Office Hours: Tuesdays 2:00-4:00pm Goodspeed Hall 203

Email: miriamescudero@uchicago.edu

TA: Aimee González, aimeegonzalez@uchicago.edu

 

Please purchase from the Seminary Co-op: 

Carpentier, Alejo. Music in Cuba. Translated by Alan West-Durán, edited by Timothy Brennan. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001.

 

Week 1-: 26 and 28 March, 1:30-2:50pm.

I- The social role of sacred music and liturgy in colonial Latin America

Excerpt:

EL HADO Y LA CRUZ

Donde el teocalli tlaltelolca yace,

Humilde cruz de piedra se levanta;

Allí mi juventud sus penas canta,

Y en ver risueño el porvenir se place.                                             

 Eterno movimiento hace y deshace                                            

Tantos horrores y belleza tanta

Donde el hombre ya tiembla, ya se espanta;

Donde el requiescat perderá su in pace.

¡Ay de mí! Desde entonces mil historias

En otros monumentos ha dejado

Escritas con mi sangre el Hado mio.

 Hoy vuelvo aquí buscado mis memorias,

Y al verme solo entre la cruz y mi hado,

De mí, del hado y de la cruz me rio.

 Ignacio Ramírez, 1874

Ramírez, Ignacio, and Ignacio Manuel Altamirano. Obras de Ignacio Ramírez. México: Oficina Tip. de la Secretaría de Fomento, 1889, p. 83. (UC Library)

Contents:

a) The road of evangelization: “donde un Teocali, una cruz”. Laws of the Indies. Mission and missionaries. The Codex of Huehuetenango. Lilly Library, Indiana University. Translation and contrafacta: Teresiça hermana Dios es ya naçido.

b) New feasts, new Virgins and Saints in the New World: Virgin of Guadalupe (Mexico, 12 December 1531), Saint Rose of Lima (Peru, 23 August 1671), Our Lady of El Cobre (Cuba, 8 September 1612).

c) Liturgy: Transfer of music from Spain to Latin America between the 16th and 18th Centuries. Appropriations, transformation and functions of an imported repertoire. Roman texts; Mass and Office; feasts of the Church’s year from Advent to Corpus Christi.

d) Conditions of music making: reporting to the cathedral chapter; career advancement; networks of musicians.

Reading:  

- Filippi, Daniele V., and Michael J. (Michael John) Noone. Listening to Early Modern Catholicism: Perspectives from Musicology. Leiden: Brill, 2017. 15. “Sounds from Fortresses of Faith and Ideal Cities: Society, Politics, and Music in Missionary Activities in the Americas, 1525-1575” by Egberto Bermudez, pp. 301-325 (UC Library)

Recordings:

- CD Pedro Bermúdez. Música de la Catedral de Guatemala, siglo XVI. Ars Longa of Havana & Teresa Paz. Almaviva, 2008, track 3: Misa de Bomba (Kirie eleison), Pedro Bermúdez, and track 9: Dios es ya naçido, anónimo.

- CD Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi (Ars Longa of Havana) by Esteban Salas. K.617, 2004, track 1: Pueri Hebraeorum, Esteban Salas.

Bibliography:  

• Escudero, Miriam. Transfer of music from Spain to the Cathedral of Santiago de Cuba between the 16th and 18th centuries. Appropriations, transformation and functions of an imported repertoire (draft in English, 2016, Publish in Spanish 2013, on line).
• Harper, J. M. 1991. The forms and orders of Western liturgy from the tenth to the eighteenth century: a historical introduction and guide for students and musicians. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Baker, Geoffrey. 2008. Imposing Harmony: Music and Society in Colonial Cuzco. Durham: Duke University Press. (UC Library)

 

Week 2: 2 and 4 April, 1:30-2:50pm.

II- Dealing with texts

Excerpt:

A cantar un Villancico

cierto Sacristán se viene,

diciendo que es gran solfista,

porque en Lisboa fue seise.

Ya toma papel y canta

en maytines un juguete,

que será todo el aplauso

de música tan solemne…

 

A cantar un villancico Roque Ceruti (c.1683 - 1760).

Claro, Samuel. Antología de la Música Colonial en América del Sur. Santiago de Chile: Ediciones de la Universidad de Chile, 1974, p. 13-17. (UC Library)

 

Contents:

a) Paraliturgical repertoire: the role of the villancico.

b) Norms of villancico texts; their relation to other literary genres

c) Are villancicos only “poetry for music”?

d) The "ethnic villancico".

e) Transmission and circulation of villancico texts in colonial America and Spain

Readings:

b) Bègue, A. A literary and typological study of the late 17th-century villancico. Devotional Music in the Iberian World, 1450-1800. ed. T. Knighton; A. Torrente. Ashgate, 2007, pp. 231-282.

d) Baker, Geoff. The "ethnic villancico" and racial politics in seventeenth-century Mexico. Devotional Music in the Iberian World, 1450-1800. ed. T. Knighton; A. Torrente. Ashgate, 2007, pp. 399-408.

