Manuel Rodrigues Coelho
1555 — 1635
Manuel Rodrigues Coelho was a Portuguese organist and composer. He is the first important Iberian keyboard composer since Cabezón.
Adapted from the Wikipedia article on Manuel Rodrigues Coelho.
From the period sources
Manuel Rodrigues Coelho is noted as an organist, with his work “Flores de Musica” specifically mentioned in the Biographie universelle des musiciens et bibliographie générale de la musique (1880). This same source suggests that Coelho’s work is “as rare” as Francisco Corrêa de Araujo’s significant organ treatise, Facultad organica, and implies it cannot be compared to Araujo’s, perhaps indicating a higher regard for Coelho’s compositions. Indeed, the influence of Coelho’s style and his Flores de Musica is recognized in the “savamment écrits” examples found in the manuscript of Philippe da Annunciaçâo’s Acompanhamentos para Orgâo (1754), according to the Biographie universelle. Coelho is also listed among composers who engaged with the “modinha” form of song, appearing “a little later” than prominent 18th-century figures, as recorded in Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1908, 1922). The New Encyclopedia of Music and Musicians (1924) places him in the 17th century.