El relojero

This villancico, El relojero, is by Manuel Ossette. The text, in Spanish, tells a colourful story about a foreign watchmaker selling his wares. It opens with the watchmaker arriving to sell famous clocks, and a customer, a dandy, asks for a watch with seals and a chain, to which the watchmaker replies he would not want to be chained to it if he paid attention to the watchmaker. The musical forces are SSTTB or T.SSTB, making it suitable for a larger mixed-voice choir or a smaller ensemble with a prominent tenor voice. The villancico form is a Spanish art-song, often with a narrative or descriptive text, and this work fits that tradition.