Recordings:

c) CD Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Le Phénix Du Mexique. France: K617, 1999, track 6: Los que tienen hambre. (UC Library).

d) CD Gaspar Fernandes: Cancionero musical de la Cathedrale d'Oaxaca. Ars Longa of Havana & Teresa Paz. K.617, 2003, track 18: Jesós de mi goraçón.

d) CD Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla. Música de la Catedral de Puebla de los Ángeles, siglo XVII. Ars Longa & Teresa Paz. Almaviva, 2005, track 3: ¡Ah, siolo Flasiquiyo!

d) CD Fiesta Criolla. Garrido, Gabriel, Alain Corneau, Ensemble Elyma, Conjunto de Música Antigua Ars Longa, and Cor Vivaldi.  [France]: K617: Harmonia Mundi, 2002, track 15: Oigan las fiestas de toros, Roque Jacinto de Chavarría. (UC Library)

Bibliography:

a) Laird, Paul R. Towards a History of the Spanish Villancico. Warren, Mich.: Harmonie Park Press, 1997. (UC Library)

c) Juana Inés de la Cruz, Sister, Margaret Sayers Peden, and Ilan Stavans. Poems, Protest, and a Dream: Selected Writings. New York, NY, USA: Penguin Books, 1997. (UC Library)

e) Escudero, Miriam. Transfer of music from Spain to the Cathedral of Santiago de Cuba between the 16th and 18th centuries. Appropriations, transformation and functions of an imported repertoire (draft in English, 2016, Publish in Spanish 2013, on line).

 

Week 3: 9 and 11 April, 1:30-2:50pm.

III- An approach to the idea of "barroco americano" through literature

Excerpt:

Subió el Maestro al pódium, agarró un violín, alzó el arco, y, con dos gestos enérgicos, desencadenó el más tremendo concerto grosso que pudieron haber escuchado los siglos —aunque los siglos no recordaron nada, y es lástima porque aquello era tan digno de oírse como de verse (…) Pero, entre tanto, Filomeno había corrido a las cocinas, trayendo una batería de calderos de cobre, de todos tamaños, a los que empezó a golpear con cucharas, espumaderas, batidoras, rollos de amasar, tizones, palos de plumeros, con tales ocurrencias de ritmos, de síncopas, de acentos encontrados, que, por espacio de treinta y dos compases lo dejaron solo para que improvisara.

Alejo Carpentier, Concierto Barroco, 1974, pp. 20-21

http://ww2.educarchile.cl/UserFiles/P0001/File/articles-106205_Archivo.pdf

Contents:

1. Alejo Carpentier, two proposals to understand the Latin American music: "barroco americano" and the "real maravilloso". The short story Oficio de Tinieblas and the novel Concierto Barroco, chapter V.

Readings:

• Carpentier, Alejo. Concierto Barroco: Novela. México: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1974. (Spanish original UC Library). Capítulo V.
• Carpentier, Alejo. Concierto Barroco. Tulsa, Okla.: Chicago, Ill.: Council Oak Books/Hecate with the University of Tulsa; Distributed by Independent Publishers Group, 1988. (English translation UC Library). Carpentier, Alejo. Baroque Concerto. London: Deutsch, 1991 (English translation UC Library). Chapter V.
• Janney, Frank, and Alejo Carpentier. Alejo Carpentier and His Early Works. London: Tamesis : [Distributed by Grant & Cutler], 1981. (Oficio de Tinieblas, English translation UC Library).
• Lambert, Gregg. The Return of the Baroque in Modern Culture. London: New York: Continuum, 2004. Selection (on line):
  • The baroque return: Alejo Carpentier's Concierto Barroco
  • Conclusion: one or many baroques?

 

Week 4: 16 and 18 April, 1:30-2:50pm.

IV- Inculturating the performance

Excerpt:

“Abbado ha intuito che la sapienza «popolare» dei musicisti cubani avrebbe dato al madrigale «colto» italiano una voce nouva. Ha chiamato nella terra d’origine di Gesualdo Teresa Paz e i suoi musicisti, ha lavorato insieme a loro per un’intera settimana, e alla fine la semina del vento ha raccolto la giusta «tempesta»: un concerto (prima horma lasciata dal festival gesualdino «Tracce») che ha avvicinato le coste lontane del madrigale classico italiano e del leggendario Cancionero della cattedrale messicana di Oaxaca, prezioso specchio musicale del siglo de oro latino-americano”.

