Luis de Mila, a composer working for…

Luis de Mila, a composer working for the Spanish court, publishes El Libro de Vihuela de mano intitulado El Maestro (“The Master’s Book of Vihuela Compositions”) in Valencia in 1535.

This is one of the earliest collections of instrumental and vocal music for the vihuela, a plucked instrument functionally equivalent to Italy’s lute, which the flat-backed, six-coursed vihuela has displaced in Spain.

A smaller version of the vihuela with four courses (pairs of strings tuned in unison) comes to be referred to specifically as the guitar.

Although the ballads in Milan’s collection form part of the folklore of the common people, the composer applies a new, idiomatic treatment of instrumental sound in such genres as the prelude and fantasia for vihuela.