The formation of an exceptional library: early printed music books at Valladolid Cathedral

Abstract

THE Castilian city of Valladolid houses the largest Spanish historical library of printed music from the 16th and early 17th centuries. The collection of the Archivo Musical of Valladolid Cathedral spans a period of almost 90 years, from Adrian Willaert’s first book of motets of 1539,1 through to the Missas, motetes by Sebastián López de Velasco published in 1628.2 The collection comprises 105 entries, representing 102 different editions; 35 per cent contains secular repertory, around 90 per cent is by non-Spanish composers, and the collection includes a few unica.3 The Spanish musicologist Higinio Anglés first made scholars aware of the collection through his 1948 inventory. Although incomplete and not without error, it has served a valuable purpose, particularly for researchers working on specific composers or musical publications.4 Despite the importance of the collection as a whole, until now there has been no attempt to understand the way in which it was assembled, even if Anglés did evocatively suggest that it could be regarded as ‘a testament to the musical art performed in the royal palace and other noble homes of the city in the sixteenth century’.5