Francisco de la Torre

Who was Francisco de la Torre?

Francisco de la Torre was a Spanish composer mainly active in the Kingdom of Naples. His hometown may have been Seville. His music can be found in La música en la corte de los Reyes Católicos, edited by H. Anglès.

Francisco is first mentioned as a singer in the choir of the royal chapel on 1 July 1483. He took an annual salary of 25,000 maravedís and served in the same capacity for seventeen years. On 15 July 1488 he received a half-prebend from Ferdinand II. He left the royal court at Naples in 1500 and became a curate at the Cathedral of Seville, where on 10 February 1503 he was given charge of the choirboys as succentor and received an increased salary. He soon left this position to Alonso de Alva, the new maestro de capilla. When he was last recorded on 30 September 1504 he was a compañero of the cathedral, a rank lower than his previous prebend.

His surviving compositions include one courtly instrumental dance, a funeral responsory, an office of the dead, and ten villancicos. According to Robert Stevenson, his "funerary works, notably the motet Libera me, are of great beauty and expressiveness." Four of his secular villancicos may be classified as romances, having something in common with the Netherlandish composer Juan de Urrede active in Spain in the previous generation. One, Pascua d'Espíritu Sancto, was composed for the feast of Corpus Christi the day after the reconquista of Ronda on 1 June 1485. It is based on a portion of the verse account of the Granada War by Hernando de Ribera.