Gabriel Díaz Bessón

From 1616 he was capellán for Francisco Gómez de Sandoval y Rojas, 1st Duke of Lerma, the favourite of Philip III of Spain.

The Duke maintained a musical establishment in Lerma, Burgos, where the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter was consecrated in 1617.

[1] On the accession of Philip IV of Spain in 1621 Díaz Bessón was capellán at Granada Cathedral, then at Córdoba (1624–1631), and finally at the Convent of Las Descalzas Reales, Madrid.

In 1628 he was succeeded as maestro de capilla of the Royal Convent of La Encarnación in Madrid by Carlos Patiño who was then, five years later in 1634, chosen ahead of Díaz Bessón to succeed the Flemish-born Mateo Romero as the first Spanish-born maestro of the Flemish chapel (capilla flamenca).

[3] Díaz Bessón composed in all the major genres: masses, requiem, motets, psalms, antiphons, hymns, tonos humanos, villancicos.