Given Milán’s statement that El Maestro is arranged in order of progressive difficulty, this first piece is not really all that simply, although in three voices. It is a sectional polythematic imitative fantasia. The number of sections in the work depends on the criteria used for analysing it. The view of it given in the Analysis here gives one coherent view, but should not be taken as a definitive analysis.

The work divides into 3 large periods [A B C] that have numerous independent episodes [I-V] as follows:
A – I (1-20) - II (20-35)
B – III (36-46) / IV (46-59)
C – V (60-74) / VI (75-85)

The work has a clear harmonic plan that complements the thematically based structure. This fantasia is unusual in that themes from earlier sections appear again later in the work as themes of new sections, but used in a different way.

Period A
• Episode I (1-20) is built from themes 1 (bars 1-9) & 2 (10-20), both imitatively. 1st interlocking, in 3 bar phrases, the second in non-interlocking 2-bar phrases with a more extended cadence.
• Episode II (20-35) interlocks into the cadence of episode I. The theme (theme 3) is give three times successively followed by a free cadence. The final passage, from b.30 is a coda built from theme 4, almost an inversion of theme 3. The final cadence here marks a clear conclusion of the entire first period of the work.

Period B
• Episode III (36-46) Theme 5 is used imitatively, beginning unusually on the 3rd of the previous chord. The imitations give way to four bars of free polyphony and a return to the modal final.
• Episode IV (46-59) Built on imitations of theme 3 (ascending) in the lower voices, and theme 4 (descending), followed by four bars of free polyphony to effect the close of the period on the mode 1 dominant, A.

Period C
• Episode V commences with what seems like a reiteration of theme 5, imitated in the bass, but then developing as a sweeping treble melody in bars 68-74, again concluding on the modal repercussio, A.
• Episode VI. A clearly terminal episode, due to the repition of its main substance (all the voices), bars 75-79 (cadence on A) and 79-85 (cadence on D). The texture is in three voices and non-imitative, with a strong upper-voice melody that gives continuity from the previous episode.