Welcome to Hyperion Records, an independent British classical label devoted to presenting high-quality recordings of music of all styles and from all periods from the twelfth century to the twenty-first.

Hyperion offers both CDs, and downloads in a number of formats. The site is also available in several languages.

Please use the dropdown buttons to set your preferred options, or use the checkbox to accept the defaults.

Esquivel, Juan (c1560-before 1630)
from the 1608 Missarum liber primus

Juan Esquivel

born: c1560
died: before 1630
country: Spain

Juan Esquivel was a native of Ciudad Rodrigo, a city some sixty-five miles southwest of Salamanca, and not far from the Portuguese border. His year of birth is uncertain but may have been 1560, for he became enrolled at the cathedral in 1568 as a mozo de coro. This probably meant choirboy; the records often made no distinction between that and altar boy. As a chorister he would have been taught for a few years by the maestro de capilla Juan Navarro, who a decade earlier at Ávila had succeeded Ribera; both masters had been in charge of the boys Victoria and Vivanco.

We find nothing more of Esquivel until he is in his first post at Oviedo Cathedral. From there he moved to Calahorra (La Rioja) in 1585. He returned to his own city in 1591. He stayed there for the rest of his life, obviously a proud citizen, giving his name as Ioannis Esquivel Civitatensis (a citizen of Ciudad Rodrigo). He is sometimes found as Juan Esquivel [de] Barahona, it being the Spanish custom to add the mother’s family name. Throughout his career he was patronized by Don Pedro Ponce de León, Bishop of Ciudad Rodrigo and later of Zamora, a nobleman and Franciscan friar. Esquivel is unlikely to have lived beyond 1630, but once again we have no certainty; the cathedral archives remain lost up to the 1640s.

from notes by Bruno Turner © 2020

Albums

Waiting for content to load...

Complete works available for download

Alphabetical listing of all musical works

Waiting for content to load...
Waiting for content to load...