Sebastián Raval

Sebastián Raval (c. 1550 – 1604) was a Spanish composer of vocal and instrumental music. Born in Cartagena, he served as a soldier of the Army of Flanders in Flanders and Sicily. 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.

Sebastián Raval died in Palermo in 1604.

In 2004, the city of Cartagena, his birth city, paid homage to him, on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of his death, with a concert conducted by the violist Pere Ros.

Raval composed religious polyphonic music, madrigals and instrumental ricercari. Raval's oeuvre has not yet studied in depth. Only a few pieces have been published in modern times; the rest await the musicological research they deserve.

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