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Artist
Isidre Escorihuela
18th centurybaroquecatalan17th century
about
Isidre Escorihuela (active 1672–1716) was one of the most distinctive Catalan chapelmasters of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, a pivotal figure in the musical life of Tarragona Cathedral during a period of stylistic transition. Already documented as a working musician by 1672, Escorihuela rose to become maestro de capilla of Tarragona, holding the post until at least 1716. His tenure bridged the end of the Iberian high-Baroque villancico culture and the emergence of a more rhetorically refined Latin liturgical style, and the surviving works attributed to him reveal a fluent hand equally at ease in polychoral splendour and in the expressive declamation characteristic of Catalonia’s cathedrals at the turn of the century. Escorihuela’s surviving oeuvre—preserved in Tarragona and in satellite archives across Catalonia and Valencia—includes villancicos for six to eight voices, tones for soloist and choir, a striking Mass for twelve voices with instruments, and motets such as La fuente angular and Christus factus est. These pieces show him to be a mature exponent of the Catalan Baroque idiom, blending contrapuntal solidity with a vibrant sense of colour, often supported by ministrils and violins. Contemporary chapter records describe him as attentive to the training of choirboys, rigorous in maintaining the forces of the chapel, and capable of meeting the considerable musical demands of a metropolitan see. His decades-long presence at Tarragona shaped the sou