Donemus Webshop — Ortiz, Diego

Diego Ortiz was a Spanish composer and music theorist of the Renaissance.
There is very few data about his early life.
He is believed to have been born in Toledo, Spain. The first records about him go back as far as 1553, when he was living in Naples, a viceroyalty ruled by the Spanish monarchs Charles V and Philip II.
He published the first manual on ornamentation for bowed string instruments and a number of sacred vocal compositions.
In 1558 he was appointed maestro di cappella of the Royal Chapel in Naples, and he held this post for a long time. In 1572 his name appeared in Rome where he was for at least four years famigliare (belonging to the house staff) of The Colonna Court.
Ortiz published two music books: Trattado de Glosas in 1553, and Musices Liber Primus in 1565, this very book. It contained 69 vocal works for 4-7 voices: hymns, psalms, magnificats and motets. It was published in choir book notation by Antonio Gardano in Venice.
Many of the works are presented as polyphonic verses alternated with plainchant. Although Ortiz is less famous than his Spanish colleagues De Morales, Guerrero and De Victoria, he is a master polyphonist. His works are full of syncopations and never homophonic.
The style is conservative for the period, appropriate to the taste of his dedicatees and employers, The Spanish Viceroy in Naples and the Duke of Alcalea, Pedro Afán de Rivera. In his preface and dedication of the book Ortiz recommends performers to accompany the sacred works with instruments.
Diego Ortiz died c. 1570 probably in Rome.
(With thanks to Robert Stevenson, 2001)
Modern recordings of his works are mostly instrumental and very few of vocal works. The text setting is a little curious: not the smooth Italian style, nor the emphatic French style. Singing it demands scrutiny.
Some hymns, magnificats, motets and psalms have a plainchant intonation, which I borrowed from a Liber Usualis, 1941.