Drew Edward Davies
Villancicos from Mexico City for the Virgin of
Guadalupe
he villancico remains the most emblematic
genre of viceregal (colonial) Latin American
music, if not the only Spanish Baroque genre to
appear regularly on concert programmes and
in music history curricula.1 Indeed, over the last
decade, performance groups have canonized a
small group of villancicos that showcase the more
popularizing aspects of the genre, namely styl-
ized representations of social types such as imper-
tinent Castilian ruffians and childlike Christianized
Africans.2 Assuming these stereotyped representa-
tions of social others to iconically represent social
realities in Latin America, or local color delights,3
the discourse on the villancico essentializes and
exoticizes social issues while side-lining mainstream
examples of the repertory and the transatlantic lit-
erary culture in which it flourished.4 A case in point
would be interpreting Juan Gutirrez de Padillas
well-known dialect villancico A siolo Flasiquiyo as an
historical ethnographic account of Africans in 1653
New Spain, even though its text, similar to many
from peninsular Spanish churches, glosses satiric
tropes of Africanness that had been enacted on the
Madrid stage since the 16th century.5
Yet while the Latin American ethnic villancico
repertory cannot be approached independently of
Iberian literary conventions, and should not uncrit-
ically be considered indicative of viceregal society,
there are groups of villancicos from New World
churches that do stress local topics, namely the rep-
ertories for distinct local devotions that emerged
in the Americas after the conquest. New devotions,
such as the Virgin of Guadalupe, St Rose of Lima
and St Philip of Jesus, quickly acquired local literary,
visual and, to a lesser extent, musical traditions built
Early Music, Vol. xxxix, No. 2 The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1093/em/car015, available online at www.em.oup.oxfordjournals.org
Downloaded from http://em.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Utah on November 26, 2014
upon troping, glossing and copying, usually within
European styles but featuring American topicality.
In the context of New Spain, with Spains viceroy-
alty centred on Mexico City, the most prominent of
these devotions was and is the Virgin of Guadalupe,
whose miraculous apparitions in 1531 form a central
narrative in Mexican culture. A small but significant
repertory of villancicos for the Virgin of Guadalupe
survives at Mexico City Cathedral and illustrates the
application to cathedral culture of Guadalupan lit-
erary tropes developed in New Spain during the 17th
century. This article will consider the dialogue be-
tween the local and the transatlantic in these Guada-
lupan works in the context of the villancico tradition
at Mexico City Cathedral.6 And, since this repertory
has yet to be published, recorded or discussed in
print, it will introduce performers and listeners alike
to the issues surrounding one aspect of this increas-
ingly familiar genre.
The Virgin of Guadalupe
No religious image is more ubiquitous in Mexican
communities than that of the Virgin of Guadalupe,
an advocation of the Virgin Mary that celebrates
a series of apparitions that purportedly occurred
to the Mexica (Aztec) peasant Cuautlatohuac, or
Juan Diego, near Mexico City in December 1531.
According to the story, the Virgin Mary appeared
amid birdsong on the craggy hill of Tepeyac to ask
that a shrine be erected there. To fulfil her wish,
Juan Diego requested an audience before Bishop
Zumrraga, who responded with disbelief. Follow-
ing a second apparition, Zumrraga instructed Juan
Diego to bring him a sign proving Marys presence.
229
Several days later, upon a fourth apparition, Mary
made Castilian roses grow on Tepeyac, and Juan
Diego brought them to the bishop concealed in
his cloak. When he opened the cloak to present the
flowers, the Virgin Marys image appeared embla-
zoned on the garment or tilma he wore. This scene
is depicted in a New Spanish painting by Andrs de
Islas from 1773 (see illus.1). The bishop interpreted
this as a sign, and was convinced to erect the chapel,
although this does not seem to have happened dur-
ing his tenure as bishop.
The image that appeared on Juan Diegos tilma,
believed to have been created by God, is said to be

Downloaded from http://em.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Utah on November 26, 2014

the one still on display at the Basilica of Guadalupe
in Mexico City, and is the one from which all other
images of the Virgin of Guadalupe are derived. Ra-
diantly depicting Mary as the Woman of the Apoca-
lypse as described in Revelation 12, it is the only
image of the Virgin Mary classified as a relic of
touch, which means that it was officially not made
by humans.7 Debate concerning this detail, not
to mention the veracity of the story in general, has
raged since at least the 17th century, and recent art
historical work recognizes the famous image to be
the work of a 16th-century New Spanish painter.8
The miracle occurred only a decade after the con-
quest of Tenochtitlan, but the story remained pri-
marily in oral and visual culture for over a century
until the publication of Imagen de la Virgen Mara by
Miguel Snchez (1648) and the chapter Nican mopohua
in the Nahuatl-language book Huei tlamahuioltica
by Luis Laso de la Vega (1649).9 Subsequently, with a
more widespread distribution of the apparition nar-
rative in central New Spain, devotion to the Virgin of
Guadalupe increased dramatically over the next cen-
tury, culminating in Pope Benedict XIVs codification
of her feast-day as 12 December in 1754, eight years
after she was declared patron of New Spain. While
1 Andrs de Islas, Our Lady of Guadalupe (Juan Diego
nominally connected to the 14th-century cult of the
shows the image to Bishop Zumrraga), 1773 (Image cour-
Virgin of Guadalupe in Extremadura in Spain, the
tesy of the Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa)
New Spanish image and devotional practices devel-
oped independently of those in Europe.10
Some scholars see in Guadalupe a syncretic con- was deliberate in the storys fashioning by creoles
flation of Immaculist Marian devotion with the sym- (people of European heritage born in New Spain).11
bolism of the pre-Columbian goddess Tonantzin, Whereas the devotion undoubtedly merged an In-
although little is known about the indigenous con- dian apparitionist stream that remains something
tribution to the devotions growth during the 16th of a mystery . . . and a Spanish stream . . . [that
and 17th centuries or to what extent the syncretism was] an expression of creole protonationalism into a


early musicmay

2011
multivalent symbol, most evidence points to the Virgin
of Guadalupe as a devotion promoted primarily by
the creole population.12 Recognizing the creole con-
text of Guadalupan devotion, and its meanings for
their cultural and political goals, helps understand
the presence of villancicos for her feast at Mexico City
Cathedral, an elite space frequented largely by cre-
oles, the small community of peninsular Spaniards,
and their African slaves. The villancicos appear several
decades after the principal literary narratives that co-
dified the story, yet before papal approval of the feast,
and thus they served to promote the devotion and
educate the public about its key points.13
The Mexico City villancico repertory
The twelve villancicos for the Virgin of Guadalupe
at the Archivo del Cabildo Catedral Metropolitano
de Mxico (ACCMM) include some of the earliest
2 Antonio de Salazar, Seas ve claras, continuo. (Archivo del Cabildo Catedral Metropolitano de Mxico) (reproduced
with permission of Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes)
surviving examples of villancicos with music from
Mexico City Cathedral (see illus.2).14 The oldest
Guadalupan piece, Pues el alba aparece, was writ-
ten by Antonio de Salazar (c.16501715) in 1694 (see
Table 1). Indeed, Salazar wrote the music to six of
the villancicos, and his successor as chapelmas-
ter, Manuel de Sumaya (16781755), composed the
music to five.15 The exception in the group is Qu
apacible, a piece originally composed by Puebla
chapelmaster Jos Laso Valero (d.1778) and revised
in Mexico City by Mateo Manterola (b.1780) in
1812. Distinct in style and orchestration, it repre-
sents a one-off revival in the context of the Mexican
Downloaded from http://em.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Utah on November 26, 2014
independence movement when the Virgin of Guad-
alupe served as an important revolutionary symbol.
By that time, new music for the devotion consisted
primarily of Latin motets on the text Non fecit tal-
iter omni nationi and simple Spanish-language
alabanzas, rather than traditional villancicos.16
early musicmay
2011
231
Table 1 Villancicos for the Virgin of Guadalupe at the Archivo del Cabildo Catedral Metropolitano de Mxico (ACCMM)

