The First Black Published Composer 101
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The First Black Published Composer I NHARVARD UNIVERSITY RESEARCHER Josephine Wright's prescient article, "lgna tius Sancho (1729-1780), African Composer in England," The Block Perspective in Music, vn/2 (Fall 1979), 134, she caJls Sancho "apparently the first black composer in history to publish his music." AJthough Sancho earns no biographical entry in The New Grove, E. L. Gerber's Neues historisch-biographisches lexikon der Ton künstler, Vierter The1/. S.-Z. (Leipzig: A. Kühnel, 1814), 15, gave him a 13-line article stating that he wrote a Theorie der Musik.' Unfortunately, this theory text seems Jost. But the Library of Congress owns Twelve Country Dances for the Year 1779. Ser for the Harpsichord By Permission Humbly Dedicated to the Right Hon ourable Miss North, by her most obedient Servant Ignatius Sancho (London: Printed for S. and A. Thompson N° 75 S• Pauls Church Yard [Price 6~]). Wright also identifies Sancho as composer of A Col/ection of New Songs Composed by an African and of two books of Minuels, Cotillions & Country Dances f or the Vio/in, Mando/in, German-Flute, and Harpsichord Composed by an Ajrican that are cata logued H. 1652.f (31); a. 9. b(l) and b.53. b(l) at the British Library. Gerber identified Sancho as originally ein Negersklave. On the other hand, he identified Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1739-1799), as racially ein Mulatte (Neues historisch-biographisches Lexikon, Zweyter Theil E.-1. (1812), 290). Dominique-René de Lerma, in "The Chevalier de Saint-Georges," The Block Per spective in Music, 1v / J (Spring 1976), 3-21, cited the chevalier's father as Joseph Jean-Nicholas Boulogne from France, where he had been in the parlement at Metz before assignment to Guadeloupe island as comptroller and secretary to the Ordre de Saint-Esprit. In footnote l, De Lerma cautions that "individual black composers" may well have ílourished on the European continent before the Chevalier de Saint Georges. If the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, even though a mulatto, be counted as Black,' then also would have to be so counted the Minas Gerais pleiad of eighteenth-century mulatto composers revealed by Francisco Curt Lange, the Rio de Janeiro cathedral Wright says that Sancho's surname was derived "from the squire in Cervante's(!) play(!]. Don Qui· xote" (p. 134). According to her, "Sancho v.as born in 1729 aboard a slave ship en ro u te from Guinea to the Olribbean pon of Cartagena, now located in North Columbia(!), Sonth America." She credits the Gerber eniry in her footnote 6 to the 1966 facsim1led v. 111, p. 15 (should be v. 111, second foliation, p. IS). 'lssued in 1974, Black Composers ~ries, Vol. 1 (Columbia M 32781), consisted entirely of music by the Che\aher de Samt·Georges. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (father from Sierra Leone, mother English) occu· pies the first s1de of Vol. 2 in the same Black Composers Senes. Olly W1lson, "The Black-American Com poser ,'' The Bla<k Perspective m MuJ1c, 1/ I (Spring 1973), 33, chided lrving Kolodm lor quest1oning the "blackne~s" of the music included in Nataf1e Hmderas Plays Mus1c by Block Composers (Desto DC 710213). Robert Stevemon's "America's First Black Music Historian," Journal of the American Mus1colog1caf Soc1ety, xxvt/ 3 (Fall 1973), 383-404, grappled wllh the problem of racial mixing (pp. 388, 396, 400). 79 80 INTER·AMERJC'AN M USIC REVIEW chapelmaster often called the father of Brazilian music-José Mauricio Nunes Gar cia (1767-1830), and numerous other Brazilian mulattos who flourished before J 800. 1 In Portuguese, the word for mulatto is pardo.• The first Portuguese-born composer to publish both music and theoretical works who is identifiable as a pardo was Vicente Lusitano. Entered in ali international music lexicons from Gerber (111 (1813), 275) to The New Grove (x1, 340-341), he has hitherto emerged a somewhat shadowy figure. As authority for Vicente Lusitano's being a mulatto, Joao Franco Barreto (1600-ca. 1674)' thus identified him in his manuscript Bibliotheco Luzitana (Cadaval Ducal Library, Muge (Portugal], Sign. M.VI.14), fol. 953:• Víncencío Lusitano, natural de Olívenca, clerigo e homen pardo, compos em Padua, e na Hngua Italiana. Huma arte de canto ("Vicente Lusitano, native of Olivenca, clergyman and mulatto, wrote in Padua an Art of Singing in the ltalian language").... Barreto continues with details concerning the third edition of Lusitano's lntrodvt tione facilissima, et novissima, di Canto Fermo, Figvrato, Contrapon to semplice, et in concerto. Con Regole Generali per far fvghe differenti sopra il Canto Fermo, a ii. iii. & iiii. voci, & compositioni, proportioni, generi. S. Diatonico, Cromotico, Enarmonico (Venice: Francesco Rampazetto, 1561). This edition like the second which it duplicates (Venice: Francesco Marcolini, 1558), and thc first which differs only slightly (Rome: Antonio Blado, 1553),' presumably served as a textbook for the pupils whom Lusitano taught at Rome, Viterbo, and Padua. Ali three editions were dedicated to the same patron, Marc' Antonio Colon na, Duke of Marsi. 