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Colonial Music in Colombia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Robert Stevenson
Robert Stevenson*
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles, California
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Extract

The list of memorable European musicians working in New Granada begins with a chance arrival at Cartagena in 1537—Juan Pérez Materano. Dispatched from Spain with a royal appointment to head the music in a Mexican or Central American cathedral, he landed first at Cartagena. In a letter to Charles V dated October 7, 1537, the Cartagena civil officials laud his voice and bearing: these have proved so agreeable during his stopover that they have prevailed upon him to stay and to become chantre of the already functioning Cartagena cathedral, rather than continuing to Yucatán. Arriving between first and second bishops of Cartagena, Pérez Materano found a wooden cathedral but with a “very imposing and good” coro dominated by an elegant choirbook stand. By the time this primitive cathedral was burned in February of 1552, he was already teaching or was soon to teach Juan de Castellanos, the imitator of Ercilla. Castellanos in his long poem on the foundation of New Granada calls Pérez Materano a “Josquin dez Prez” in theoretical knowledge.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , October 1962 , pp. 121 - 136
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1962

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References

1 Friede, Juan, Documentos inéditos para la historia de Colombia (Bogotá, 1956), 4, 252:Google Scholar “vino para aqui de la armada de Veragua [Panama fleet] y vista su habilidad para el coro de cantor y su persona, se acordo de le recibir, y por cierto que sirve y honra mucho la iglesia.” See also Montoya, Andrés Martínez, “Reseña histórica sobre la música en Colombia,” Anuario, Volúmen I of the Academia Colombiana de Bellas Artes (Bogotá, 1932), p. 63.Google Scholar

2 Troconis, G. Porras, Cartagena hispánica: 1530 a 1810 (Bogotá, 1954), pp. 53 Google Scholar (Toro died in 1536) and 57 (Loayza arrived in 1538 and was transferred to Lima four years later). For an exhaustive list of New World bishops in the colonial period, fuller than P. B. Gams’ Series episcoporum, see Flores’, José Manuel “Serie Cronológica de los Señores Arzobispos y Obispos de las Américas” in the Ecuadorian Boletín de la Academia Nacional de Historia, 2, nos. 3–4 (January-April 1921), 149–169.Google Scholar

3 Friede, p. 250.

4 de Castellanos, Juan, Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias (Madrid, 1857 [Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, 4]), p. 366, col. 2. At p. 443, col. 2,Google Scholar Castellanos claims for Pérez Materano considerable wealth after he became dean of Cartagena.

5 Urueta, José P., Documentos para la historia de Cartagena (Cartagena, 1887), p. 91 Google Scholar: “Cantoriani ad quam nullus possit praesentari, nisi in musica, saltern in cantu plano doctus, et peritus existat, cujus in facistorio cantare, et servitores Ecclesiae cantare docere, et quae ad cantum pertinent, et expectant ordinare, corrigere, et emendare in Choro, et ubicumque per se et non per alium officium erit.” This is paragraph 3 from a copy made in 1775 of the founding statutes.

6 Montoya, Martínez, “Reseña histórica sobre la música en Colombia,” p. 63,Google Scholar quoting from a document discovered by Enrique Otero D’Costa. See also Escobar, José I. Perdomo, Historia de la música en Colombia (Bogotá, 1945), p. 33.Google Scholar

7 Tirado, Ernesto Restrepo, “Informaciones pedidas por Juan de Castellanos,” Comentos críticos sobre la fundación de Cartagena de Indias, edited by D’Costa, Enrique Otero (Bogotá, 1933), p. 449.Google Scholar

8 Biblioteca Nacional MS 14036.76; see Stevenson, R., Spanish Cathedral Music in the Golden Age (Berkeley/Los Angeles, 1961), p. 138.Google Scholar