MS number Title Composer Date Voicing

a0002 Pues el alba aparece Salazar 1694 SATb, SATb

a0003 Atencin, que si copia la pluma Salazar 1698 SSATb
a0037 Al arma toquen Salazar 1713 SATTbb
a0043 Sobre el primero, el cuarto Salazar (c.1700s) SATTbb, bc
a0046 Oigan, que se aparece Salazar (c.1700s) SATb, SATb
a0047 Seas ve claras Salazar (c.1700s) SAATbb
a0067 Cerca de Mxico el templo Sumaya 1721 AT, bc
a0069 La bella incorrupta Sumaya 1725 SATb, SATb, bc
a0070 Quin es aquella paloma Sumaya 1725 AB, SATb, bc
a0072 Ya se eriza Sumaya 1728 Tb, SATb, bc

Downloaded from http://em.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Utah on November 26, 2014

a0084 Cielo animado Sumaya (c.1720s) AT [incomplete]
a0102 Qu apacible Laso Valero rev. Manterola c.1770s 1812 SSAT, bc +2ob, 2cor, 2vl

All of the works laid out in Table 1 formed part scripts (see Appendix 1).20 This percentage would be
of the so-called Estrada Collection, a grouping of even smaller if the repertories of printed music and
122 manuscripts from the ACCMM which had been choral polyphony in choirbook format, which do not
in the personal possession of musicographer Jess contain villancicos, were added to the calculation. (In
Estrada and his heirs during the second half of the contrast, the Latin responsory, which supplemented
20th century.17 Reunited with the rest of the music and largely replaced the villancico, accounts for
manuscripts at the ACCMM since 1998, the grouping about 17 per cent of the music collection.) Yet unlike
initiates the new series of call numbers applied to the the ACCMM as a whole, which contains a significant
music collection in 2009 by the music cataloguing number of European compositions, the vast majority
project (MUSICAT) of the Seminario Nacional of villancicos were written specifically for the cath-
de Msica en la Nueva Espaa y Mxico Indepen- edral by its own chapelmasters as occasional works
diente under official agreement with the cathedral (see Table 2), and thus they provide an informative
administration.18 With 102 distinct villancicos, the snapshot of local compositional practices over time.
manuscripts of the former Estrada Collection count That said, the moderately low number of villan-
as the principal source of the genre from Mexico cicos at the ACCMM results from the vicissitudes
City Cathedral in the period 16901730 and show the
Table 2 Number of unique villancicos at the ACCMM
knowledge and assimilation of current stylistic and
listed by composer
formal procedures in European and Spanish music,
and the response of New Spanish composers.19
Despite the importance of the sources from the Composer Number of Villancicos
former Estrada Collection, it might be surprising to chapelmasters
readers that only a moderate number of villancicos Antonio de Salazar 52
survives at the ACCMM, otherwise the largest re- Manuel de Sumaya 33
pository of New Spanish music sources. In addition Ignacio Jerusalem 32
to these 102 villancicos, the archive contains 47 more, Mateo Tollis de la Roca 1
some incomplete, as well as a small number of frag- Antonio Juanas 1
ments. Thus, in sum, the archive preserves 149 vil- others
lancicos with music composed between 1693 and the Anonymous 19
early 19th century, a quantity that equals less than 5 Jos Roca 2
Jos de Torres 3
per cent of the approximately 3,500 unique pieces
6 others 1 each
present in the cathedrals archive of music manu-


early musicmay

2011
of preservation rather than compositional history,
as the number of villancicos written at the cathedral
since at least the time of chapelmaster Francisco
Lpez Capillas (161474) would have totalled in the
thousands. This is not simply first-principles logic;
for example, the title-page of an imprint relays that
cathedral musician Jos de Loaysa y Agurto (c.1625
c.1695) set villancico texts by Sor Juana Ins de la
Cruz for the feast of the Assumption in 1676, even
though the music is now lost.21 Cathedral chapel-
masters, cantors and succentors built music archives
primarily to organize the music chapels living rep-
ertory rather than for purposes of conservation.
That helps explain, for example, why the archive
today preserves autograph scores but no parts to 14
of Ignacio Jerusalems villancicos from the 1750s and
60s; although the parts were probably used multiple
times, the cathedral saw no purpose in keeping them,
or hundreds of older villancicos, for the long term.
Thankfully, someone decided to retain the scores.
The Guadalupan repertory at Mexico City was also
older and more extensive than the surviving music
implies. The literary historian Alfonso Mndez Plan-
carte published excerpts of an imprint containing at
least ten villancico texts from 1690 for which Salazar
had composed music.22 It is sobering to recognize that
if Salazar had composed a cycle of villancicos for the
feast every year between 1690 and 1714, he would have
written about 200 Guadalupan villancicosof which
only six survive complete and the bass part of a sev-
enth survives at Puebla. The few vestiges of this rep-
ertory identified in other sources and collections, all
of which seem to come originally from Mexico City in
the period 16901730, provide a slightly wider context
for the twelve pieces at the ACCMM (see Table 3).23
Table 3 New Spanish villancicos for the Virgin of Guadalupe in other sources
Title Composer
El mundo se admire Salazar
Hola a quien digo Salazar
Pronstico que publica Salazar
Vengan a ver una zarza Salazar
A coger las flores Salazar
Al alba que brilla Sumaya
Al prodigio mayor Sumaya
An important lesson reinforced by studying the
entire corpus of 149 villancicos at the ACCMM,
as well as the scattered sources listed in Table 3,
acknowledges that literary factors such as a villan-
cicos character, the nature of its poetic glossing and
troping, and the content of its narrative define the
genre more than formal elements alone do. Imprints
of villancico cycles from both sides of the Atlantic ex-
hibit a preference for formal and topical variety, and
even when forms remain consistent, the texts vary in
length, poetic voice and other factors. Whereas most
of the villancicos by Salazar and Sumaya follow the
common villancico process of juxtaposing a topical
Downloaded from http://em.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Utah on November 26, 2014
estribillo (refrain) with exegetical coplas (verses),
those of Ignacio Jerusalem written several decades
later do not. In fact, Ignacio Jerusalem avoided the
estribillocoplas form in almost all of his villancicos,
yet retained older Hispanic poetic conceits and turns
of phrase from earlier layers of the tradition.24 How-
ever, his musical contribution to Guadalupan festiv-
ities was primarily in the form of responsories, not
villancicos, and represents the modern propriety of
writing responsories following the Royal Chapels
mid-century order to curtail villancicos.25 It is not
known how long the Salazar and Sumaya villancicos
for the Virgin of Guadalupe remained in the active
repertory of the cathedral, or whether they were ever
performed alongside pieces by Jerusalem.
The Guadalupan villancico texts
The texts of the villancicos reinforce salient
aspects of the Guadalupe story in an erudite way
that would have appealed primarily to an educated
population appreciative of literate references and
plays on words. They do not simplify the story for
Date Notes
1690 text only, Mndez Placarte, Los villancicos
1690 text only, Mndez Placarte, Los villancicos
1690 text only, Mndez Placarte, Los villancicos
1690 text only, Mndez Placarte, Los villancicos
c.1690s music incomplete, Puebla Cathedral, leg. 19
c.1720s music incomplete, Oaxaca Cathedral, 49.14
c.1720s complete, Guatemala City Cathedral, 834
early musicmay
2011
233
popular audiences or teach it to the uninformed,
but rather elevate it by using the same techniques
of glossing and troping found in villancicos that
engage ideas from Catholic doctrine for other
devotions. Yet unlike other feasts celebrated with
villancicos, the Guadalupe story had not yet attained
the status of universal doctrine. Rather, it expressed
local identity and exception by constructing a sense
of regional mexicanidad (or Mexico City-ness)
for an educated public within the legitimizing con-
fines of the cathedral.26 This type of literary rhet-
oric, which was more difficult to understand than
visual representations of the story, was probably
not directed at the hearts and minds of the general
population, but rather at the creoles, some of whom
were associated with the nearby university.
Bernardo Illari has written that in the same
period, creoles in Bolivia were negotiating an iden-
tity of their own on the basis of Spanish symbolic
elements.27 New Spanish creoles mexicanized their
identities by merging elements from their European
ethnic origins with markers of American difference,
including a consciousness of local flora, fauna and
pre-Columbian history as a substitute for, and add-
ition to, classical European mythologies. Although
the creoles discriminated against the indigenous
peoples, they shared a homeland with them and,
as Americans themselves, began to envision part
of their own past in the pre-Columbian world. As
such, they were united by a common aspiration for
an immediate grace which should free their people
from sin and destine them to be a Chosen People.28
A process of identity-building through self-presen-
tation along these lines is especially evident in New
Spanish literature during the second half of the 17th
century. The Virgin of Guadalupe provided the
perfect multivalent symbol upon which to build a
creole identity, as, unlike appropriated pre-Colum-
bian figures, she was of European derivation.
In reading through the Guadalupan villancico
texts, all of which couch ingenious topical images
amid clichd references to Marian symbols such as
stars, fountains and flowers, three significant themes
emerge: (1) the story of the apparitions; (2) the
divine origin of the image; and, most importantly,
(3) Mexico as an apocalyptic land of prophetic ex-
ception. New Spanish poets express these themes
with literary techniques influenced by the cultur-

