He conducted his first work at the age of 16 in Santander, and shortly afterwards, after receiving a scholarship from the provincial government of Vizcaya, he moved to Rome, Italy, to study.
On his return to Spain, passing through Paris, he was hired as director of the Real Teatro San Juan in Oporto, Portugal where he stayed for several seasons from 1872.
In Madrid, he was a respected composer in the Teatro Circo for many years, and premiered Fifth and a Substitute, Harry the Devil, Pablo and Virginia, in collaboration with Emilio Arrieta and José Inzenga, A Throne and a Disappointment.
His production, although less in quantity to that of his contemporaries Ruperto Chapí, Gerónimo Giménez and Manuel Fernández Caballero, is of a high quality.
On the other hand, he wrote symphonic music with a singular insistence, at the same time in which in Spain great orchestral ensembles scarcely existed.