Doce villancicos

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The quantitatively and qualitatively great output of religious polyphonic works from the leading talents of the Spanish musical Renaissance (Morales, Guerrero and Victoria standing out among them) often make us forget or underestimate the similarly significant and abundant secular works of the polyphony of the time, as cultivated alongside the religious works from the time of Alfonso the Magnanimous and the later Catholic Kings, and finding in Juan del Encina their first outstanding exponent.
Juan Vasquez took up that tradition, working on the villancico (a short traditional song form) inherited from the fifteenth century, and he endeavoured to develop it in a new direction, closer to the madrigal trends coming from Italy at the time, and striking us as more highly worked. While pursuing that work on traditional song forms, he also composed a number of pieces on texts by the poets Boscán, Garcilaso de la Vega and others, the result being full-blown madrigals.