early musicmay
2011
ism of the Spanish poet Luis de Gngora y Argote
(15611627), such as inverted word order, plays with
words, neologisms, erudite references, and descrip-
tions of nature.29 Interplay among Christian and
classical mythologies abounds in these Gongoresque
texts of the late 17th century, often in order to con-
struct Mexico as a new Rome or Jerusalem.
For example, the estribillo of Seas ve claras relates
the idea that the people of New Spain recognize the
Virgin of Guadalupe as their protectress when they
contemplate her image.30 The opening word of the
text, seas (signs), glosses the moment in accounts
of the apparitions in which Zumrraga orders Juan
Downloaded from http://em.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Utah on November 26, 2014
Diego to provide seas of Marys presence.31 Of
course, the miraculous image and the roses are those
signs. In the rest of the estribillo, the people of New
Spain, looking at the image, see the stars emblazoned
on her blue cloak and recognize that she is literally
part of heaventhe firmamentand figuratively the
foundationthe firmamentof New Spain itself:
Seas ve claras New Spain
de que sois firmamento sees clear signs
la Nueva Espaa that thou art the firmament
cuando ve las estrellas when it sees the stars
de vuestra estampa. in thy image.
Following this, the first of the five coplas height-
ens the experience of viewing the image, as
described in the estribillo, by presenting the Virgin
of Guadalupe descending from heaven to Mexico
City as Bellona, the Roman goddess of war and
mother of Remus and Romulus, the legendary
founders of Rome. She breaks down the barrier be-
tween heaven and New Spain to redeem the idol-
atry of the local population and establish a new
Rome. Here we see the inverted lines, learned refer-
ences and mixture of mythologies characteristic of
Gongorism in New Spanish poetry. Furthermore,
the scene described brings to mind typical Baroque
theatrical effects in which allegorical deities would
descend to the stage to intervene in a plot:
Al mexicano sitio Sovereign Bellona,
Belona soberana who serves heaven
desciende del empreo as a rampart,
la que sirve al empreo descends from heaven
de muralla. to the Mexican siege.
 Now that the Virgin of Guadalupe has descended
to Mexico City, the ensuing two coplas present belli-
cose imagery that rehearses the iconography of the
Woman of the Apocalypse and evokes the theme
of the Militant and Triumphant Church by pitting
images of violence against a pacific sea of Marian
grace. Finally, the last two coplas relax the tone by in-
voking natural elements associated with Tepeyac in
the Guadalupe narratives, such as malezas (weeds),
zarzas (brambles) and espinas (thorns), as allegor-
ical symbols. In sum, the text calls upon New Spain
to recognize the signs of the Virgin of Guadalupes
patronage by imagining her iconography coming
to life, theatrically descending to Mexico City, and
bestowing grace upon the people from a rugged lo-
cation marked by dichotomous natural symbols.
Like the creoles themselves, New Spain figures as
Europe reborn in a ruptured American world. This
apocalyptic connotation, expressed in Seas ve claras,
could not be more explicit than in the estribillo of El
mundo se admire, a villancico text by Felipe de Santoyo
Garca of 1690. This is one of the works referenced by
Mendez Plancarte for which no music survives, yet is
one of the most transparent in meaning:32
...en la Nueva Espaa ...in New Spain la que quiso copiar
de otro Juan se oye one hears of a new apocalypse
nuevo Apocalipsis, from another John
aunque son distintas although the revelations
las revelaciones... are different...
Of course, here the word play on the name Juan
(John) conflates St John the Evangelist, author of the
Book of Revelation, with Juan Diego. Santoyo Garca
continues this trope in the works first copla by refer-
ring to Tepeyac as the Patmos of New Spain, Patmos
being the Aegean island where John received his first
vision.33 While this idea, too, was certainly inspired
by the iconography of Guadalupe as the Woman of
the Apocalypse, a further comparison made by San-
toyo Garca in the villancico Vengan a ver una zarza,
from the same cycle, takes biblical allusion to an
earlier point in history by referring to Tepeyac as the
Mexican Horeb. Mount Horeb, a name tradition-
ally used for Mount Sinai, is the place, according to
the Old Testament, where God gave the Ten Com-
mandments to Moses.34 This type of comparison
displays authorial erudition and owes some debt to
literary whimsey, but at the same time this and other
similar references throughout the Guadalupan rep-
ertory make it very clear that writers were promoting
the apparitions as acts of God of the greatest magni-
tude that would bestow especial favour upon New
Spain. Those born in New Spain stand allegorically as
a chosen people, proxy Israelites, in a construction of
great political value as the creole population, among
others, developed increasingly nationalist sentiments.
Yet detractors to the idea that God chose New
Spain in this way required proof of the veracity of
the apparitions. A central controversy was the divine
Downloaded from http://em.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Utah on November 26, 2014
origin of the image, a concept promoted by poets
during the second half of the 17th century. Although
today, at least in the secular world, the image is known
to have been painted by a person, the idea at the time
was that God created it miraculously, and that any
copyist would have been guided by Gods will. This
point stands as the main theme of Atencin, que si
copia la pluma from 1698, which implies that humans
alone cannot make a perfect copy of the image:
Atencin, atencin, Attention!
que si copia la pluma If the quill copies,
la mano es de un Dios the hand is of a God
who wanted to copy
el retrato mejor. the best portrait.
The first copla of Atencin, que si copia la pluma
rehearses one of the proofs of the images divinity,
namely the lack of aparejo (primer) applied to the
rough material before it was painted. This had been
noted by a group of painters allowed to examine the
image in 1666, who declared that only God could have
known the secret for doing this.35 In 1756, the famed
viceregal painter Miguel Cabrera devoted a section to
the same issue in his treatise defending the divinity of
the image.36 The fact that the villancico takes up this
issue shows how the genre dialogues with other lit-
erary sources, historical events and platforms of
doctrinal politics by glossing salient ideas and pre-
senting them in new and creative contexts.37 In this
case, the villancicos second copla adds a long-term
temporal element to the images history, noting
that it was sketched by prophets and mysteries but
painted in a purely conceived instant, an obvious
reference to the Immaculate Conception of Mary.
early musicmay
2011
235
 In sum, as literary works, these villancico texts offer
a window onto how cathedral authorities promoted
Guadalupan devotion at the end of the 17th and into
the 18th century. While each of the texts merits closer
analysis and discussion, the excerpts presented here
show that the main poetic themes gloss period literary
works on the subject, show inspiration in the icon-
ography of the image itself, and acquire additional
meanings through biblical and erudite mythological
references. These meanings helped build New Spanish
identityespecially creole identityas both Euro-
pean and American, ancient and modern.
Salazar and Sumayas music
Antonio de Salazar and Manuel de Sumayas mu-
sical settings of these texts conventionally deliver
the poetry within the bounds of the Spanish theatre
style, which flourished in the second half of the 17th
century, and is exemplified by the music of Juan
Hidalgo.38 In church music, this style endured into
the 1720s, having begun to mix with more modern
Italianate idioms before the turn of the century.
Despite the stylistic differences between the two
composers, the Guadalupan pieces present similar
musical and notational features. For example, both
Salazar and Sumaya employ predominantly homo-
phonic choral textures for two to eight voices, some-
times divided between two choirs (see Table 1).
All of the pieces feature the C3 mensuration with a
lightly syncopated rhythmic language that makes
use of blackened mensural notation, and many
pieces also have sections with the C time signature,
an issue that will be discussed below.39 All also con-
tain strophic coplas, ranging in number from two to
seven. Harmonically, the villancicos are written in
functional tonality, yet regardless of tonic, the key
signatures appear simply as cantus durus (natural)
or cantus mollis (with a B ).40 Finally, all of the pieces
are short, lasting less than five minutes. In fact, the
notation of each part fits exactly on one folio (some-
times front and back), a physical attribute deter-
mined by convenience for singers to hold them in
performance and, perhaps more directly, the high
cost of paper in New Spain.41
Whether Salazar was creole or peninsular Spanish
is still not known, but judging by his fluency in con-
temporary Spanish musical idioms, he was likely

early musicmay
2011
a Spaniard who spent most of his career in New
Spain.42 In a manner more subtle than the villan-
cico texts, Salazars music helped shape the identity
of Guadalupan devotion by adapting European tra-
ditions of musical signification to the New Spanish
content. This is especially clear in his use of martial
music reminiscent of the batalla tradition initi-
ated by the second part of Clment Janequins 16th-
century chanson La bataille and appropriated in a
variety of Masses and other pieces by, among many
others, Francisco Guerrero, Toms Luis de Victoria
and Francisco Lpez Capillas, Salazars creole pre-
decessor as chapelmaster at Mexico City.43 Battle
Downloaded from http://em.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Utah on November 26, 2014
pieces feature repetitive triadic melodic figures with
dactylic rhythms, little modulation beyond the tonic
and dominant, a generalized martial character, and
are generally set in the sixth tone or F major. Salazar,
shifting the mensuration from C3 to C, writes such
passages in four of his Guadalupan villancicos to
evoke martial images in the text. For example, the
opening of Al arma toquen, whose text translates as
Take up arms, shoot, fire! consists of conventional
battle music set antiphonally for two choirs (ex.1).
Paul Laird notes that villancico texts with militarist
imagery were common for Christmas and Corpus
Christi in late 17th-century Spain and that the bat-
tles depicted therein tend to arise between competing
celebratory parties on the same side, for example the
sea and the land, rather than between the opposing
forces of good and evil.44 In these Guadalupan vil-
lancicos, however, the victory of the church over the
devil is at stake, and the musical reference under-
scores not only Guadalupe and the Woman of the
Apocalypse, but also the theme of the Militant and
Triumphant Church, the subject of one of Cristbal
de Villalpandos large-scale allegorical paintings from
the 1680s in the sacristy of Mexico City Cathedral.45
By adapting the battle tradition to the Guadalupe
pieces, Salazar introduces erudite musical references
parallel to the literary practices of villancico texts, an
act that moves beyond simple text painting.
The martial music also calls attention to one of
many dialogues between tradition and modernity vis-
ible in the notational practices of New Spanish music
in this period. For example, Salazars music uses ton-
ality functionally by means of accidentals, but the
key signatures remain modal and chiavette clefs are
common. Likewise, Salazar switches to modern note
 Ex.1 Antonio de Salazar, Al arma toquen, excerpt
values in the martial music, which is written in C
mensuration without bar-lines, whereas he adheres
to blackened mensural notation in the C3 sections,
which predominate in the repertory. Thus, in the same
work, a crotchet in C mensuration and a minim pre-
ceding a syncopated semibreve in C3 mensuration will
appear equivalently, as in the continuo part of Seas ve
claras, which switches mensuration for the coplas (see
illus.2). The blackened mensural notation, which effi-
ciently represents imperfection and syncopation, was
Downloaded from http://em.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Utah on November 26, 2014
standard for triple-metre pieces in Spain and Latin
America in the 17th century and up to about the 1720s.
Whereas Sumaya, a mixed-race New Spanish
composer who studied and worked in creole circles,
adheres to similar musical conventions as his prede-
cessor Salazar, his music shows greater musical and
notational complexity, as well as a preference for
fewer voices.46 In C3 mensuration, Sumaya employs
a more varied palette of note values ranging from
longs to fusas, which appear as modern semiquavers
early musicmay
2011
237
 Ex.2 Manuel de Sumaya, Cerca de Mxico el templo, excerpt
with white note heads, as well as a more syncopated
rhythmic language that fully exploits the possibil-
ities of blackened mensural notation. In C mensur-
ation, he uses bar-lines. His melodies tend to feature
vigorous motivic development in melismatic
sequences, a trait more common in his Spanish
contemporaries than in his New Spanish predeces-
sors. Sumayas tonal language includes a wider var-
iety of tonics and internal modulations, especially
in his coplas, which are sometimes for multiple ra-
ther than solo voices. Furthermore, his continuo
parts build contrapuntal textures, sometimes with
rhythmic independence of the voices.47 A passage
from his villancico Cerca de Mxico el templo with
text translating as If her image is a sublime bird of
Mexico exemplifies many of these stylistic features
(ex.2).
Sumaya does not follow Salazar in the use of
martial music in his Guadalupan villancicos, but
nonetheless undergoes the same process of repre-
senting a local literary narrative with Spanish mu-
sical aesthetics. The Guadalupe pieces, composed
primarily between 1690 and 1730, seem to pre-
date Sumayas adoption of an idiomatic Italianate
style, a fact that forms an interesting commen-
tary on the Guadalupan vernacular repertory as a
whole. Baroque in concept and presentation, its

early musicmay
2011
Downloaded from http://em.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Utah on November 26, 2014
reference-laden texts would not fit the galant music
composed at mid-century by Ignacio Jerusalem,
who wrote modernized villancicos for other feasts
but only wrote Latin pieces for the Virgin of Guada-
lupe. By his time, villancicos were but one genre of
elite music in a rich and varied devotional sound-
scape that marked the celebration of the Virgin of
Guadalupes feast-day.
This article has explored how strategies of lit-
erary and musical representation promoted Guada-
lupan devotion in Mexico City from the 1690s into
the early 18th century in the context of Mexico City
Cathedral. Like other Baroque musics, villanci-
cos served the rhetorical purposes of their creators,
and this specific group of pieces reflects narratives
of identity-building among New Spanish creoles
in a mature colonial society. I believe that we need
to stop looking at Latin American villancicos as
exotic treasures and see them as breathing vestiges
of a precarious colonial culture performing both its
European roots and its American future in an offi-
cially elitist environment. The Virgin of Guadalupe
became the symbol most indicative of that culture,
and the paintings, music, poems and other arts for
her ensured that, in the words of the villancico Pues
el alba aparece, in Mexico City her rays of light will
shimmer on and on.
 Appendix 1
List of villancicos at the Archivo del Cabildo Catedral Metropolitano de Mxico

Title Composer MS number

A celebrar este da Antonio de Salazar a0041

A coronarse reina de los cielos Antonio de Salazar a0048
A la lid que se apresta Antonio de Salazar a0036
A la mar que se anega la nave Antonio de Salazar a0014
A la milagrosa escuela Ignacio Jerusalem a1487, a2161.01
A la palestra, a la lid Antonio de Salazar a0040
Acudid al despacho Manuel de Sumaya a0064
Admirado el orbe Ignacio Jerusalem a0573
Adorad pastores Jos Roca a0093

Downloaded from http://em.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Utah on November 26, 2014

Agitada navecilla Jos de Torres a1503
Aguas, tierra, fuego, vientos Antonio de Salazar a0013
guila caudalosa Ignacio Jerusalem a0511
Ah, de la centinela Antonio de Salazar a0018
Ah, de la nave Antonio de Salazar a0019
Ah, de las llamas Ignacio Jerusalem a0097
Ah, de los cielos Ignacio Jerusalem a0568
Ah, del cielo Antonio de Salazar a0006
Airecillos de Beln Antonio de Salazar a0034
Al agua, marineros Antonio de Salazar a0020
Al arma toquen Antonio de Salazar a0037
Al asilo mayor Anonymous a0112
Al campo, a la batalla Antonio de Salazar a0038
Al penetrar la hermosura Ignacio Jerusalem a0535.02
Al portal, zagalejos Antonio de Salazar a0017
Al que en solio de rayos Ignacio Jerusalem a1871
Al solio que por erguido Manuel de Sumaya a0057
Al son que dos clarines Antonio de Salazar a0051
Alados serafines Anonymous a0087
Albricias, zagalejos Antonio de Salazar a0042
Algrense los astros Manuel de Sumaya a0082
Alerta las voces Ignacio Jerusalem a0575
Amante peregrino Anonymous a1501
Anmese, alintese Ignacio Jerusalem a2025
Aplauda la tierra Manuel de Sumaya a0060
Aprended rosas de mi Manuel de Sumaya a0077
Aquel divino Adonis Anonymous a0115
Arde afable hermosura Antonio de Salazar a0001
Atencin, que si copia la pluma Antonio de Salazar a0003
Atiendan, qu portento Manuel de Sumaya a0083
Aves canoras Anonymous a0111
Ay, cmo gime Manuel de Sumaya a0058
Ay, mi bien Jos de Torres a1870
Ay, que el sol de Toledo Antonio de Salazar a0027
Caamones en Pascua Anonymous a1851
Canto apacible Anonymous a1865.01
Celestes armonas Ignacio Jerusalem a1869

early musicmay

2011

239
 Appendix 1 Continued

Title Composer MS number

Cerca de Mxico el templo Manuel de Sumaya a0067

Cielo animado Manuel de Sumaya a0084
Cielo y mundo Anonymous a0079.01
Clarines sonad Ignacio Jerusalem a0120
Como tienen los morenos Mateo Tollis de la Roca a0094
Con jbilo en el orbe Anonymous a1847
Con los nobles ha venido Anonymous a1848
Cuando en suspiros amantes beda a0118
De las flores y estrellas Manuel de Sumaya a0075
De nochi han nacido el sol Ignacio Jerusalem a2020

Downloaded from http://em.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Utah on November 26, 2014

De Pedro sagrado Antonio de Salazar a0044
Dej Pedro la primera red Manuel de Sumaya a0066
Despertad del letargo Antonio de Salazar a0004
Devoto el coro Ignacio Jerusalem a0560.02
Digan quae est ista Antonio de Salazar a0009
Dios sembrando flores Manuel de Sumaya a0074
El amor y el afecto Ignacio Jerusalem a1185
El clarn de la fama Antonio Juanas a0240
En este triste valle Ignacio Jerusalem a0571
En hora dichosa Ignacio Jerusalem a0559
En Mara Manuel de Sumaya a0073
En una ligera nave Ignacio Jerusalem a2014
Es aurora Antonio de Salazar a0011
Escuchad dos sacristanes Jos Roca a1485
Fuego que se abrasa Manuel de Sumaya a0062
Gloria le ofrece Ignacio Jerusalem a0121
Hola, ha del mar pescadores Manuel de Sumaya a0076
Hola, hao, marineros Antonio de Salazar a0025
Hola, principes sacros Antonio de Salazar a0010
Hoy que Mara Antonio de Salazar a0024
Hoy sube arrebatada Manuel de Sumaya a0061
La anglica turba Ignacio Jerusalem a1857
La bella incorrupta Manuel de Sumaya a0069
La culpa y amor de Pedro Antonio de Salazar a0033
La esfera triunfante Ignacio Jerusalem a0562
La perla preciosa Anonymous a0107
La tierra se alegra Ignacio Jerusalem a0572
Las campanas ruidosas Antonio de Salazar a0030
Las zagalas esta noche Anonymous a1875.02
Los clarines resuenen Antonio de Salazar a0015
Los rayos ardientes Ignacio Jerusalem a0570
Lucientes antorchas Manuel de Sumaya a0071
Marinero a la playa llega Antonio de Salazar a0052
Moradores del orbe Manuel de Sumaya a0063
Nio, si vens del cielo Lucas de Sancho Lpez a1843
No me tengis, pastores Antonio de Salazar a0007
Oh, qu milagro Manuel de Sumaya a0059
Od, aprended, tiernas avecillas Antonio de Salazar a0005


early musicmay

2011
 Appendix 1 Continued

Title Composer MS number

Od, moradores del orbe Manuel de Sumaya a0054, a0089

Oigan, que se aparece Antonio de Salazar a0046
Paces se han hecho Manuel de Sumaya a0055
Pajarillos, garzotas del aire Antonio de Salazar a0049
Paloma soberana Antonio de Salazar a0022
Pastores del valle Antonio de Salazar a0031
Pedro, aunque el mar Antonio de Salazar a0021
Pedro, detente Antonio de Salazar a0050
Plantas frondosas Ignacio Jerusalem a0556
Plantas, flores y fuentes Antonio de Salazar a0029

Downloaded from http://em.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Utah on November 26, 2014

Protegidos de una estrella Ignacio Jerusalem a2027
Pues el alba aparece Antonio de Salazar a0002
Pues que de escarchas Anonymous a1861
Pues que triunf Manuel de Sumaya a0085
Que alegre la tierra Antonio de Salazar a0032
Qu apacible Jos Laso Valero/Mateo Manterola a0102
Qu dices, zagal Anonymous a1850
Qu inefable Manuel de Sumaya a0078
Qu marcha nueva Anonymous a1854
Que os llama Manuel de Sumaya a0080
Que se anega Manuel de Sumaya a0081
Que se mueve el sepulcro Anonymous a0105
Qu tempestad amenaza Ignacio Jerusalem a2026
Quin es aquella paloma Manuel de Sumaya a0070
Quin es sta Manuel de Sumaya a0068
Remedo lucido Ignacio Jerusalem a0564, a1876
Repiquen alegres Antonio de Salazar a0039
Resonad, pajarillos alegres Antonio de Salazar a0028
Rompa la esfera Ignacio Jerusalem a0560.01
Sabio y amante fue Pedro Manuel de Sumaya a0065
Sedientos que en este mundo Anonymous a0104
Seas ve claras Antonio de Salazar a0047
Si el agravio, Pedro Antonio de Salazar a0026
Si el espritu divino Jos de Torres a1859
Si es gloria del orbe Ignacio Jerusalem a0558
Si es tan precioso Agustn Contreras a0098
Si son los elementos Manuel de Sumaya a0086
Silencio, que los cielos alegres Manuel de Sumaya a0088
Sobre el primero, el cuarto Antonio de Salazar a0043
Solo a la capilla Ignacio Jerusalem a1868
Sonora dulce trompa Jos de Nebra a1422
Sonoro arroyuelo Juan Valdivieso a1841
Suenen clarines alegres Antonio de Salazar a0012
Sus glorias cantando Anonymous a0563
Tesoro sagrado/ Arcano sagrado Ignacio Jerusalem a2023.01
Tierra no, sino el cielo Antonio de Salazar a0035
Todo zagal conmigo Anonymous a0119
Todos se rindan Anonymous a1844

early musicmay

2011

241
 Appendix 1 Continued

Title Composer MS number

Toquen los clarines Antonio de Salazar a0023

Un ciego que ver quera Manuel de Sumaya a0056
Va de vejamen Antonio de Salazar a0008
Vaya otra vez Antonio de Salazar a0016
Vengan, que llama Dios Antonio de Salazar a0045
Virgen pura, arca sagrada Ignacio Jerusalem a2016
Ya se eriza Manuel de Sumaya a0072

Downloaded from http://em.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Utah on November 26, 2014

Drew Edward Davies, a specialist in Latin American and Iberian music of the 16th, 17th and 18th
centuries, is Assistant Professor of Musicology at Northwestern University and regional coordinator of
the MUSICAT project in Mexico City. His University of Chicago dissertation concerning galant music
at Durango Cathedral earned the Housewright Award from the Society for American Music. Widely
published in English and Spanish, his complete works edition of Santiago Billoni, an Italian composer
in 1740s Mexico, is published by A-R Editions, and his catalogue of the music collection at Durango
Cathedral is forthcoming from the Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico. Currently, Davies is
writing a monograph, Music and Devotion in New Spain, and collaborating with musicians throughout
North America to help revive viceregal music. dedavies@northwestern.edu

1 Villancicos have recently been
defined as all learned songs in the
vernacular performed in a sacred
context, in Devotional music in the
Iberian world, 14501800: the villancico
and related genres, ed. T. Knighton and
. Torrente (Aldershot, 2007), p.3.
This refreshing definition moves
beyond formal characteristics to
consider the function and contexts of
the genre. In this article, however, I do
not refer to works that could otherwise
be considered arias, cantadas, duets,
motets or alabanzas as villancicos.
2 This canon contains A la jcara
jacarilla and A siolo Flasiquiyo by Juan
Gutirrez de Padilla (Puebla, 1653);
Convidando est la noche by Juan
Garca de Cspedes (Puebla, c.1670);
and Los coflades de la estleya by Juan de
Araujo (La Plata/Sucre, late 17th
century). The first two works appear in
Juan Gutirrez de Padilla, Tres
Cuadernos de Navidad, 1653, 1655 y 1657,
ed. M. Palacios et al. (Caracas, 1998),
edited from sources at Puebla
Cathedral; the final three in R. M.
Stevenson, Latin American colonial
music anthology (Washington, DC,
1975); Stevensons edition is the only
available manifestation of Convidando
est la noche, as the original source
from Puebla remains in the private
collection of the heirs of Gabriel
Saldvar; A siolo Flasiquiyo also appears
in J. W. Hill, Anthology of Baroque
music (New York, 2005); Los coflades de
la estleya is in J. P. Burkholder and C.
Palisca, Norton anthology of Western
music, 2 vols. (New York, 5/2005).
Among the commercial recordings of
these works are Missa Mexicana with
the Harp Consort and Andrew
Lawrence-King (Harmonia Mundi
hmu 907293, 2002); New World
symphonies with Ex Cathedra and
Jeffrey Skidmore (Hyperion cda67380,
2002); and Nueva Espaa: Close
encounters in the New World, 15901690
with the Boston Camerata and Joel
Cohen (Erato 2292 45977-2, 1993).
3 R. M. Stevenson, Puebla
chapelmasters and organists: sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. Part II,
Inter-American Music Review, vi/1
(1984), pp.29139, at p.87.
4 D. E. Davies, Nationalism,
exoticism and colonialist
appropriation: the historiographic
decontextualization of music from
New Spain, in Latin American choral
music: contemporary performance and
the colonial legacy, ed. J. Sturman
(2007), http://web.cfa.arizona.edu/stu
rman/CLAM/Pub1/Davies1.html; G.
Baker, Latin American Baroque:
performance as post-colonial act?
Early Music, xxxvi/3 (2008),
pp.4418.
5 G. Baker, The ethnic villancico
and racial politics in 17th-century
Mexico, in Devotional music in the
Iberian world, pp.399408; J. M. Lipski,
A history of Afro-Hispanic language: five
centuries, five continents (Cambridge,
2005); and P. R. Laird, Towards a
history of the Spanish villancico
(Warren, MI, 1997), pp.1689.
6 For discussion of late 18th-century
Guadalupan processions with music in
San Luis Potos, see D. E. Davies,
Making music, writing myth: urban
Guadalupan ritual in eighteenth-
century New Spain, in Music and
urban society in colonial Latin America,
ed. T. Knighton and G. Baker
(Cambridge, 2010), pp.6482.
7 C. Bargellini, Originality and
invention in the painting of New
Spain, in Painting a New World:
Mexican art and life 15211821, ed. D.


