Improvisation and Polyphony in Colonial Mexico Adam Salmond Department of Music Research Schulich School of Music McGill University, Montreal December 2015 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts in Musicology © Adam Salmond i Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iv Introduction v Chapter 1: Historical Context 1 Chapter 2: Improvisation in Renaissance Europe 23 Chapter 3: Music and the Franciscan Mission 35 Chapter 4: Improvisation at Mexico City Cathedral 58 Chapter 5: Techniques of Improvisation in Mexican Compositions 82 Conclusion 110 Bibliography 116 ii Abstract When Spain colonized Mesoamerica, it imported a European musical tradition that grew rapidly in the New World. Previous scholarship has traced the dissemination of composed European polyphony in New Spain, but has overlooked the concomitant emergence of an oral practice of improvising counterpoint. The tradition of improvised counterpoint, especially prominent in Spain, also developed in colonial Mexico. According to the chronicler Bartolomé Leonardo de Argensola (1562 – 1631), the conquistadors sang Masses in improvised counterpoint as early as 1519. The Franciscan friar Jacobo de Testera wrote to Charles V in 1533 that the Nahua were learning to improvise in colleges established by missionaries. Finally, the records and legislation of Mexico City Cathedral testify to the practice of improvisation at New Spain’s foremost church. This study traces the development of contrapuntal improvisation in sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Mexico, while also re-appraising the role of music in the colonization of New Spain. Chapter 1 begins by providing a historical context and by examining the discussions of music in mid-sixteenth-century Spanish debates over the legitimacy of enslaving Mesoamericans. Constructing an argument against slavery, Testera and the Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas (c. 1484 – 1566) both highlighted the Mesoamericans’ mastery of European musical practices (including, in Testera’s case, improvisation) as evidence for their rationality and humanity. In order to provide a musical context for the study, the second chapter explains the tradition of improvisation as it appeared in Spain and the rest of Europe. Its third chapter investigates the musical pedagogy at Franciscan colleges for indigenous youth, and examines the small corpus of sixteenth-century Nahuatl polyphony. Next, this study outlines the evidence for improvisation at Mexico City Cathedral, tracing the appearance of the musical terms contrapunto and fabordón in the cathedral constitution and chapter acts (Chapter 4). The final chapter focuses on works of Hernando Franco (1532 – 1585) and the possibly indigenous composer Juan de Lienas (fl. c. 1617 – 1654), demonstrating the use of improvisatory techniques described by sixteenth-century theorists in their compositions (Chapter 5). The study concludes by offering a new perspective on the narrative of tyrannical Spanish domination (the so-called “Black Legend”) in scholarship on the Spanish Empire, seeking to problematize this narrative by arguing that music restored agency to Mexico’s indigenous peoples. Résumé Quand l’Espagne a colonisé la Mésoamérique, elle y a importé une tradition de musique européenne qui s’est rapidement épanouie au Nouveau monde. Les études antérieures sur ce sujet ont retracé la diffusion de la polyphonie européenne composée, mais elles ont négligé l’apparition concurrente d’une pratique orale d’improvisation du contrepoint. Cette tradition de l’improvisation, qui était particulièrement importante en Espagne au XVIe siècle, s’est également développée dans la colonie mexicaine. Selon le chroniqueur Bartolomé Leonardo de Argensola (1562 – 1631), les conquistadors chantaient des messes en contrepoint improvisé dès 1519. En 1533, le frère franciscain Jacobo de Testera a écrit à Charles Quint que les Nahuas apprenaient à improviser la musique dans iii des collèges fondés par les missionnaires. De plus, les archives et la législation de la Cathédrale Métropolitaine de Mexico témoignent de la pratique de l’improvisation dans l’église principale de la Nouvelle-Espagne. Cette étude retrace le développement du contrepoint improvisé au Mexique au XVIe et au début du XVIIe siècle tout en réévaluant le rôle de la musique dans la colonisation de la Nouvelle-Espagne. Le premier chapitre, qui donne le contexte historique, se penche sur les discussions sur la musique dans l’empire espagnol au milieu du XVIe lors des débats sur la légitimité de l’esclavage des Méso-Américains. Dans leurs arguments contre l’esclavage, Testera et le frère dominicain Bartolomé de las Casas (vers 1484 – 1566) ont tous deux invoqué le fait que les Méso-Américains maîtrisaient des pratiques musicales européennes (incluant l’improvisation, selon Testera) comme preuve de leur rationalité et de leur humanité. Pour présenter le contexte musical de cette discussion, le deuxième chapitre explique la tradition de l’improvisation du contrepoint telle qu’elle apparaissait en Espagne et dans