Francisco Escalada

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There are two 17th Century Baroque composers named Francisco Escalada. 1) Francisco Escalada, who died in Madrid in 1680, was a Spanish composer active during the fertile late-seventeenth-century flowering of the villancico, the semi-vernacular devotional song that dominated musical life in Iberian cathedrals. Little is known of his early life or training, but surviving records place him within the network of professional musicians serving ecclesiastical institutions in Castile during the reign of Carlos II. Escalada’s reputation rests on a handful of villancicos preserved in manuscript, works that reveal a refined command of the genre’s alternation of rustic charm and liturgical purpose. His best-known piece today, Canten dos jilguerillos, shows his gift for light, melodic writing and lively rhythmic play—qualities typical of the Madrid school of the period—and demonstrates how vernacular imagery could be drawn into the orbit of sacred celebration. Although his documented output is small and the archival traces sparse, Escalada represents the large and often anonymous cohort of skilled chapel composers whose music animated the feasts and devotional culture of seventeenth-century Spain, providing a crucial link between the older polyphonic villancico tradition and the more theatrical idioms that would flourish in the decades after his death. 2) Francisco Escalada was a late-17th-century composer active in the musical life of New Spain, best known today through a handful of

top songs

albums

Missa Mexicana

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Un camino de Santiago

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Latino Ladino: Songs of Exile & Passion

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Missa Mexicana (The Harp Consort feat. conductor: Andrew Lawrence-King)

Navidad: A Latin American and Spanish Christmas

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The Harp Consort

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Navidad: Christmas Music from Latin America and Spain

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Missa Mexicana (The Harp Consort cond. Andrew Lawrence-King, 2002)

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Missa Mexicana - the Harp Consort

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