Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla


Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla was a Spanish-Mexican composer of the Renaissance period.

Life and career

He was born in Málaga, Spain but moved to Puebla, Mexico, in 1620 to compose music in the New World. At the time New Spain was a viceroyalty of Spain that included modern day Mexico, Guatemala, the Philippines and other parts of Central America and the Caribbean. Padilla is one of the more important composers represented in the manuscripts at Puebla, Mexico and the Hackenberry collection in Chicago, Illinois. He worked at Puebla de Los Angeles, Mexico, which in Baroque times was a bigger religious center than Mexico City itself. He was appointed maestro de capilla of Puebla Cathedral in 1628.
He is to be distinguished from a younger Juan de Padilla, who was maestro de capilla at Zamora, Spain, and Toledo.

Works

The majority of his vast output include sacred motets, often for double choir, in the Renaissance style or stile antico as well as sacred villancicos. It often includes accompaniments for organ or various stringed instruments.

Recordings

Benjamín Juárez Echenique has recorded a Mass and two sets of Christmas villancicos for Urtext digital classics: