Vilancicos De Negro: the Meeting-Point Between Afro-Portuguese and Baroque Church Music

Vilancicos de Negro: the meeting-point between Afro-Portuguese and Baroque church music Ana R. Luís* & Paulo Estudante** 1. INTRODUCTION In the historical archives of the Biblioteca Geral da Universidade de Coimbra, a collection of music manuscripts, dating from the middle of the 17th century, offers a probably unexpected combination of Baroque church music and Afro- Portuguese. Among these manuscripts are several Vilancicos de Negro – a very popular music genre of the Baroque period sung entirely in Língua de Preto. In Portugal, Língua de Preto was made notable by the 16th century Portuguese playwright Gil Vicente (1465-1536?), which explains why previous studies on Língua de Preto are almost entirely based on Vicente’s texts (Teyssier 1959, Kihm&Rougé 2013). The Coimbra manuscripts promise to shed new light on this literary representation of Afro-Portuguese. In particular, because they challenge the traditional view that Língua de Preto was an entirely 16th century phenomenon (Teyssier 2005). However, the existence of lyrics in Língua de Preto strongly indicates that, after Vicente’s plays were no longer performed at the king’s court, Língua de Preto was incorporated into the Catholic liturgy as the language of a quite specific music genre, known as Vilancicos de Negro. The well-documented fact that hundreds of Vilancicos de Negro were effectively sung and performed during the 17th century lends further support to our claim. Although Vilancicos de Negro are an integral part of Portuguese culture, it is surprising that a thorough examination of their lyrics and scores has never been undertaken. A multidisciplinary project is therefore underway at the University of Coimbra with the aim of examining what this new evidence can tell us about language contact and musicology. Crucially, these manuscripts play an instrumental role in deepening our understanding of both Afro-Portuguese and Baroque church music: they offer new empirical evidence on the emergence and development of Afro-Portuguese since its early documentation in the 16th century and throughout the 17th century, while at the same time sheding light on one of the least studied periods of Portuguese Music History. The goal of this paper will be to offer a preliminary study of the contribution of 17th century Vilancicos de Negro to musicology and linguistics. With this two-fold goal in mind, section 2 surveys the religious and musical context of Vilancicos de Negro. Section 3 then offers a sketch of the linguistic properties of * Universidade de Coimbra. Mail: [email protected] ** Universidade de Coimbra. Mail: [email protected] 156 Ana R. Luís & Paulo Estudante 17th century Língua de Preto, based on a comparison with Língua de Preto from the 16th century. Section 4 offers a short summary of our paper. 2. THE VILANCICO DE NEGRO: A MUSICAL SUBGENRE In what follows, we offer an overview of the Vilancico de Negro, a popular musical genre of the Iberian Baroque sacred music. Associated to some of the most important Catholic Feasts, the Vilancico de Negro is believed to have been performed during the liturgy. 2.1. The liturgical context Western Europe has known vernacular devotional songs at least since the second half of the 13th century. Particularly tied to Christmas festivities, these songs can be found in several European countries under different names (and showing structural differences): a) lauda (Italy), b) noël (France), c) carol (England), d) vilancico / villancico (Portugal/Spain). Whereas the laude, noëls and carols were not integrated into the Catholic liturgy (Gómez 2012: 166-9), the vilancico became an intrinsic part of some of the major Catholic Feasts (e.g., Christmas, Epiphany, Corpus Christi, Circumcision, Easter Sunday, and the major local saints’ days.). In fact, from the 17th century until the middle of the 18th century (and until later, in Latin America), the term vilancico began to be strongly associated to Catholic celebrations and identified as a typical component in the Iberian liturgy. During those religious Feasts, the vilancicos were a fundamental element of the Matins1 liturgy, which generally took place after midnight. These seem to have been so popular, that not even the low temperatures of winter nights, such as Christmas Eve, would frighten the people away. Instead, church-goers would be quite eager to enjoy those joyful, theatrical and, above all, vernacular moments, which were in marked contrast to the Latin liturgy, only intelligible to clerics. Table 1 is a simplified representation of the liturgical structure of the Portuguese Christmas Matins containing nine vilancicos, not all of which were mandatory. These Matins contained roughly three Nocturns, each one comprising three Lessons followed by the same number of Responsories. The vilancico would follow after each ‘Lesson&Responsory’ pair or replace the last Responsory. 1 “Matins” is one of the canonical hours (usually the night-time prayer). In the pre- Vatican II liturgy, the Office of Matins comprises five parts: an introductory section, three Nocturns and a conclusion. Each of the Nocturns includes, among other prayers, three Psalms, three Lessons and three Responsories, with the two latter being interpolated (Harper 1991: 73-97; Asensio 2003: 264-268). In the Matins of major Feasts (e.g., Christmas), between the 16th- and the middle of the 18th-century, the vilancico would come after after the Lesson, either replacing or following the Responsory. .

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