les autres pays d’Europe au XVIe siècle. Le troisième chapitre examine la pédagogie musicale des collèges franciscains pour les jeunes autochtones et fournit l’analyse du petit corpus de polyphonie composée et notée en nahuatl au XVIe siècle. Ensuite, le quatrième chapitre présente des preuves de l’improvisation à la Cathédrale Métropolitaine de Mexico en faisant état de termes musicaux comme contrapunto et fabordón dans les actes du chapitre et la constitution de la cathédrale. Le dernier chapitre se penche sur les œuvres d’Hernando Franco (1532 – 1585) et du compositeur probablement autochtone Juan de Lienas (actif vers 1617 – 1654) en montrant l’utilisation des techniques d’improvisation décrites par les théoriciens de la musique au XVIe siècle. Je conclus en proposant un nouveau regard sur le discours du régime tyrannique de la Nouvelle-Espagne (la « Légende noire espagnole ») dans les études sur l’empire espagnol. Je remets en question cette vision en soutenant que la musique a redonné du pouvoir aux peuples autochtones du Mexique. iv Acknowledgements I would like to thank first and foremost my supervisor, Julie Cumming, without whose knowledge, guidance, and support this study would not have been possible. This study grew out of a paper I wrote for a seminar at McGill University under Professor Cumming on Renaissance improvisation, and I would also like to thank the other students of that seminar, in particular Rory O’Connor, Alexis Risler, and Catherine Motuz, for their insights. Thanks also to Peter Schubert for his contrapuntal expertise. I am hugely indebted to John Lazos and Zacy Benner for their help with my research in Mexico City. Thanks also to Diane Lehmann Goldman for her advice and assistance in Mexico. Thanks to Salvador Adán Hernández Pech, Ruth Santa Cruz Castillo, Isaac Becerra Ramírez, and the other members of the MUSICAT project of the National Autonomous University of Mexico for their graciousness and help at the archives of Mexico City Cathedral. I would also like to thank José Juan López-Portillo for lending his invaluable expertise on all things New Spain. Thanks to Douglas Kirk and Craig Russell for their insights on Mexican music, and David Kendall for sharing his research on canto figurado. Thanks to Noel O’Regan and the Edinburgh University Renaissance Singers for their encouragement. Thanks to Alejandra Barriales-Bouche for her help with Spanish texts and translation. Finally, I would like to thank everyone who helped make McGill University a home, including many of the above-mentioned, but also Kyle Kaplan, Meg Parker, Emily Hopkins, Kristin Franseen, Tessa MacLean, Rachel Avery, Michael Turabian, Farley Miller, Michael Pecak, Erin Sheedy, Tom Beghin, and many more. This study was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and by the Early Modern Conversions Project of McGill University’s Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas. Any errors or shortcomings are entirely my own. To Ginny Nixon. v Introduction For this Hernando Cortés sent another embassy, which arrived in San Juan de Ulúa on Easter Sunday. They went to Teuthille, Moctezuma’s governor in that province, who was joined by Pitalpitoe and a large number of Indians carrying hens, various supplies, and pieces of gold. The governor made three bows to Cortés, who in turn, between the compliments that he made, invited him to remain for the solemnity of Easter. Fray Bartholomé de Olmedo celebrated the solemn mass, and helping the chaplain Juan Díaz were many soldiers with good voices and skilled in the singing of counterpoint. The Indians watched the ceremony and admired all that they saw.1 On the 24th of April 1519, three days after landing on the island of Ulúa in the Gulf of Mexico, Hernán Cortés and his expedition held a Mass celebrating Easter Sunday.2 The Mass, officiated by Fray Bartolomé de Olmedo,3 was performed in the presence of the local natives, “in order to awe and convert the indigenous peoples.”4 We will never know exactly how the music of the Mass sounded, but we are given some information by the chronicler Bartolomé Leonardo de Argensola (1526-1631), who reports that Olmedo was accompanied by conquistadors “skilled in the singing of counterpoint” (canto de contrapunto). It is difficult to judge the accuracy of Leonardo de Argensola’s account: after all, it was published in 1630, more than a century after the events it describes. Nevertheless, this phrase canto de contrapunto draws attention to the popularity and ubiquity of a musical practice that will be the focus of this study: the oral improvisation 1 Bartolomé Juan Leonardo de Argensola, Conquista de México (Mexico City: P. Robredo, 1940), 2 Robert Ricard, The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico: an Essay on the Apostolate and Evangelizing Methods of the Mendicant Orders in New Spain, 1523-1572, trans. Lesley Byrd Simpson (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1966), 17. 3 Ibid., 17. 4 Mark Pedelty, Musical Ritual in Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004), p. 39. vi of Renaissance music.