The first teachers of European music at Quito were the Flemish Franciscans who arrived in 1534 and established their convento in 1535, Josse [=Jodocus=Jodoco] de Rycke of Malines, and Pierre Gosseal of Louvain.1 “In addition to teaching the Indians how to read and write, Fray Jodoco taught them to play various keyboard and string instruments, also sackbuts and shawms, flutes, trumpets, and cornetts, and the science of mensural music and plainchant,” reported El espejo de verdades of 1575.2 After 22 years at Quito, Fray Jodoco wrote an oft-quoted letter to Ghent, dated January 12, 1556, commending the Indian talent that he had encountered: “they easily learn to read and write and to play any instrument.”3 The level of music instruction in the Colegio de San Andrés, founded in 1555 by the Franciscans specifically for Indian youths (Spaniards enrolled also, but in smaller numbers),4 can be judged from a repertory in the 1570’s that included such difficult music as Francisco Guerrero’s four- and five-voice motets.5 In this colegio was reared the Indian musical prodigy, Cristóbal de Caranqui,6 whose virtuosity as both singer and player was lauded in a report to Madrid. Even after 1581 the colegio continued to support Indian music maestros who with their charges still sang and played “polyphonic works with admirable polish at all the principal convento festivals, so advanced in their musical technique,” reported Cordova Salinas in 1651.7 The construction of a 600-pipe organ by a Franciscan friar for the convento at Quito was the most important event in all Peru for 1638, if the enthusiastic Montesinos can be trusted. According to his Libro Segundo de los Anuales del Piru “no other in the viceroyalty equals this sumptuous organ with its many different stops, the vermiculated wooden flue ranks of which are especially admirable.”8 Such an organ and a corresponding corps of trained Indian and mestizo musicians made it possible for Cordova Salinas to boast in 1651 that the splendor of the cult in the Franciscan house at Quito matched that found anywhere in Europe, and for Fernando de Cozar, the native of Quito who was Franciscan provincial in 1647-1650, to look on his house as the fountainhead of all singing as well as painting in the province.9
Cozar could take just pride in the achievements of his Quito “combento,” because from it had gone forth not only parish musicians trained in plainchant, but also cathedral musicians nurtured in the finest European polyphonic traditions. The most distinguished of these was undoubtedly Diego Lobato10 (c.1538-c.1610), a mestizo. Son of the conquistador Diego Lobato, who died fighting against Gonzalo Pizarro at the battle of Iñaquito (January 18, 1546), he boasted royal Inca lineage on his mother’s side, just as did Garcilaso de la Vega Inca. His mother, a ñusta from Cuzco, had been one of Atahuallpa’s11 wives before the Spanish conquest. His ascent to the chapelmastership after his training at the Colegio de San Andrés parallels the rise to fame of another mestizo maestro de capilla in sixteenth-century South America. In 1575 the maestro at Bogotá was Gonzalo García Zorro, son of a Spanish captain and an Indian maiden from Tunja.12 At Quito Diego Lobato acquired the title of maestro de capilla even earlier (April 3, 1574—four decades after Sebastián de Benalcázar founded Quito).
Lobato had functioned as maestro for at least the six years previous. At New Year of 1568—while enjoying only the modest title of sacristán conferred by the chapter on May 23, 156213—he was already being denominated the acting chapelmaster in the capitular acts.14 From 1562 to 1568 his sacristán’s annual salary of 110 pesos obliged him “to sing polyphonic music at the choirbook stand whenever appropriate.”15 Juan de Ocampo joined him as polyphonic singer in 1568, at fifty gold pesos annually. As if singing were not enough, Lobato began serving as organist also in 1563.
That year a prominent factor in Quito—Pedro de Ruanes16— installed a pair of organs in the still unfinished cathedral. The donor who paid 234 pesos toward their cost was Lorenzo de Cepeda,17 Quito brother of the most famous sixteenth-century Spanish saint, Theresa of Avila. Cepeda, who eventually returned to Spain to die, also presented the cathedral in 1564 with the large bell in use until it broke on November 14, 1676.18 On April 24, 1564, after Lobato inaugurated Cepeda’s donated organs, the chapter raised his pay by another 40 pesos annually, “because he has been playing the organs since August 15 [Assumption], 1563.”19 So that Lobato could return to singing, Luis de Armas was named soon afterwards as principal organist. But Armas quit Quito abruptly, leaving the chapter with no other recourse but to engage Lobato for an additional 50 pesos de oro (bringing his total annual salary to 200) as both organist and sacristán.20
Sometime between March 22 and June 19, 1566, Lobato received priestly orders at the hands of the newly arrived Dominican bishop, Pedro de la Peña.21 Such haste in ordaining a mere mestizo offended the prouder Spanish clergy at Quito, who carried their complaint to Philip II himself.22 In 1571 Bishop Peña established two new parishes in Quito, with San Blas (located on what is now the Plaza España) for Indians.23 At once he chose Lobato, whose fluency in the Quechua dialect spoken at Quito was a prime asset, for the double duty of parish priest at San Blas and organist in the cathedral.24 For being cura Lobato was to receive 200 pesos annually, for cathedral musicmaking 250. To justify such salary he was also requested on April 3, 1574, to compose motetes y chanzonetas.25 His adult singers were in 1574 two Indians and Hernando de Trejo, who was however dismissed on December 7.26 A 42-folio report on “La Cibdad de Sant Francisco del Quito” compiled at Juan de Ovando’s instance in 1573, lauds Lobato’s discharge of his many functions. “Despite his mixed background, he is virtuous, continent, and an expert musician who administers to the Indians while serving simultaneously as organist in the cathedral,” reads the report to Madrid.27