9 He began in May of 1584 and quit as a result of the student strike in January of 1586. The 204-page Gutierre Fernández Hidalgo choirbook at Bogotá Cathedral shows at p. 103 this annotation, “de Gutierre Fernandes Hidalgo. Mro deesta Sta Iglesia año de 1584”; and at p. 118 in a posterior hand this lengthy note: “Este Salue vido Gutierre Fernandez En esta Iglesia Cathedral de Sta fe Intitulada por de Fran Sco Guerrero. Y dixo era suya y no de Guerrero. En Mayo de 1584 años que començo a seruir esta cathedral y en Henero de 1586 se fue al Piru, y auiendo seruido dos años la de Quito, passo a la de los Charcas, que siruio mas de 30 años, fallecio alli demas digo.” This note was probably added by Alonso Garzón de Tahuste (1569–1664), who followed Fernández Hidalgo as maestro de canturrias, and who wrote a short history of the Bogotá bishops in 1645. See Mendoza, Diego, “Un trabajo histórico inédito,” Boletín de Historia y Antigüedades, 6 (Bogotá, 1911), 632–638.Google Scholar

10 The second archbishop, de Cárdenas, Zapata, erected the first “colegio seminario que hubo en este Reino” (Garzón de Tahuste, p. 635).Google Scholar

11 Not a canonry, because “no conviene por aora que sean mestizos canonigos.” See Borda, Eduardo Zalamea and Carlos, Gil S., Libro de acuerdos públicos y privados de la real audiencia de Santafé en el Nuevo Reino de Granada, 1 (Bogotá, 1938), 52.Google Scholar

12 Pedro Ordoñez de Ceballos in his Viaje del mundo published at Madrid in 1614 says that García Zorro obtained a papal rescript confirming the right of any priest—whatever his lineage—to occupy a canonry, and for that matter any preferment (including the papacy itself) for which the prescribed canonical regulations have been met; blood or lineage alone can never be a bar. See the Bogotá re-edition (1942), p. 214.

13 Libro de acuerdos, I (see footnote 11), p. 260 (July 29, 1599); Rivas, Raimundo, Los fundadores de Bogotá (Bogotá, 1923), p. 153.Google Scholar

14 de Alba, Guillermo Hernández, “Panorama de la Universidad en la Colonia,” Revista de Indias, 1/6 (July, 1937), 72–73.Google Scholar See also Groot, José M., Historia eclesiástica y civil de Nueva Granada, 1 (Bogotá, 1889), p. 198.Google Scholar In Estampas santafareñas (Bogotá, 1938), p. 136, Hernández de Alba claims that both he and Felix Restrepo (“who published in a 1931 issue of the periodical Mundo al Día a page on the first student strike in Bogotá”) had availed themselves of the only documents that survive (Archivo de Indias at Seville). The Colegio de San Bartolomé at Bogotá conserves a copy of the documents at Seville.

15 After spending 1588 and 1589 in Quito, he emigrated to La Plata-Sucre by way of Cuzco. See Stevenson, R., The Music of Peru: Aboriginal and Viceroyal Epochs (Washington, 1960), pp. 182–184 Google Scholar for data on his services at the opulent cathedral in the Charcas Audiencia capital. The latest data at the Bolivian National Library in Sucre is an agreement dated June 13, 1620 (The Music of Peru, p. 183), in which year he was 67.

16 Both Palestrina and Francesco Suriano added si placet parts to Morales’ thinner Magnificat movements; see Monumentos de la música española, XVII (Barcelona, 1956), 22, 43–44, 46, 63, 94.

17 Simón, Pedro, Noticias historiales de las conquistas de Tierra Firme … partes segunda y tercera (Bogotá, 1892), 3, 286 Google Scholar; for the date of the séptima noticia see p. 281. The Segunda noticia, capítulo xxxvii (Bogotá: M. Rivas, 1891; II, p. 230) offers an invaluable comparison of Bogotá with Lima and Mexico City.

