ORGAN*ELLE – Organ music by female composers and organists.
Gracia Baptista (c. 1500 – c. 1600) – a Spanish nun and Renaissance composer from Avila, whose setting of “Conditor alme” is the earliest keyboard work by an Iberian female composer and the first published composition by a female composer ever. In 1557, the work was published in the “Libro de cifra nueva para tecla, arpa y vihuela” by Luis Venegas de Henestrosa, a collection of music at the court of Carlos V.
Sr. Gracia Baptista frames the cantus firmus of the Conditor alme siderunt (Advent hymn “Creator of the Stars of Night”) with an astonishingly dynamic melody, creating a small polyphonic masterpiece of its time.
0:00 Intonation (own)
0:40 Hymn (G. Baptista)
https://youtu.be/EtucNqD2ZVQ
https://www.youtube.com/@rwsonic/videos
Score: IMSLP913978-PMLP1181789-Conditor_alme_de_Gracia_Baptista_monja.pdf, Editor: Juan María Pedrero, Publisher info: Juan María Pedrero, 2024, Copyright: CC BY-SA 4.0