Francisco Valls Galán

In 1696 Francisco Valls left the Church of Santa Maria del Mar, Barcelona, and took up the post of Mestre de capella at Barcelona Cathedral. He wrote 10 masses, 17 psalm settings, 30 motets, several other sacred items and 141 secular compositions. Many of these are manuscripts lodged in the Biblioteca de Catalunya in Barcelona.

In retirement Valls wrote a treatise on harmonic theory, Mapa Armónico Práctico. A facsimile of the manuscript was published in 2002. It contains an exposition of the author's views on musical theory and practice and a large number of musical examples from his works. All the vocal music by Valls from Mapa Armónico Prácticoand a few instrumental pieces have been transcribed and are in the public domain. See links below. The Latin choral works in the Mapa are of particular interest. They include 4 solo sacred arias, one duet, a series of sacred canons, motets and movements from the Mass (including the Christe Eleison from the Missa Scala Aretina) and from the Te Deum. Some of these works are polychoral and/or have more or less full accompaniment. Many of the works use highly unconventional (for the time) musical techniques. Examples with particularly interesting use of dissonance include Valls' motets, Domine vim patior, Cor mundum meum and O vos omnes. There are a number of accompanied pieces. These include the 10 part In te Domine speravi with full orchestral accompaniment including an opening trumpet fanfare and a movement, Cum sancto spiritu, from an unidentified mass. Valls' sacred choral works (both Latin and Spanish) frequently focus on the Virgin Mary. These works include his best known motet, Tota pulchra es (not included in the Mapa) which was the only work, apart from the Missa Scala Aretina, to be performed regularly in the centuries following his death. There are also a number of canons, motets and villancicos in the Mapa on the same subject. The sacred works in Spanish from the Mapa come in two distinct categories. First there are a series of 4 part villancicos (or extracts). These are less adventurous in musical technique than the Latin works. Secondly there are some more ambitious complete villancicos in 8 or 12 parts. These include Quien será decid and Al combite que Amor hoy previene. The lyrics of these villancicos are mostly quite obscure. Valls appears to have had an interest in medieval philosophers. His works include a setting of Saint Thomas Aquinas' hymn O memoriale mortis. He also composed a rather overblown 8 part ode to that saint in Spanish with full orchestral accompaniment. More impressive is his three part motet setting of the prayer by Saint Augustine of Hippo O sacramentum pietatis (from the latter's Tractates on the gospel of John). In this motet Valls uses variations in rhythm, time signatures and dynamics to express the changing mood of the text. The Mapa includes two operatic works in Italian style, one of these is for chorus. One is a mournful tenor aria apparently composed for the character of Mark Antony in Egypt. The instrumental works in the Mapa include fugues, "trocados" (works using contrary motion) and cancrizans canons. There is a composition for strings which uses what Valls calls the "enharmonic sharp", but which seems different from the orthodox conception of that expression. Valls' enharmonic sharp appears to raise the notes A, C, D, F and G by three quarters of a tone and the notes B and E by a quarter tone.