FROM GUEST CURATOR SEBASTIÁN ZUBIETA

Yesterday we watched a video of music composed for cathedrals in one of the big Spanish American cities, but that was not the only context in which choral music flourished in the region. Worlds away from the bustling towns, from Chile to California, often surrounded by forests, were the missions (those run by the Jesuits were the most successful). The Jesuit Missions of present-day eastern Bolivia were particularly successful and are important for the study of baroque music in the continent because a large quantity of music survived to our days. The collections, currently preserved archives in Chiquitos and Moxos, are among the largest archives from the colonial period in America and include locally composed anonymous pieces as well as works by Domenico Zipoli, whose music is abundantly represented, and by other contemporary European composers. Musicological work on the repertoire has been especially fruitful over the past 30 years following the virtually fortuitous discovery of the manuscripts in the 1980s. The Jesuits established and administered 10 highly successful Missions from 1691 until their expulsion from Spain and all its colonies in 1767 in the area, called Chiquitos after one of the peoples that inhabited the region. The usual process for the foundation of a mission started when the missionaries would convince the chief of a group of natives to convert to Catholicism, abandon their ancestral life and establish a pueblo. Once moved, they built religious and civil edifices, started agricultural activity and developed all sorts of arts and crafts, including music. The idea of the usefulness of music for civilized life is as old as western culture itself and has a very rich history. In the specific case of the Jesuits’ missionary activity, contemporary references to its power converge around the way in which it made Catholicism more agreeable to the natives and the extraordinary facility and enthusiasm with which the neophytes embraced music making. At the same time, this musical activity became a very powerful publicity tool for the Jesuits as they sustained their constant political fights with Spanish settlers, local governments and other Orders. Visits of mission ensembles to urban centers became the showcase for the extraordinary way in which the Jesuit project fulfilled its evangelical mandate. A witness of a trip by a group of Mocobí to Buenos Aires in 1758, for example, was awestruck by the vision of scores of these once hostile “tigers” who, “five or six years earlier washed their hands in Spanish blood,” now making music.

The Jesuits were expelled from Spain and all its possessions in 1767 and the Order itself was suppressed for over 40 years starting shortly afterwards. The extrañamiento, as the process was called, was sudden, which meant that many things were left behind, including musical scores and instruments. While former Jesuit pueblos in other regions were largely abandoned soon after the expulsion and their territories became the setting for political and military conflict, Chiquitos remained relatively isolated and in many cases the populations remained in their former missions. The musical activity that had developed during Jesuit times continued until well into the 20th century: the repertoire continued to grow and the music continued to be performed in what had become a local tradition. The immediate musical background of these pieces can be found in the contemporary Italo-Austrian baroque tradition produced at various courts in Italy and at the Holy Court in Vienna. Most of the priests responsible for the foundation of the musical activity in the Bolivian missions were born and/or educated in the Germanic and Italian Jesuit provinces.

This video is from a concert Meridionalis did in collaboration with the Clarion Society in 2013. The piece is an anonymous responsorial prayer called Iesu dulcissime, conducted by Steven Fox, in which a soprano soloist (Estelí Gómez) and a 3-part choir engage in a subtly shifting alternation.

– Sebastiáno Zubieta, Music Director, Americas Society