PROGRAM

 

Para Dar Luz Inmortal  

Mission Santa Clara - Compiled by Narciso Duran (1776-1846) - California

 

Tleycantimo Choquiliya (My pleasures, My Passion)

Gaspar Fernándes (ca. 1565-1629) - Puebla, Mexico

 

Cachua: La Despedida, de Guamachuco         

Anonymous, Codex Martínez Compañón, (s. XVIII) - Trujillo, Peru

 

Angelica Milicias

Manuel de Zumaya (1678-1755) - Oaxaca, Mexico

 

Lanchas Para Baylar    

Codex Martínez Compañón 

 

Concierto Pizzicato      

Anonymous, Musical Archive of Chiquitos y Moxos, Ed. P. Nawrot - Bolivia

 

Entre los Alamos Verdes       

Anonymous, Codex Zuola (s. XVII) - Cuzco, Peru

 

Desvelado Dueño Mio  

Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco (1644­-1728) - Lima, Peru

 

Misa a la Fuga de St. Joseph         

Arr. Giovanni Battista Bassani (1650-1716) - Musical Archive of Chiquitos, Ed. P. Nawrot

 

Xochipitzahuatl (Flor Menuda)       

Anonymous, Traditional - Central Mexico

 

Tonada del Congo       

Codex Martínez Compañón 

 

Eso Rigor e Repente    

Gaspar Fernándes

 

Andres, Do queda el Ganado?       

Gaspar Fernándes

 

A Este Sol Peregrino    

Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco

  

 

GASPAR FERNÁNDES

Portuguese-born composer Gaspar Fernándes arrived in the New World in 1599 and served first as organist and chapel master at the cathedral in Guatemala, moving to what is now Mexico in 1606 where he worked in Puebla until his death in 1629.

 

TOMÁS DE TORREJÓN Y VELASCO

Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco was born and raised in Spain, but he pursued his musical career in Peru. He is best known as the composer of the earliest surviving opera written in the New World, titled “La Púrpura De La Rosa.”

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MANUEL DE ZUMAYA

Manuel de Sumaya, or Zumaya (b. 1680 Mexico City, d. 1755 Oaxaca), was a composer, organist, and chapel master who is usually considered the most prolific representative of Baroque music in the Americas. Author of the first Mexican opera, Zumaya’s music is found in collections in the cathedrals of Mexico and Oaxaca and other churches from the New Spain territories, now part of the US and Guatemala.

 

CODEX MARTÍNEZ COMPAÑÓN

Codex Martínez Compañón is the first folkloric research done in America in the dioceses of Trujillo by the bishop Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañón y Bujanda (1737-1797). During his extensive visit to his spiritual domains, Martínez Compañón made notes on the most diverse aspects observed in the life of the people of his diocese, including 1,411 beautiful watercolors, 38 of which refer directly or indirectly to music. Included on his notes are 20 music manuscripts of transcriptions of what he heard while people were singing and dancing.

 

CODEX ZUOLA 

The Codex Zuola from Cuzco, Peru, was one of the first documents about ancient Latin American music. This important collection of anonymous music was brought together by Fray Gregorio de Zuola, a Franciscan, who served some dozen years at Cochabamba in what is now Bolivia (1666-1678), and later transferred to the Urquillos and Cuzco where he died on November 28, 1709. The songs on the Zuola codex are of great interest because they can be seen as an intermediary between the Hispanic tradition of tonos humanos, and the traditional monody of the Andes area of Peru, Chile and Argentina.

 

 

HISTORY

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The Spanish conquest of the New World began within a few years of its exploration and Indigenous populations were enslaved through a system of forced labor. Free Africans came to the New World beginning in 1492, but as early as 1513 the Spanish began to import African slaves to work in mines and on plantations. Although set against this backdrop of enslavement and abuse, the Catholic Church, in some cases, worked to create ties with the Indigenous and African populations. On an institutional level they were working to acculturate these populations into Spanish culture and religious practices. However, many individuals worked to preserve Indigenous languages and cultural artifacts, attempting to derive inspiration from the people of this new land for their own edification and for future generations. Preferring to shun the rigidity of the Old World, they embraced the seemingly limitless wonders of this New World. In an effort to reach out to ethnic communities, Spanish church composers incorporated Indigenous languages—African-Spanish or Portuguese dialects—and characteristic rhythmic elements, from both cultures, into newly composed music. Many of these compositions are in the form of villancicos centered on the celebration of Christmas. Other composers and clerics just wrote down what they heard in town squares, on the street, and in the countryside. These codices were treasures that are rarely heard nowadays. These multicultural mixings of European melodies and harmonic structure with African and Indigenous rhythms and melodies underpin traditional Latin American music today.