Franciscus [Francisco]  Soto [de Langa] {Pius IV- Paul V}

Soprano castrato; Osma [born in Langa]; admitted 6 June 1562 [ according to the list in DS  6, fol. 25r];  mandati : June 1562-March 1568, December 1568-October 1571, January 1580-November 1586, list of 1573,  DS  lists of July 1577, June 1578, 1587-1590;  died at the age of 85 or 86 on 25 September 1619 in Rome and was buried in Santa Maria in Vallicella;  punctator , 1570;  abbas , 1582, dean as of ;  maestro di cappella , 1587, 1588, 1591.

The identification of Soto as a castrato is made by Pietro della Valle in his Discorso della musica dell’età nostra (1640) where he lauds the soprano castrati of the present day and refers to two "such sopranos" of the past, Soto and Girolamo Rosini. In 1566, Soto began frequenting Filippo Neri’s Oratorio, where he was noted for his singing of laude, and in 1571 joined the Congregazione dell’Oratorio, being ordained a priest in 1575. None of this seems to have interfered with his duties in the papal chapel; indeed a number of papal singers of the 16th and 17th centuries enjoyed close relationships with the Congregazione (and the official burying place of the papal singers is now to be found in Santa Maria in Vallicella--the Chiesa Nuova built for the Padri Filippini). In 1587, when Soto was acting as maestro di cappella of the papal chapel (the second singer to hold this position, see Chapter 1) and overseeing the difficult negotiations concerning the choir’s benefice in Mantua (see Chapter 2), he was actually residing with the Filippini and even became their first "praefectus musices tum in choro tum in oratiorio" in June of that year. He was intimately connected with the musical publications of the Congregazione dell’Oratorio, editing five volumes of laudi spirituali that were published in the late 16th century (see TNG).

CELANI gives an epitaph found in S. Giuseppe a Capo, the convent for Discalced Carmelites Soto founded in 1591:

D. O. M./FRANCISCO SOTO HISPANO DIOECES. OXONEN./PRESBYTERO CONGREGATIONIS S. PHILIPPO NERIO/INSTITUAE ELECTO/QUOD SERAPHICAE S. MATRIS THERESIAE FILIIS/PRIMUS PRIMO HOC MONASTERIUM/IN URBE EXTRUI CURAVERIT/BENEFECTORI OPT. FUNDAT. BENEMERENTISSIMO/MONIALES CARM. EXCALCEATAE HIC DEGENTES/GRATIANIMI MONUMENTUM POSUERE/VIXIT LAUDABILITER ANN. LXXXV/DIE OBIIT XXV SEPTEMBR. A. D. MDCXIX

 

DOCUMENTS

Libro delli morti of Santa Maria in Vallicella

p. 138 [CELANI, p. 755]

R. P. Franciscus Soto Congregationis Oratorii de Urbe presbyter, Hispanus Capellae SS.mi Decanus cantorum anno 86, munitus omnibus Ecclesiae sacramentis die 25 settembris et in D.no quievit et sepultus est in nostra Ecclesiae apud Patres Congregationis.

DS

entry dated 25 September 1619 [CELANI, p. 755]

Si sono congregati tutti li sig. compagni alla Chiesa nuova per essere andato a miglior vita il R. Sig. Francesco Soto giubilato e decano. Spirò questa mattina alle 14 hore, furono intimati tutti a trovarsi come si è detto di sopra alla Vallicella a 22 hore per cantare il Libera me Domine, mentre il corpo dimorava in chiesa, come fu fatto.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: CELANI, pp. 755-756; FREY, Die Diarien, p. 144; SOLERTI, Angelo. Le Origini del Melodramma (Torino, 1903; rpt. Bologna, 1983); STEVENSON, Robert.  Spanish Cathedral Music in the Golden Age  (Berkeley, 1961); MORELLI, Arnaldo. Il Tempo Armonico: Musica nell’Oratorio dei Filippini in Roma (1575-1705). Analecta Musicologica 27 (1991).