Spanish secular vocal music

Spanish secular vocal music.

Music in the Renaissance was as important as society, religion or politics. One of the most important Spanish composers was Juan Del Enzina.

Juan Del Encina was also poet and playwright, often considered the founder, along with Gil Vicente, of Spanish drama. In 1492 the poet entertained his patron, the Duke of Alba, with a dramatic piece, the Triunfo de la fama, written to commemorate the fall of Granada.

In 1496 he published his Cancionero, a collection of dramatic and lyrical poems. Encina wrote pastoral eclogues, the foundation of Spanish secular drama. They are predominantly based on shepherds and unrequited love.

In 1518 he resigned from position at Malaga for a simple benefice at Moron, and the following year he went to Jerusalem, where he wrote about the events during this pilgrimage in Tribagia o Via Sacra de Jerusalem.  His last job was recorded as being in Leon, where he is thought to have died towards the end of 1529.

His Cancionero is preceded by a prose treatise (Arte de trobar) on the condition of the poetic art in Spain. His fourteen dramatic pieces mark the transition from the purely ecclesiastical to the secular stage. 

Many of the surviving pieces are villancicos, of which he was a leading composer. The Spanish villancico is the equivalent of the Italian Frottola, the predominant type of Italian popular secular song of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. 

This is an example of a well known villancico: Más vale trocar, and an excerpt of the lyrics.  

                                                 

                                                  

   Mas vale trocar...

Más vale trocar
placer por dolores
que estar sin amores.
donde es agradecido
es dulce morir;
vivir en olvido
aquel no es vivir;
mejor es sufrir
pasión y dolores