The Origins, History, and Development of the Tiento de medio registro from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century

Abstract

ABSTRACT “The Origins, History, and Development of the Tiento de medio registro from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century” The tiento de medio registro was one of the most popular types of organ music in the Iberian Peninsula from the late sixteenth century until the beginning of the eighteenth century. A subgenre of the tiento, this form was originally developed in the 1530s as a means to “try out” a lute or vihuela. The resultant keyboard style by the same name usually featured alternating sections of imitative, chordal, and figurative material. Composers of these pieces, including well-known Iberian figures such as Sebastián Aguilera de Heredia (1561-1627), Francisco Correa de Arauxo (1584-1654), and Juan Cabanilles (1644-1712), employed the registro partido—the divided organ manual, usually split between c' and c#'—in order to exploit the diverse registrational capabilities of Iberian organs; as a result, they produced a large corpus of literature written explicitly for instruments containing this construction technique. Their resultant output displays a variety of formal structures and styles, with complexity and length expanding over time. By the mid-eighteenth century the number of tientos de medio registros waned, as the genre—already considered archaic—was gradually replaced by new Classical genres such as the sonata. Chapter 1 provides the background of the origins of the tiento genre, including those written for vihuela and keyboard, and includes considerations of extant publications and treatises containing theoretical information pertaining to their construction. Chapter 2 examines the development of the Iberian organ from its pan-European roots prior to the sixteenth century to the emergence of an instrument containing elements, such as the registro partido and horizontal reeds, which would become synonymous with Iberian organs—despite the fact that they were often constructed by builders from other countries. Chapter 3 concentrates on the origins and development of the registro partido in Spain, Portugal, and the New World, as well as its equivalents throughout the rest of Europe. This approach to organ building quickly spread throughout the peninsula (particularly in Castile) and made the tiento de medio registro possible; its tremendous popularity is shown by archetypical stoplists from important organ-building hubs. Chapter 4 is an overview of the tiento de medio registro literature and its representative composers. Musical examples demonstrate that there existed both a degree of standardization and compositional traits unique to individual composers. Chapter 5 presents a guide for the effective registration and performance of the Iberian repertoire on modern-day instruments. The tiento de medio registro constitutes a substantial percentage of the surviving Spanish and Portuguese organ repertoire, exhibiting the importance of the registro partido, as well as the Iberian proclivity for timbral contrasts and virtuosity. Through the examination of these pieces one comes to understand the aesthetic ideals that guided Iberian organ composition for well over two hundred years.