18 Groot, , Historia eclesiástica, 1, 212.Google Scholar

19 Lobo Guerrero was transferred to Lima in 1609; in 1615 he brought Páramo to Peru to provide Lima Cathedral with a choral library equal to that at Bogotá. However, Páramo died in 1616, leaving the task for a local scribe. See The Music of Peru, pp. 75–76.

20 Rico belonged to a family of local organ builders; Gregorio Rico provided the organ with a great variety of “diferencias para acompañar qualquier tono o canto de la mas realizada solfa” that was installed in the restored Our Lady of Bethlehem Chapel in 1698. See de Alba, Guillermo Hernández, Teatro del arte colonial (Bogotá, 1938), pp. 149–150.Google Scholar Pedro Rico’s 3000-peso organ inaugurated on December 8, 1693, was the second of a pair; the chapter minutes of November 24, 1693, show that the archbishop commissioned the second because his first had given such satisfaction. Simultaneously, Pedro was directed to repair the portative owned by the cathedral. Throughout Spanish dominions in the colonial period, two large organs—one on the epistle side, the other on the gospel side of the coro—were the universal custom. The small portative served in processions. See Bogotá Cathedral Libro de autos y acuerdos delos Ses Benes Dean y Cauildo … 1693–1704, fol. 8. This act shows that the archbishop himself had made all arrangements for both of Rico’s large organs; all the chapter did was to confirm payment for his services out of fábrica funds.

21 Libro de autos y acuerdos … 1693–1704, fol. 188.

22 Ibid., fol. 190.

23 Ibid., fol. 191: “… se leyo vna peticion del Bllr Juan de Herrera en que pide se nonbren el oficio de Mro de Capilla desta Sta Igla por auer que estado Vaco por Muerte del Mro Joseph Cascante que lo obtenia. Y constando a dichos Sres Bene Dean y Caudo dela Idonaidad y hauilidad deste susso dicho Bllr Juan de Herrera le nombrauan y nombraron en el dho officio de Mro de Capilla desta Sta Iglesia, y Compossitor, Con la renta de doscientos y cinquenta pattacones de Salario en cada vn año, y todos los demas proventos y emolumentos que deue auer y gossar assi dentro desta Sta Igla como fuera de ella . . . .” Herrera’s salary of 250 patacones remained stable throughout his 35-year term. Later chapelmasters sometimes received much less. In the act confirming him as chapelmaster he is specifically called a presbítero, proving that he has been ordained previously.

24 Montoya, Martínez, “Reseña histórica,” p. 64.Google Scholar José María Restrepo Sáenz, president of the Academia Colombiana de Bellas Artes in 1932, found Herrera’s will, from which the biographical particulars are extracted; the 5000 pesos with which Juan de Herrera’s father endowed the chaplaincy on which he subsisted after ordination is a sufficient sum in itself to assure us that the family was well-to-do. In the 1690’s a thousand pesos was regarded as a adequate sum to endow a modest chaplaincy. See de Alba, Hernández, Teatro del arte colonial, p. 149.Google Scholar

25 He should not be confused with the Dn Juan de Herrera i Chumacera Capellan del Monasterio de Santa Ines who died “en opinion de santo i tuvo el espritu profetico como consta del testamento que dejo cerrado.” The will of Herrera y Chumacero is dated August 10, 1668. See MS 168, Doc. 1, at the National Library in Bogotá for the 1668 will that was opened in the 1790’s by Archbishop Martínez Compañon; he concluded that Herrera y Chumacero could not have been a prophet—despite any saintliness—since the prophecies had not been fulfilled.

26 Libro en donde se asientan los autos de acuerdo delos SSres Venerable Dean y Cauildo … desde el principio del Año de 1705, fols. 11v. (August 13, 1705), 86v. (November 24, 1709), 210 (December 5, 1711).

