A Mayfair Organ Concert on Early Music Day by Andrew Benson-Wilson

This year’s annual Early Music Day recital focuses on the publication, exactly 400 years ago, of the monumental Libro de tientos y discursos de música practica, y theorica de organo intitulado Facultad organica (“Book of Tientos and Discourses on Practical and Theoretical Organ Music entitled Organic Faculty“) by the Spanish organist, composer, and theorist Francisco Correa de Arauxo.

Correa de Araujo was born in Seville. In 1599, aged just 15, he became organist of San Salvador, the second most important church in Seville. He became a priest around 1608, but became embroiled in various tussles with the authorities. In 1608, he was ordained as a priest. He maintained the Seville post until 1636, when after many unsuccessful attempts to become cathedral organist, he was, after four years at Jaén Cathedral, appointed organist at Segovia Cathedral, where he stayed for the rest of his life, despite repeated offers from Seville to return as cathedral organist.

The expansive Libro de tientos contains 69 pieces, of which 62 are tientos (fantasias). Despite being a virtuoso performer, his treatise is geared towards players of different levels of ability, giving detailed and often complex information about each piece in terms of its musical structure. He also gives detailed instructions on all aspects of performance, including the complex ornamentation that he uses. He allocates the pieces to five grades of difficulty. One writer compared him to the great Spanish artist, El Greco, commenting that “Correa de Araujo’s great musical tapestries are flush with all the riotous colour of that painter’s liquid silks and satins and courtly splendour.”

The Grosvenor Chapel organ is the 1991 instrument by the distinguished organ builder, William Drake, based on (and in the surviving case of) the 1732 Abraham Jordan organ.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher Mayfair Organ Concerts