Composer · 1561 - 1631
Juan Blas de Castro
Biography
Juan Blas de Castro
(b ?Barrachina, Teruel province, c1561; d Madrid, 6 Aug 1631). Spanish composer, singer, guitarist and theorbo player.
On 11 August 1592 in Alba de Tormes (near Salamanca) he received 30 reales for vihuela strings in his capacity as musician to the 5th Duke of Alba. At the duke’s court he formed a lasting friendship with Lope de Vega, through whose Arcadia of 1598 we know that Blas de Castro sang and played at courtly festivities as well as setting Lope’s poems to music. In 1596 he was in the service of the future king, Felipe III, singing his own compositions in a scene incorporated by Lope into his comedy La bella malmaridada (dated Madrid, 17 December 1596), and in 1597 he entered the service of the aged Felipe II as a part-time chamber musician. At the accession of the new king in 1599 the chamber musicians obtained full-time posts with annual salaries of 30,000 maravedís, and Blas de Castro was offered an additional post as usher of the king’s privy chamber, with a total salary of 43,800 maravedís.