Sebastián Raval

He joined the order of St. John of Jerusalem after being wounded in the siege of Maastricht. He moved to Italy where he served as a musician in the court of Francesco Maria II della Rovere in Urbino, of the viceroy of Sicily, Bernardino de Cárdenas, and of the cardinals Peretti and Colonna in Rome. In Rome, he declared himself the "best musician in the world", on account of which he was challenged to a musical contest first by Giovanni Maria Nanino and shortly afterwards by Francesco Soriano. Raval was defeated in both cases. On 28 April 1595 he succeeded Luis Ruiz as the last Spanish maestro di cappella of the viceroyal chapel of the Spanish viceroys in Palermo. In Sicily, he again challenged a musician, Achille Falcone, to a contest; it was first decided in Falcone's favour but, after some appeals, in Raval's. After Falcone's death in 1600, Antonio Falcone, father of Achille, published all the process of this musical duel in his Relazione del successo and took Raval and Falcone's pieces (the object of this competition) to print including several canons, madrigals, motets and ricercari. This edition of both Falcone and Raval's pieces is available in a modern edition.

Raval composed religious polyphonic music, madrigals and instrumental ricercari. Raval's oeuvre has not yet been studied in depth. Only a few pieces have been published in modern times; the rest await the musicological research they deserve. Sacred: • Motectorum liber primus. 5 vv (Rome 1593) • Lamentationes Hieremiae Prophetae. 5 vv Rome 1594 • Motecta Selecta organo Accommodata. 3-8 vv. org. (Palermo 1600) Secular: • Il Primo Libro de Madrigali. 5vv (Venice 1593) • Il Pimo Libro di Canzonette. 4 VV (Venice 1593) • Madrigali 3, 5, 8 vv (Rome 1595) • Il Primo Libro di Ricercari (Palermo 1596) • 2 Madrigals in "Infidi Lumi" (Palermo 1603) (lost)