Egüés, Manuel de

(b S Martín del Río, 3 June 1657; d Burgos, 11 April 1729). Spanish composer. He was choirmaster at Lérida Cathedral when, on 23 November 1685, he successfully competed for the same post at Burgos. In October 1691 he went to Zaragoza, again as choirmaster at the cathedral, but in February 1692 returned to Burgos, where he remained until his death.

Egüés’s inspiration, technique and style make him one of the leading Spanish composers of the Baroque. He mainly used the ‘stile severo’, although his solo melodic writing is often florid and of a virtuoso character. His choral music shows both imitative and chordal techniques. He made more use of instruments than most Spanish composers of his time, although (as was then normal in Spain) he used them less for their individual technical or expressive characteristics than in a vocal manner, in groups or ‘coros’. His polychoral works are mostly for 12 voices in three choirs, but a Miserere for Maundy Thursday has 16 voices divided into four choirs. His Salves en romance, short compositions usually paraphrasing some section of the Salve regina or other Marian texts such as the Ave maris stella, are of special interest; they were sung after Divine Office had finished at the altar before an image of the Blessed Virgin, and their devout beauty places them high among Spanish religious works. His essay ‘Parecer acerca la controversia de Valls’ was printed in Joaquín Martínez’s Elucidación de la verdad (Valladolid, n.d.).

WORKS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

L. Hernández Ascunce: ‘Número inédito de un auto sacramental’, España sacro musical, ii (1931), 274

M.D. Aguirre: Estudio y análisis de las Salves en romance de Manuel de Egüés (diss., Pontifical Insititute for Sacred Music, Rome, 1970)

J. López-Calo: La música en la catedral de Burgos (Burgos, 1995–6)

JOSÉ LÓPEZ-CALO