Ensalada (music)

The ensalada (Spanish for salad) is a genre of polyphonic secular music mixing languages and dialects and nonsensical quodlibets. The term is known mainly through a publication, Las Ensaladas de Flecha Prague (1581), by Mateo Flecha the Younger, that contains six long four-part vocal compositions by his uncle Mateo Flecha (1481–1553). Each of these ensaladas is divided into several sections, ranging from seven to twelve. The music is for four voices. Apart from the ensaladas by Mateo Flecha, there are also two examples by Mateo Flecha the younger, two by Pere Alberch Vila, several by Bartolomé Cárceres, one by the unknown F. Chacón and several anonymous sources. There is also an instrumental ensalada for organ by Sebastián Aguilera de Heredia.