9 'Sce "Some Portuguese Sources for Early Braziltan Music History," Yearbook of the lnter-Ameru:on lnstllute far Musical Research, 1v (1968), 22-26. 'AntOnio Houaiss and Cathcrine B. Avery, Nóvo D1c1onár10 Applelon das Lfnguas Inglesa e Portu guesa (New York: Appleton-Century-Crof1s, 1967), p. 442: "pardo, mi [masculine·feminine]. mulatto." 'A native of L1sbon, Barre to published his translation of the Aeneid in 1664-1670, an /ndex de todos os Nomes proprios to conclude his three-volume edition of Camóes's Os lus1adas in 1669, and an Orto· graph1a da l111gua Portuguei.a in 1670. Concerning him see Oiogo Barbosa Machado, 81bltotheca lusitana (Lisbon; Ignacio Rodrigues, 1747), 11, 664-666; lnnocencio francisco da Silva, D1ccionáno B1bliograph1co Portuguez (lisbon: lmprensa Nacional, 1859), 111, 379-380. According to Barbosa Machado, the antiquarian Manuel Severim de Fana (1S82/3-16SS) induced Barreto to begin his 81blw theca Portuguei.o while rusticating at Redondo. Although ready for the press, its printing was disallowed (EJUS B1bliothecam lus//anom proped1em typis mandandom v1dere non licull). The copy in the Cadaval ducal library prov1ded Barbosa Machado "with many data which he [Barreto) had gathered with in defatigable zeal." ' Maria Augusta Alves Barbosa, Vincent1vs lvsitanvs ein porlURtes1scher Kompomst und Mus1k- 1'1eoret1ker des 16. Jo.hrhunderts (L1)bon: Secretaria de Estado da Cultura, Direccao Geral do Património Cultural, 1977 [printed and bound at Braga by Barbosa & Xavier, Artes Gráficas, Limitada, Rua Gabriel Pereira de Castro, 31-C)), p. 9 (note 10). Vicente Lusitano's mother was probably the Afncan Black, his fathcr the European. Sce Barbosa, p. S3: "ist es wohl moglich, dass er der Sohn einer Farbigen und cines weissen Portugiesen gewesen 1st." 'Facsímiles of the title pages (see below, pp. 94, 96) appear in Barbosa, at pp. 4-6. The first cdition at Brusscls, Bibliotheque Royalc, Sign. FS3 l 7 A L.P .. differs slightly from the second and third, which latter two duplicare each other 1ps1s verb1s. The title page of the first edition spells ln1rodu11one w1thou1 the double tt, contains punctuation and capitahzation variants, and begins in goth1c rather than roman type. A copy of the sccond edit1on knoY.n to Barbosa is al the Paris Bibliothequc Nationale, of the third at Brussels, Bililiotheque Royale, fS319 A L.P. Throughout the remamder of this article, no attempt at rigorous consistcncy will be made in spelling lntrodvtwne, lntrodvuwne, L1tier Pnmvs Ep1groma1vm, and other tilles containing capitalizcd u. 'Born at Civita Lavm1a February 26, 1S3S, l\larc' Antonio Colonna (11) d1ed at Medmaceh, Spain August 2, 1584. Thc death of two older brother~ left him m 1SS1 heir to the farnily tilles. In 1SSJ, the year of Vicente Lu~itano's dedicar ion, he cornmanded thc combined Spanish and Neapolitan cavalry in f1ghtmg The Firsl Black Published Composer 81 The first published (as opposed to manuscript) notice of Vicente Lusitano awaited Diogo Barbosa Machado's Bibliotheca lusirana (Lis bon: Ignacio Rodrigues, 1752), Ill, 779: Vicente, whose family name is unknown, was born in the small town of Oliven~a. Alentejo province. Pricst of the habit of St. Peter,' and a noted musician, he taught in the cities of Padua 'º and Viterbo with great success, and to the great profit of his students. '' He wrote the lntroduttione facilissima ... published by Francesco Rampazetto at Venice in 1561 " in large quarto, which is dedicated to Marc'Antonio Colonna, Duke of Marsi. Antonio Possevino cites this work in his Bibliotheca Selecta de ratione studiorum [Vol. 11, p. 223, Cologne edition of 1607); so does Fabiano Giustiniani in his /ndex universa/is alphabeticus, appendix under the word "musica" (Rome, 1612}. Canon Bernardo da Fonseca translated this work into Por tuguese in 1603. " Olivenr;a, 24 km southwest of Badajoz, Spain-which both Barreto and Barbosa Machado cited as Vicente Lusitano's birthplace-enjoyed close links with the port city of Ceuta (opposite Gibraltar in Africa) during Lusitano's lifetime. Ceuta, v.rested from the Moors by Portuguese king Joao 1 August 21, 1415, became five years later the seat of a diocese created by Pope Martin V September 6, 1420. On July 14, 1444, Eugene IV's bull Romanus Pontifex annexed Olivenr;a (and Valenr;a do Minho) to the diocese of Ceuca. From 1473 to 1513 Olivenca belonged lo Braga diocese but, by Leo X's bull of June 25, 1513, /nter curas multiplices, was again joined co Cueta-in which diocese it remained until June 9, 1570, when ic was made pan of the newly created diocese of Elvas." arouncl Siena. His father Ascanio died March 24, 1555, h1s mother Giovanna di Aragona Sepcember 11, 1575.