeenth century. Later Spanish figures—Cabanilles, Correa de Arauxo, Ximenez, who trained under him, and Rodrigues Coelho—echoed his example in their own writing. The connection did not stem from sweeping originality on Aguilera’s part; instead he supplied practical openings that enabled the new paths those musicians explored. Recognition of his ingenuity rested on another distinction: he became the first Spanish composer to apply the term “falsas” to a slow-moving passage built on dissonance, unusual chord changes, interesting distances between notes, and unexpected musical nuances heretofore only closely related. His most consequential theoretical contribution was the concept of “medio registro,” which called for independent registration on each half of the keyboard and assigned solo prominence to one hand, always the left hand for Aguilera. The principal work that survives is “Canticum Beatissimae Virginis deiparae Mariae,” a collection of thirty-six separate magnificat settings that distributes polyphonic textures, chant, and varied vocal cycles throughout. Within each verse a canon enters on the pitch that corresponds to the verse’s number—the canon of the first verse beginning on the initial tone, that of the second verse on the second tone.