Pedro de Escobar
Pedro de Escobar (c. 1465 – after 1535), a.k.a. Pedro do Porto, was a Portuguese composer of the Renaissance, mostly active in Spain.
Pedro de Escobar

Anonymous Unknown author · Biblioteca Nacional Digital · Public domain
- Born
- 1465 · Porto.
- Nationality
- Kingdom of Portugal
- Occupation
- composer · chapelmaster
- Languages
- Portuguese
Encyclopédie VALÉORINE
Le dossier documentaire
Chaque énoncé est lu dans les notices d’autorité des institutions nommées. Choisissez « Preuve » à côté d’un énoncé pour voir la notice d’où il est tiré, l’endroit précis et la date de lecture.
Pedro de Escobar vécut de 1465 à 1535 et fut compositeur.
Vie
Pedro de Escobar naquit en 1465 ; le lieu de naissance est Porto, Portugal, selon la Deutsche Nationalbibliothek et la Bibliothèque nationale de France. Pedro de Escobar mourut en 1535 ; le lieu de décès est Evora, Portugal, selon la Deutsche Nationalbibliothek et la Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Activité
Séville est enregistré comme lieu d'activité par la Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
Institutions citées
Bibliothèque nationale de France · Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
Chaîne de lecture complète (JSON)Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Pedro de Escobar. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q1366752 · wikipedia · Pedro de Escobar
In this article
Life
Life
He was one of the earliest and most skilled composers of polyphony in the Iberian Peninsula, whose music has survived.
He was born at Porto, Kingdom of Portugal, but nothing is known of his life until he entered the service of Isabella I of Castile in 1489. His surname is of Castilian origin, and maybe he was born to Castilian immigrants, or descendants, established in Porto. But Castilians regarded him as Portuguese. He was a singer in the Catholic Queen's chapel for ten years, and clearly was working as a composer as well; in addition he was the only member of her chapel described in court records as Portuguese. In 1499 he returned to his native Portugal, but in 1507 received an offer of employment, which he accepted, as the maestro de capilla (chapel master in the Castilian language) at the cathedral in Seville. While there he had charge of the choirboys, having to take care of their room and board in addition to having to teach them to sing; he complained of low pay, and eventually resigned. In 1521 he was working in Portugal, as mestre de capela (chapel master in Portuguese) for prince Dom Afonso, Cardinal-Infante of Portugal, son of Manuel I of Portugal. His career seems to have ended badly, however, for the final record of his life there is a mention in a document of 1535 that he was an alcoholic and living in squalor. He died in Évora.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Porto.
Birth place
Évora.
Death place
Music and influence
• Illustration — Villancico "Pásame, por Dios, barquero", facsimile from the Elvas Songbook Two complete masses of Escobar have survived, including a Requiem setting (Missa pro defunctis), the earliest by a composer from the Iberian Peninsula. His known work also includes a setting of the Magnificat, 7 motets (including one Stabat Mater), 4 antiphons, 8 hymns, and 18 villancicos, but it is highly probable that his authorship is hidden among the many anonymous works of the Portuguese and Spanish renaissance manuscripts. His music was popular, as attested by the appearance of copies in far-off places; for example native scribes copied two of his manuscripts in Guatemala. His motet Clamabat autem mulier Cananea was particularly praised by his contemporaries, and served as the source for instrumental pieces by later composers, namely Alonso Mudarra.
References and further reading
References and further reading
* * *

The Love villancico "Pásame, por Dios, barquero" (Spanish for "For God's sake, pass me boatman", a famous work by the Portuguese Renaissance composer Pedro de Escobar. Facsimile from the Elvas Songbook.
Pedro de Escobar · [1]
Text attribution
Licensing
Text attribution
Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Pedro de Escobar, revision 1263438817 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 3
- Reese, Gustave. Music in the Renaissance. W.W. Norton & Company. 1954. 0-393-09530-4.
- Stevenson, Robert. Escobar, Pedro de. vi. 243–244.
- Stevenson, Robert. Escobar, Pedro de. 24 February 2010. 10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.08972.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witness
People, houses and institutions
Knowledge graph
People, houses and institutions
Teachers, collaborators, publishers and institutions recorded against this person, each on a stated basis.
Citizenship
1- Kingdom of PortugalPlace
Established from a fact already recorded on a verified source.
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 24 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Music memorabilia
44,045 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Pedro Carmona-AlvarezPerson
- Pedro de AraújoPerson
- Pedro de ArdanazPerson
- Pedro de CristoPerson
- Pedro de Freitas BrancoPerson
- Pedro Elias GutiérrezPerson
- Pedro Espinosa LorenzoPerson
- Pedro EustachePerson
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Pedro de Escobar?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.