27 Ibid., fol. 85 (September 20, 1709).

28 Ibid., fol. 51.

29 Libro de autos … 1693–1704, fol. 190 (January 12, 1703).

30 Libro … Año de 1705, fol. 12v.

31 Ibid., fol. 4.

32 Ibid., fols. 51 and 86v.

33 Ibid., fol. 22.

34 Ibid., fol. 85.

35 Ibid., fol. 131v.

36 Ibid., fol. 130r and v: “… por lo defectuoso de las Voces como pr falta de inteligencia en los mas ocasionado del apassible natural del Mro de Capilla omitiendo assi los reparos como las advertencias que deue auer, proponia de dichos SSres se siruiessen de deliberar y poner remedio en esta materia . . . .”

37 Ibid., fol. 181 (cf. fol. 210: “mandado por Autto de dies y nuebe de Maio de mill setez y treze que corre deste libro a foja 181).

38 Libro de autos … 1693–1104, fol. 192; Libro del 1735 hasta el de 48, fol. 137.

39 Montoya, Martínez, “Reseña histórica,” p. 64.Google Scholar

40 de Alba, Hernández, Teatro del arte colonial, pp. 149–150 Google Scholar; for photographs of his work see figuras 103–104 at the end of this book.

41 Libro del 1735 hasta el de 48, fol. 178; “Dixeron que por quanto por muerte del Maestro Juan de Herrera quedo vaco el officio de Maestro de Capilla desta Santa Iglesia el quai es muy nesesario ay ay [sic] mas en el tiempo presente de la Santa Quaresma i Semana Santa, y que sea un persona diestra y de las calidades nesesarias y concurriendo las nesesarias en el Mro Francisco Paula de Amaya Presuro le nombraba y nombraron por tal Mro de Capilla Interino para que lo sirua mientras se prouee en Propriedad y aya y lleue la mitad de la Renta que son siento y veinte y cinco y los siento y veinte y cinco restantes se aplican para salario de sinco cantores que señalara el señor Doctoral cino que tiene conosciendo de los que son mas a proposito para el Seruicio del Coro y dara notisia al Caudo.” The last five words are a later addition to the auto.

42 Libro de acuerdos. Años de 1756–1771, fol. 121v.

43 Libro del 1735 hasta el de 48, fol. 103 (July 29, 1735: “hire a second organist for days when Juan Concha, the first organist, is sick.” Concha, who began teaching the tiples in 1703, left the memory of valuable service; in 1773 his teaching methods were still being recalled as a model).

44 Libro … 1756–1711, fol. 49.

45 Ibid., fol. 28v. The chapter consoled itself by requesting him to teach the choirboys in recompense for 50 patacones of this excessive salary; but as a virtuoso violinist he refused (or was unable) to comply.

46 For a short history of the virreinato de Nueva Granada, see Molina, Cayetano Alcázar, Los virreinatos en el siglo XVIII (Barcelona, 1945), pp. 259–288 Google Scholar; see also Pereyra, Carlos, “El movimiento intelectual,” Historia de la América española: Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador (Madrid, 1927), pp. 163–170.Google Scholar

47 Libro … 1756–1771, fol. 160.

48 Ibid., fol. 169.

49 Ibid., fol. 181v.

50 Ibid., fol. 192v.

51 Ibid., fols. 197v. and 225.

52 Ibid., fol. 285.

53 Ibid., fol. 296v.

54 Ibid., fol. 162: he was to draw his 50 patacones “con la expresa condicion de que se aplique a aprender solpha.

55 Libro de acuerdos … 1772–1787, fol. 22v.

56 Ibid., fol. 63v.

57 Ibid., fol. 192v (March 16, 1781).

58 Pereyra, p. 164; Alcázar Molina, pp. 275–276. Printing began in New Granada in 1738; see Troconis, Porras, Historia de la cultura en el Nuevo Reino de Granada (Seville, 1952), pp. 254–265 Google Scholar for a list of Bogotá eighteenth-century imprints.

