"Among the most inspired and profound works in the sixteenth century keyboard repertoire" is the phrase one musician and historian uses to describe a set of Spanish tientos published in 1578, and fully six of them were by Antonio de Cabezón. Cabezón, the blind organist who was playing for the royal family of Spain already in his teens, and probably helped take the entire Spanish genre into a new realm. Early sixteenth century examples survive, yet tend to be conservative contrapuntal pieces for organ, resembling the four-voiced imitative motets of Josquin and the generation following him. With Cabezón, such conservative tientos live alongside much more inventive works, pieces that adopt a plainchant tone (sometimes even a fragment of chant) and fantasize upon it. His third tiento (on the first tone) remains one of the most spectacular.

From the opening notes of the piece, Cabezón sets up the listener to follow a well-known melody and expect variations upon it. His "theme" is the opening of the great Marian antiphon Salve regina, but with a sudden chromatic inflection on the second note. He introduces the theme in all four voices, and then begins to work with it. Not only does he expand upon the first melody, but soon he takes it in completely new directions, transforming it into a more energetic contrapuntal motive in running notes. Likewise, a second and subsidiary theme that appears shortly thereafter, marked by imitation as with the first theme, morphs into a brisk dotted-note variation on the theme, again in imitation. Yet a third subject appears, with virtuosic counterpoint below, followed immediately by an extended bass solo; above this showy and rhythmically exciting bass line, bare chords echo the Salve regina melody of the opening.

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