early musicmay

2011
Pierce, R. Ruiz Gomar and C.
Bargellini (Denver, 2004), pp.7991.
The image does not include the dragon
from Revelation 12; it also presents
iconography of the Immaculate
Conception of Mary.
8 The painter, identified as Marcos,
indio pintor, is believed to be Marcos
Griego, who was likely the same person
as the painters Marcos Aquino and
Marcos Cipac. See P. ngeles Jimnez,
Apeles y tlacuilos: Marcos Griego y la
pintura cristiano indgena del siglo XVI
en la Nueva Espaa, in De arquitectura,
pintura y otras artes. Homenaje a Elisa
Vargaslugo, ed. C. Gutirrez Arriola et al.
S. Poole, The Guadalupan controversies in
Mexico (Stanford, 2006), pp.125.
14 The oldest dated villancico with
music at the ACCMM is Antonio de
Salazars Arde afable hermosura, which
dates to Christmas 1693. Note that
villancicos with music survive at
Puebla from as early as Juan Gutirrez
de Padillas 1651 Christmas cycle, and
the Cancionero of Gaspar Fernndez,
preserved at Oaxaca, contains
chanzonetas with Puebla provenance
dating to the 1610s.
15 It is interesting that the earlier
villancicos coincide with the construction
of the Basilica of Guadalupe at Tepeyac
Catedral Metropolitano de Mxico,
Cuadernos del Seminario Nacional de
Msica en la Nueva Espaa y Mxico
Independiente, iv (2009), pp.570. This
article, as well as additional data about
the conservation of the manuscripts,
and digital images of every folio in the
former collection, is freely available to
the public at the seminars website,
www.musicat.unam.mx. The new call
numbers (signaturas) consist of the
letter A plus four numerical digits
and replace former nomenclatures.
19 Marn Lpez, Una desconocida
coleccin, p.331. In Gua a la
Coleccin, we gave the number of

Downloaded from http://em.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Utah on November 26, 2014

(Mexico City, 2004), pp.11533; J.
Cuadriello, Atribucin disputada: Quin
pint la Virgen de Guadalupe?, in Los
discursos sobre el arte, ed. J. Gutirrez
Haces (Mexico City, 1995), pp.23167; and
C. Bargellini, The Virgin of Guadalupe: a
painting of New Spain, in Yale Institute
of Sacred Music Colloquium: Music,
Worship, Arts, iv (2007), pp.714.
9 The story of Guadalupe: Luis Laso de
la Vegas Huei tlamahuioltica of 1649,
ed. L. Sousa, S. Poole and J. Lockhart
(Stanford, 1998).
10 D. A. Brading, Mexican phoenix:
Our Lady of Guadalupe: image and
tradition across five centuries
(Cambridge, 2003); M. Zires, Los
mitos de la Virgen de Guadalupe. Su
proceso de construccin y
reinterpretacin en el Mxico pasado y
contemporneo, Mexican Studies/
Estudios Mexicanos, x/2 (1994),
pp.281313. It should be noted that The
Virgin of Guadalupe as worshipped in
Bolivia is not directly related to the
Mexican feast or narrative.
11 S. Poole, Our Lady of Guadalupe:
origins and sources of a Mexican
national symbol (Tucson, 1995), pp.114.
12 W. B. Taylor, Mexicos Virgin of
Guadalupe in the seventeenth century:
hagiography and beyond, in Colonial
saints: discovering the holy in the Americas,
15001800, ed. A. Greer and J. Bilinkoff
(New York, 2003), pp.27798, at p.293.
13 Literary works such as Carlos
Sigenza y Gngoras Primavera Indiana
(1668) and Francisco de Florencias La
estrella del norte (1688) were fundamental
in elaborating the story set out earlier by
Snchez and Laso de la Vega. See
Brading, Mexican phoenix, pp.10114; and
between 1695 and 1709, an undertaking
accomplished largely through donations
by the creole population. See K.
Donahue-Wallace, Art and architecture of
viceregal Latin America, 15211821
(Albuquerque, 2008), p.128.
16 A 1750 decree that composers of the
Spanish Royal Chapel write responsories
rather than villancicos for Matins,
following Portuguese precedent, initiated
this across-the-board shift in Hispanic
churches. See . Torrente, Misturadas
de castelhanadas com o oficio divino: La
reforma de los maitines de Navidad y
Reyes en el siglo XVIII, in La pera en el
templo: Estudios sobre el Compositor
Francisco Javier Garca Fajer, ed. M. .
Marn (Logroo, 2010), pp.193235.
Mexico City Cathedral counted among
the earlier Hispanic institutions to build a
repertory of concerted responsories in the
1750s. Nonetheless, villancicos continued
to be composed for ritual use on both
side of the Atlantic into the early 19th
century. The passage Non fecit taliter
omni nationi (He hath not done in like
manner to every nation) from Psalm 147,
an emblem of the devotion, has settings
by Ignacio Jerusalem and others.
17 For a detailed history of the
collection, see J. Marn Lpez, Una
desconocida coleccin de villancicos
sacros novohispanos (16891812): el
Fondo Estrada de la Catedral de Mxico,
in La msica y el Atlntico: Relaciones
musicales entre Espaa y Amrica, ed. M.
Gembero Ustrroz and E. Ros-Fbregas
(Granada, 2007), pp.31157.
18 A complete catalogue with musical
incipits of the former Estrada
Collection is D. E. Davies, A. Cheravsky
and G. P. Rossi, Gua a la Coleccin
Estrada del Archivo del Cabildo
villancicos as 103, having catalogued
the two unidentical copies of Sumayas
Od, moradores del orbe separately.
20 The tally of villancicos does not
include arias, duets, cantadas, motets,
alabanzas or duplicate copies. The total
number of works is an estimate
generated using the MUSICAT database,
which is still under construction and
contains a greater and more consistent
level of detail than previous cataloguing
attempts, such as E. T. Stanford, Catlogo
de los acervos musicales de las catedrales
metropolitanas de Mxico y Puebla, de la
Biblioteca Nacional de Antropologa e
Historia y otras colecciones menores
(Mexico City, 2002); R. Stevenson,
Renaissance and Baroque musical sources
in the Americas (Washington, DC, 1970);
L. Spiess and T. Stanford, An introduction
to certain Mexican archives (Detroit,
1969); and other in-house efforts by
archivists. I am indebted to Anala
Cheravsky and Lucero Enrque in the
construction of this list.
21 Obras completas de Sor Juana Ins de
la Cruz, ed. A. Mndez Plancarte, 4
vols. (Mexico City, 1952), ii, p.3;
[R. Stevenson], Sor Juanas Mexico
City Musical Coadjutors, Inter-
American Music Review, xv/1 (1996),
pp.2338. No surviving setting of a
villancico text by Sor Juana has been
identified in Mexico City.
22 Four villancicos are printed in full in
A. Mndez Plancarte, Los villancicos
guadalupanos de Don Felipe de Sontoyo,
bside, ii/11 (1938) , pp.1829; three of
these also appear in A. Mndez Plancarte,
Poetas novohispanos, 2 vols. (Mexico City,
1945), ii, pp.13843. Mndez Plancarte
(190955) notes that he consulted the
imprint, of which no copies are traceable,