59 Libro de acuerdos … 1772–1789, fols. 13 and 28.

60 Ibid., fol. 50.

61 Ibid., fol. 64v.

62 Porras was succeeded by Francisco García on April 26, 1782 (ibid., fol. 212v). Lugo certified García as winner of a competition with Manuel Parada.

63 On May 11, two months later, Antonio Mesa was reinstated because there was no one else to substitute for sick singers or when the chapelmaster was absent, because his ability to sight-sing was recognized to be excellent, and finally because he was a veteran of many years service (ibid., fol. 198).

64 In addition, he could rely on the half dozen Sanz Lozano singing chaplains.

65 Montoya, Martínez, “Reseña histórica,” p. 65.Google Scholar The viceroy Antonio Caballero y Góngora (1782–1788) was concurrently archbishop. Many of the noblest cultural achievements before independence were his doing; see Alcázar Molina, pp. 284–286, His paintings included numerous canvases by Murillo, Cano, Morales, and even by Rubens; his library of about 3800 volumes contained some that were selling on the Madrid market for 200 and even 300 doubloons; he had an organ made for his private use by a Bogotá organ builder. See Tirado, Ernesto Restrepo, “La fortuna del excelentísimo señor don Antonio Caballero y Góngora,” and “Legado del Arzobispo Virrey,” Boletín de Historia y Antigüedades (Bogotá, 1925 and 1927), 15, 571 Google Scholar (órgano hecho en Santafé), and XVI, 59–61 (possessions left in Bogotá).

66 Means, P.A., “A great prelate and archaeologist,” Hispanic American Essays: A memorial to James Alexander Robertson, edited by Wilgus, A. Curtis (Chapel Hill, 1942)Google Scholar; Pérez Ayala, José Manuel, Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañon (Bogotá, 1955).Google Scholar

67 Libro de acuerdos desde el mes de 1794 [1794–1810], fol. 123v. (July 15, 1796).

68 The Music of Peru, p. 159.

69 Libro … [1794–1810], fol. 131v.: “No ha lugar, por su ineptitud.”

70 Ibid., fol. 41. Of the 200 pesos budgeted for Velasco’s services, 70 were for playing the clave and arpa, and 50 for the “strict and indispensable duty of teaching the boys and having them always ready” (“por la extrecha, e indispenzable obligacion de enseñar los Niños …”). Melchor Bermudes was second organist (fol. 41v.).

71 Ibid., fol. 110 (February 23, 1796: Josef Tallotico wrote from Cartagena December 16, 1795, claiming to the “true” chapelmaster); fol. 133 (December 2, 1796: Canuco or Cunuco in Mompax “instruido en Canto de Choro” wrote asking to be named chapelmaster and was offered in reply the post of second master at 150 pesos annually, provided he could prove his ability).

72 Libro de acuerdos … 1772–1787, fol. 191v.

73 Libro … [1794–1810], fols. 113v. (April 19, 1796).

74 Ibid., fol. 141.

75 Ibid., fol. 410.

76 Ibid., fol. 108v (February 23, 1796).

77 Libro 11 de acuerdos … y corre desde 20 de Febrero de 1810, fol. 63.

78 Ibid., fol. 119v. and 127v.

79 Sas, Andrés, “Una familia de músicos peruanos en el siglo XVII: Los Cervantes del Águila,” Música: órgano del grupo renovación, 1/2 (August, 1957).Google Scholar

80 Libro XII … comenzo en enero de 1819, fol. 16.

81 Ibid., fol. 21.

82 Ibid., fol. 24.

83 Ibid., fol. 25.

84 Ibid., fol. 139.

85 Ibid., fol. 168v.

86 Ibid., fol. 179. On his extant music at Bogotá, he spells his name Tores.

87 XVIII Libro de actas del capitulo metropolitano de Santafé de Bogotá, p. 51.

88 Ibid., pp. 152, 155.

89 Ibid., p. 242.

90 Ibid., p. 317.

91 Ibid., p. 359.

92 Ibid., p. 389.