(b Castrillo de Matajudíos, 1510; d Madrid, 26 March 1566). Spanish organist and composer. Blind and of noble extraction, he was educated in Palencia, appointed organist to Queen Isabella and later performed in the Spanish chamber consort of Charles V. After Isabella's death in 1539 he served Philip II, whom he accompanied on numerous journeys abroad, both influencing and being influenced by foreign music. Cabezón ranked among the foremost keyboard performers and composers of his time. His compositions, most of them printed by his son Hernando in 1578, include tientos (short imitative works), glosas (keyboard versions of vocal pieces), diferencias (variation cycles mostly based on Spanish cancionero tunes), falsobordone, versos, canons and hymns. He created an idiomatic keyboard style, free of empty rhetoric and stereotyped figuration, and through the masterly use of dissonances, chromaticism and harmonic-melodic tension developed a language of expressive intensity, coloured by daring modulations. His brother Juan (1510/19-1566) and two sons, Augustín (d before 1564) and Hernando (1541-1602) were also musicians at the Spanish court.

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