 GUIDO BARBIERI («Madrigali in salsa cubana. Abbado rilegge Gesualdo», La Repubblica, 1 November 2004)

Contents:

a) The DNA of Latin America as the confluence of the three main cultural worlds: the native American, the European and the African. The “ajiaco” of Don Fernando Ortiz.

b) “The return of The Caravels”: Ars Longa Early Music Ensemble and the European curiosity for the Latin American early music.

c) Historical Performance of Early Music in Latin America.

Readings:

Ortiz, Fernando, Fernando Coronil --, Bronislaw Malinowski --, and Herminio Portell Vila --. Cuban Counterpoint, Tobacco and Sugar. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995, pp. 97-103. (UC Library)

Baker, Geoff. Latin American Baroque: performance as a post-colonial act?

Early Music, Volume 36, Issue 3, 1 August 2008, Pages 441–448, https://doi.org/10.1093/em/can082

Recordings:

• CD Gulumbá, gulumbé. Resonancias de África en el Nuevo Mundo (negrillas de los siglos XVI y XVII). Ars Longa of Havana & Teresa Paz, Colibrí, 2013, track 4, Antoniya, Flaciquiya, Gacipá, Fray Felipe de la Madre de Dios
• CD Vêpres de San Ignacio. Domenico Zipoli. Gabriel Garrido, Martin Schmid, Coro de Niños Cantores de Córdoba, and Ensemble Elyma. AFAA, 1992, track 1, Deus in adjutorium – Domine ad adjuvandum. (UC Library)
• CD Decir lo que el alma siente. Códice Baltazar Martínez Compañón 1782-1785. Proyecto Pequeñas huellas, 2006, track 1 Cachua para el nacimiento de Nuestro Señor Jesucristo a voz y bajo.

Bibliography:

Illari, Bernardo. The popular, the sacred, the colonial and the local: the performance of identities in the villancicosfrom Sucre (Bolivia). Devotional Music in the Iberian World, 1450-1800. ed. T. Knighton; A. Torrente. Ashgate, 2007, pp. 409-440.

“The return of The Caravels”: Ars Longa Early Music Ensemble and the European curiosity for the Latin American early music by Miriam Escudero (draft in English, 2017, on line)

 

Week 5: 23 and 25 April, 1:30-2:50pm.

V- The hell are the others: what was going on with the African-American culture in the meantime?

Excerpt:

(…) los curas no consientan hacer duelo, ni llantos por los difuntos, como se suele hacer entre los negros por los suyos, y por sus amos difuntos, dando grandes alaridos, mesándose los cabellos y haciendo otras demostraciones que no son de cristianos y causan al enterrar los difuntos mucha confusión, y no se pueden hacer los oficios divinos.

Catholic Church. Diocese of Santiago de Cuba (Cuba). Synod (1681), and Juan García de Palacios. Sínodo De Santiago De Cuba De 1681. Madrid: Salamanca: Instituto "Francisco Suárez", C.S.I.C.; Instituto de Historia de la Teología, 1982, lib. 3, tit. 6, const. XV. (UC Library)

 

Contents:

a) Intercultural process through the conformation of Latin American Music: hybridization, transculturation and syncretism.

b) Federico Mialhe’s “Three Kings’ Day”: the importance of prints in the study of Cuban musical iconography.

Readings:

Côté, J. 2010. VI. From Transculturation to Hybridization: Redefining Culture in the Americas. In Benessaieh, A. (Ed.), Amériques transculturelles/ Transcultural Americas. Les Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa | University of Ottawa Press. Extraído de http://books.openedition.org/uop/363

Escudero, Miriam. Federico Mialhe’s “Three Kings’ Day”: the importance of prints in the study of 19th Century Cuban musical iconography. Cuadernos de Iconografía Musical de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, vol. I, núm. 1, 2014, pp. 61-89. (on line)

Recordings:

• CD Shangó, Lázaro Ros. Colección Leyenda. Sello Unicornio, Abdala, 2000. Track, 4 Wuemilere.
• Antología de la Musica Afrocubana: [Anthology of Afro-Cuban Music]. Habana, Cuba: EGREM, 2006. (UC Library)
• Cabrera, Lydia, and Josefina Tarafa. Havana & Matanzas, Cuba, Ca. 1957: Batá, Bembé, and Palo Songs. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, 2003. (UC Library)

Bibliography:

Eli Rodríguez, Victoria, and Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo de la Música Cubana. Instrumentos de la Música Folclórico-popular de Cuba. La Habana: Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo de la Música Cubana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1997. (UC Library)

Guanche, Jesús. Iconografía de africanos y descendientes en Cuba: Estudio, Catálogo e Imágenes. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2016 (I will donate it)

León, Argeliers. Del canto y el tiempo. La Habana: Pueblo y Educación, 1987, pp. 35-58, Chapter Música Yoruba.

