The Impact of the Council of Trent on Composers

Mike Downey: Juan de Esquivel Barraona is a composer with whom I've spent a lot of time. He was born in Ciudad Rodrigo, southwest of Salamanca on the road from Portugal into the center of Spain. We don't have much documentation for him because it was a city that was destroyed during the Napoleonic Wars and wars of Spanish succession. But we know he probably had some interaction with a composer by the name of Juan Navarro who was actually working at Ciudad Rodriquez's cathedral. And so there was actually a very long court battle between two composers over which one would be chosen to do this or that.