early musicmay

2011

2 43
in the private collection of Federico
Gmez de Orozco in Mexico City.
23 No villancicos for the Virgin of
Guadalupe dating to the viceregal
period appear to survive at the Baslica
de Guadalupe in Mexico City, at least
as can be discerned in L. Guerberof
Hahn, Archivo Musical: Catlogo
(Mexico City, 2006). Villancicos for
other feasts are present there. Data in
Table 3 are drawn from A. Tello,
Archivo Musical de la Catedral de
Oaxaca. Catlogo (Mexico City, 1990);
Stevenson, Renaissance and Baroque;
and Stanford, Catlogo de los acervos.
Many of Sumayas pieces preserved at
Oaxaca Cathedral were written in
Mexico City years before his arrival in
Oaxaca in 1738. His Al prodigio mayor
at Guatemala City, previously thought
to be the earliest Guadalupan
villancico, unquestionably hails from
Mexico City as well. See C. H. Russell,
Zumaya, Manuel de, in New Grove II,
xxvii, pp.8801. My thanks to Javier
Marn-Lpez for consulting the
Sumaya work en situ in Guatemala for
me. There is no compelling reason to
utilize the archaic spelling Zumaya.
24 A la milagrosa escuela (a1487 and
a2161.01), the villancico Jerusalem
wrote for his opposition examination
in 1750, is one of his few pieces in the
genre to follow the estribillocoplas
process. Yet even here Jerusalem
pushed for formal innovation by
writing only one copla, which he
divides up among the four solo voices
in an extended passage that resembles
the B section of a da capo aria more
than a copla.
25 See Torrente, Misturadas de
castelhanadas.
26 A parallel might be drawn here
between the growth of the feasts of the
Virgin of Guadalupe in New Spain and
Corpus Christi in late medieval
Europe. Both transformed from local
devotions into festivals laden with
political connotations by means of
literature and popular devotion. See M.
Rubin, Corpus Christi: the Eucharist in
late medieval culture (Cambridge, 1991).
27 B. Illari, The popular, the sacred, the
colonial and the local, in Devotional music in
the Iberian world, pp.40940, at p.428.
28 J. Lafaye, Quetzalcatl and
Guadalupe: the formation of Mexican

early musicmay
2011
national consciousness 15311813, trans.
B. Keen (Chicago, 1976), p.78.
29 D. Schons, The influence of
Gngora on Mexican literature during
the seventeenth century, Hispanic
Review, vii/1 (1939), pp.2234;
J. Joaqun Blanco, La literatura en la
Nueva Espaa 2: Esplendores y miserias
de los criollos (Mexico City, 1989).
Schons describes New Spanish
Gongorism as imitative.
30 All translations are mine. In Seas
ve claras, I acknowledge some
indebtedness to a translation prepared
by Joseph R. Jones for a performance
of the piece with the Orchestra of New
Spain directed by Grover Wilkins in
Dallas on 11 March 2010, for which we
collaborated. However, I have chosen
to use archaic English grammatical
forms where appropriate to capture the
tone of the original poem.
31 See M. Snchez, Imagen de la
Virgen Mara, Madre de Dios de
Guadalupe. Milagrosamente aparecida
en la ciudad de Mxico. Celebrada en
su historia, con la profecia del captulo
doce del Apocalipsis (Mexico City,
1648), passim. Another contemporary
source reads, for example, Dieron los
criados noticia de todo al seor
Obispo; y habiendo entrado el Indio a
su presencia, ya ddole su mensaje,
aadi que llevaba las seas, que le Michael, with an accompanying sonnet
haba mandado pedir a la Seora
(orthography modernized); L. Bezerra
Tanco, Felicidad de Mxico en la
admirable aparicin de la Virgin
Mara N. Seora de Guadalupe y
origen de su milagrosa imagen que se
venera en su Santuario extramuros de
aquella ciudad (Madrid, 1745 [1675]),
p.29.
32 Plancarte, Poetas novohispanos, ii,
pp.1389.
33 Revelation 1.9.
34 Exodus 3.15; Deuteronomy 4.815.
35 Bargellini, Originality and
invention, p.88.
36 M. Cabrera, Maravilla americana y
conjunto de raras maravillas observadas
con la direccin de las reglas de el arte
de la pintura en la prodigiosa imagen de
Nuestra S.ra de Guadalupe de Mxico
(Mexico City, 1756), p.5.
37 The villancico Cerca de Mxico el
templo of 1721 also takes on the theme
of the divinity of the image, noting
that it was painted by heaven.
38 See L. K. Stein, Songs of mortals,
dialogues of the Gods: music and theatre
in seventeenth-century Spain (Oxford,
1993), pp.3267.
39 One of the few writings on this
characteristically Spanish notation
system is J. V. Gonzlez Valle, La
notacin de la msica vocal espaola
del siglo XVII. Cambio y significado
segn la teora y prctica musical de la
poca, in Altes im Neuen: Festschrift
Theodor Gllner zum 65. Geburtstag, ed.
B. Edelmann and M. H. Schmid
(Tutzing, 1995), pp.17791.
Downloaded from http://em.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Utah on November 26, 2014
40 See G. Barnett, Tonal organization
in seventeenth-century music theory,
in The Cambridge history of Western
music theory, ed. T. Christensen
(Cambridge, 2002), pp.40755.
41 These villancicos would most likely
have been performed from the choir
enclosure of the cathedral.
42 For an assertion that Salazar was born
in Puebla, see J. Koegel, Salazar, Antonio
de in Diccionario de la msica espaola e
hispanoamericana, ed. E. Casares Rodicio
(Madrid, 19992002), ix, pp.5724.
43 Lpez Capillass Missa Batalla
appears in polyphonic choirbook p06
of the ACCMM and is dedicated to St
relating the triumph over the serpent
from Revelation xxii.
44 Laird, Towards a history, pp.1745.
45 J. Gutirrez Haces et al., Cristbal de
Villalpando, ca. 16491714 (Mexico
City, 1997), p.202.
46 For a comparison of the number of
voices in Salazar and Sumayas
villancicos in the former Estrada
Collection, see Marn, Una
desconocida coleccin, p.321.
47 Three editions that present an
overview of Sumayas work are
Cantadas y villancicos de Manuel de
Sumaya, ed. A. Tello, Tesoro de la
msica polifnica en Mxico, vii
(Mexico City, 1994); Misas de Manuel
de Sumaya, ed. A. Tello, Tesoro de la
msica polifnica en Mxico, viii
(Mexico City, 1996); and Clusulas,
Secuencias, Salmos de Manuel de
Sumaya, ed. A. Tello, Tesoro de la
msica polifnica en Mxico, xii
(Mexico City, 2007).