 

Weeks 6-7: 30 April, 2, 7 and 9 May, 1:30-2:50pm.

VI- Treasures of Latin American Cultural Heritage: music as document

Excerpt:

American Colonial Music: a sample of its documentary richness

Documentary heritage submitted by Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico and Peru and recommended for inclusion in the Memory of the World Register in 2007.

The documentary collections of music from the 16th to the 18th century from different countries of the American continent are an essential part of the cultural history of the New World in all aspects: religious and lay, civil and political, cultural and popular, vocal and instrumental, mystic and dramatic, renaissance, baroque and classic. They constitute the testimony of different cultures (Indigenous, African and European) which mixed and gave birth, to a new culture, not completely western, nor Hispanic, nor purely American, for three centuries.

Year of inscription: 2007

Contents:

1. Types of music documents: annotated music, recordings, documents of musical management, music press, instruments, iconography.
2. Main libraries and archives of Latin American baroque music.
3. Web resources of Latin America baroque music.
4. Management of baroque music in Latin America: the current status of the issue

Readings:

Reyes Gallegos, Artemisa M. 2016. “Los acervos de documentos musicales. ¿Libros raros, libros especiales?” Investigación Bibliotecológica: Archivonomía, Bibliotecología e Información 70: 129-165. (English version on line)

Gómez, González P. J, Rodicio E. Casares, and Catedral S. Archivo. El Archivo de los Sonidos: La Gestión de Fondos Musicales. Salamanca: Asociación de Archiveros de Castilla y León, 2008, pp. 91-122.

Week 8-9-10: 14, 16, 21, 23 and 30 May, 1:30-2:50pm.

VII- Case study: Music in Cuba in the era of Esteban Salas (1725-1803)

Excerpt:

«For the honor due Cuba’s first native-born musical genius,

Salas’s opera omnia deserves a critical edition»

Robert Stevenson

Esteban Salas y Castro (1725-1803): Cuba’s consummate cathedral composer. Inter-American Music Review (Vol. XV, No. 2, 1996, p. 80).

 

Contents:

1. Earthquakes, cathedrals, and repertories.
2. Reconstructing musical scenes and careers.
3. A research model that includes actions such as locating, classifying, transcribing and disseminating the most important and ancient heritage of music preserved on the island.
4. A review of Cuban Musical Heritage Collections: Patrimonio Musical Cubano, Música Sacra de Cuba, siglo XVIII and Documentos Sonoros del Patrimonio Musical Hispano
5. The experience of the “Gabinete de Patrimonio Musical Esteban Salas” and its role in the management of music in the Historic Center of Old Havana.

Readings:

• Pérez, L. A. (2015). Cuba: Between reform and revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, chapter 2 (UC Library)
• Carpentier, Alejo, Timothy Brennan --, and Timothy Brennan. Music in Cuba. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001, chapter 5 (English translation UC Library or buy it)
• Escudero, Miriam. Investigación e interpretación de la música colonial latinoamericana: Pablo Hernández Balaguer, la música antigua y la Revista Musical Chilena. Revista Musical Chilena, Año LXVII, julio-diciembre, 2013, N° 220, pp. 76-93 (on line)
• Escudero, Miriam. «Noticias sobre música en el Papel Periódico de la Havana (1790-1805)» en Música de salón en publicaciones periódicas, La Habana, 1829-1867. Libro I. Colección Patrimonio Musical Cubano, Ediciones CIDMUC, La Habana, 2017, pp. 21-47 (on line)

Recordings:

• CD Nativité à Santiago de Cuba. Ars Longa of Havana by Esteban Salas. K617, 2001.
• CD Cantus in Honore Beatae Mariae Virginis. Salas, Esteban, Teresa Paz, Conjunto de Música Antigua Ars Longa, and Cathédrale de Metz. Maîtrise. K617, 2002 (UC Library)
• CD Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi (Ars Longa of Havana) by Esteban Salas. K.617, 2004.
• CD-USB Música Catedralicia de Cuba. Villancicos y repertorio litúrgico de Esteban Salas (La Habana, 1725-Santiago de Cuba, 1803). Labels: Colibrí and La Ceiba, 2016. (I will donate it to UC Library).
• CD-DVD Música Catedralicia de Cuba. Repertorio litúrgico de Cayetano Pagueras (Barcelona-La Habana, siglo XVIII). Labels: Colibrí and La Ceiba, 2013. (I will donate it to UC Library).

 

Week 11: 4 and 6 June, 1:30-2:50pm.

Student presentations of projects

Grades will depend on the following: (1) class participation and discussion; (2) short in-class reports on articles or pieces (1 per student); (3) final paper due on 3 June; length: for undergrads: 10-12 pages; for grad students: 20-22 pages