John Koegel

New sources of music from spain and colonial mexico at the sutro library

The recent discovery of an anthology in manuscript of 124 late-seventeenth- and early-eighteenth-century Spanish theater songs imported to Mexico and three late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Mexican music manuscripts of theatrical, dance, and salon music enlarges and enhances our knowledge of the secular-music repertory performed in Mexico. The discovery of the anthology of Spanish theater music not only significantly expands the known repertory of baroque Spanish accompanied solo theatrical song but also points to the practice in colonial Mexico of importing and performing theatrical songs by such Madrid court and theater composers as Juan Hidalgo, Juan de Navas, and Juan de Serqueira. The three Mexican manuscripts preserve many of the popular and classical instrumental music genres performed in the aristocratic, ecclesiastical, and upper- and middle-class salons and performance spaces, as well as in the public dance venues, academies, and theaters of the time. A wide range of music is represented: ballet music, performed at the Coliseo in Mexico City; arrangements of Italian opera overtures and arias; various kinds of European and Mexican dance music; and classic-period forms. These manuscripts also reflect an interest among Mexican musicians in earlier music styles and confirm that Mexicans knew and performed the music current in London, Paris, Madrid, Vienna, and elsewhere in Europe. I fortuitously discovered these manuscript collections when I visited the Sutro Library (part of the California State Library) in San Francisco, California, while in search of Mexican music imprints and publications relating to music in Mexico in the extensive Sutro Library collection of Mexican pamphlets. The Sutro Library houses more than eight thousand Mexican governmental and ecclesiastical imprints and other publications, which were inventoried as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project of the United States government in the 1930s. An extensive descriptive catalog was published by the WPA.(1) The Mexican imprints that relate to music are indeed of interest; however, the four manuscript collections described here are of special importance. The manuscript music at the Sutro Library has never before been studied, and only some of the several hundred other nonmusical Mexican manuscripts in the Sutro Library have been examined in depth by Mexican and North American scholars. The printed and manuscript Mexican materials now in the Sutro Library were purchased by the wealthy San Francisco book collector Adolph Sutro (1830-1898)(2) from the important Mexico City bookseller and publisher Francisco Abadiano and his son Eufemio in 1885 and 18897 Adolph Sutro, born in Alsace, arrived in San Francisco in 1850 at the height of the Gold Rush and established a lucrative career as a cigar importer. Great wealth came to him when he successfully planned and engineered the Sutro Tunnel to drain the Comstock Lode silver mine in Nevada, which at the time was flooded by water and generally inoperative. Influenced by social movements of the era, Sutro became a philanthropist: he built the Sutro Baths (a huge indoor swimming pool) and the famous Cliff House in San Francisco, created the Sutro Forest on San Franciscos highest hill, served as mayor from 1895 to 1896, and laid plans to establish a public library in the city. With the future library in mind, Sutro became a large-scale collector of manuscripts, rare books, and other materials, using the services of agents to buy entire collections in Europe and elsewhere. Before long, his collection included Hebrew, Egyptian, and medieval European manuscripts, and first editions of Shakespeare. To escape an understandably irate wife who had just found out about the mistress he had hidden away in Sutro, Nevada (the town he established near the entrance to the Sutro Tunnel, near Virginia City), Sutro traveled by train from San Francisco to Mexico City, where he encountered Francisco Abadianos bookstore, one of the citys leading bookshops, which contained an eclectic array of manuscript and printed items. …

Music in Ibero-America to 1850: A Historical Survey (review)

century (p. 187)—when in fact the author suggests in another section that modality was not being used even in the late sixteenth century (pp. 177–78)—seem contradictory. That Thomas Salmon’s controversial notation system, introduced in 1672, may have “provoked” a decline in the use of C clefs (p. 226) also appears wide of the mark, for C clefs are rarely seen in keyboard music, at least from seventeenthcentury England (while quite common in continental sources). These items aside, Herissone’s Music Theory in Seventeenth-Century England is an extremely useful book—one that is well conceived and indispensable for studying this particular aspect of seventeenthcentury music. Her knowledge of the primary source materials is remarkable, and her ability to organize various facets of each is admirable. She has gleaned much information from seemingly innocuous statements made by seventeenth-century writers (as well as those on either side of the century mark), and her interpretation of these remarks demonstrates a keen awareness of the repertory and its composition. The companion book should be eagerly anticipated and will undoubtedly shed more light on this confusing subject.

Village musical life along the Rio Grande : Tomé, New Mexico since 1739

La musique hispano-americaine sacree et populaire des XVIII e et XIX e siecles reste encore peu connue aujourdhui. Cependant la decouverte recente dinformations sur la vie musicale de la region de Rio Grande au Mexique depuis le milieu du XVIII e siecle, dont les Onze messes mexicaines du village de Tome, montre limportance des chansons et danses traditionnelles et autochtones pratiquees dans le contexte religieux. Au XIX e siecle, Jean Baptiste Ralliere, le pasteur de Tome, avait rassemble des cantiques spirituels (Canticos espirituales) ainsi que des chants vernaculaires locaux dont on sentait la forte influence dans la musique religieuse. Limportance des sources sur la musique sacree (archives ecclesiastiques ou privees, enregistrements sonores recents, ouvrages des membres du clerge sur les traditions locales) permet de retracer lhistoire musicale et sociale de la region du Rio Grande : une telle histoire montre la place fondamentale de la musique dans la vie quotidienne de la population locale ainsi que limportance des influences culturelles hispano-americaines, autochtones, anglo-americaines et europeennes.