The same relación proceeds thus: “So far as instrumental music and singing in the cathedral are concerned, the previous bishop [García Díaz Arias, 1545-1562] did much less, even though he brought the music to a pitch exceeding that in every other Peruvian cathedral—so highly did he esteem the art.”28 Similar testimony to the first bishop’s musical enthusiasms can be read in the Descripción histórico-geográfica del Perú, by Baltazar de Ovando, a Dominican who knew Díaz Arias personally: “Extremely fond of the choir, he never missed High Mass, vespers . . . or the Saturday Lady Mass; a great churchman, his cathedral resounded with much music and with much excellent polyphony.”29 Díaz Arias’s patronage redounds the more to his credit because funds were short in a cathedral still far from finished at his death. While a new bishop was awaited, Pedro Rodríguez de Aguanayo acted as diocesan administrator. By enlisting the aid of the entire community, he succeeded “in little more than three years in completing the most sumptuous temple in all Peru.”30
Bishop Peña’s zeal to have the music match the structure of the cathedral and his attentions to Lobato so upset Ordóñez Villaquirán that on May 22, 1577, this junior31 canon proposed hiring a ‘‘poor blind organist” who would play for only 60 pesos annually (y se contentará con los sesenta pesos que manda la erección).32 At the same time Villaquirán promised an appeal to the pope himself if more money continued to be spent on the cathedral music than the amount set down in the table of salaries. Two months later, the chapter proposed to pay only one singing chaplain instead of the six singers designated in the capítulo de la erección.33 With Bishop Peña himself present, two canons voted at the same session to fix the organist’s salary at 110 pesos (50 pesos higher than the amount stipulated in the founding deed) while simultaneously raising the chapelmaster’s pay to 150 pesos annually.34 At the same session these two canons agreed to pay Francisco Muñoz, a scribe in Quito, 80 pesos for “a bound music book of Kyries, Glorias, and Credos, copied on vellum. ”35 On the other hand, at the session of July 24, 1579, not attended by Bishop Peña, the chapter voted against allowing the cathedral musicians to assist at any funeral unless the whole cathedral chapter attended.36 Thus, the musicians were deprived of many opportunities to assist at small funerals and restricted to a few large funerals.37 Worse still, the 100-peso offering for large funerals did not leave much for the musicians after dignitaries and other high ranking chapter members had been paid.
At a session attended by the dean and six canons on September 11, 1579, Lobato was enjoined to appear with todos los cantores y organista every Sunday, at all double and semidouble feasts and at first and second vespers of the same, on every day marked for a sermon, at all complines and Salves in Lent, every day of Holy Week, for Christmas, Easter, Whitsunday matins y otros maitines como día de San Pedro, and on any day when there was to be a procession.38 As if this were not enough, the chapter four days later informed Lobato that he must start teaching six choirboys.39 Two seises habited in red and blue gowns, surplice, and cap, were to be paid twelve pesos annually for singing polyphony at the choirbook stand and four mozos de coro, similarly habited, the same amount for singing plainchant and assisting at the altar. Lobato’s petition, banded to the chapter for reduction of duty days below the number required by the Act of September 11, was answered on September 15 with notice that “it is his duty to do all this, and in addition to teach the seises and mozos de coro how to sing.” When the chapter later relented and hired as Lobato’s teaching assistant Padre Gabriel de Migolla (for 50 pesos annually), Migolla accepted the twin duties of teaching not only the boys but everyone on the staff desirous of learning music.40
On July 29, 1580, Francisco de Zúñiga, secretary of the Royal Audiencia at Quito, gave the chapter 100 pesos on condition that “the Salve Regina be sung in the cathedral by the musicians with organ every Saturday throughout a whole year.”41Constitución 20 of the first Lima Council (1551-1552) ordained “que en las Iglesias Catedrales todos los Sábados se diga la Salve con la mayor solemnidad que ser pudiere.”42 Such polyphonic singing of the Salve at Quito complied with this constitution. More than that, however, it started at Quito a custom observed in all major Spanish sixteenth and seventeenth-century cathedrals, from Morales’s Málaga to Padilla’s Puebla.43
In 1582 Lobato himself made a generous present to the cathedral. Heir to a central piece of property on the plaza next to the cathedral,44 he offered free ground rent if the cathedral authorities wished to profit from an income-producing building on it.45 Gracious though his gesture of September 27 was conceded to be, the chapter turned against him less than a month later, this time more violently than ever. Bishop Peña had now named Lobato majordomo of the cathedral, to which action the chapter responded on Columbus Day with a protest against “Diego Lobato, mestizo priest, who claims to be majordomo of this cathedral, and is nothing like it because he has not been so named by any proper canonic authority and instead presumes to the title because he is the bishop’s servant.”46 Though his name had now for two decades recurred frequently in the cathedral acts, this acta of October 12, 1582, is the first to label him a mestizo—hardly a flattering epithet in sixteenth-century Quito. Not only was the chapter angry with his presuming to be majordomo, but more irritated still because Bishop Peña had designated him as a representative47 to the Lima Third Provincial Council convoked by Archbishop Toribio de Mogrovejo. The dean, the archdeacon, and the treasurer, one after another, solemnly protested against such derogation from their own proper authority and such favor of a mere clérigo presbítero mestizo— no matter how royal his mother from Cuzco or how close her connection with Atahuallpa.
News of Bishop Peña’s death at the Lima Council reached Quito on May 13, 1583.48 Without the protection of a Dominican bishop whose patronage of Indians49 parallels that of Las Casas, Lobato suffered personally; but music in Quito cathedral suffered even more. On May 10, 1585, Gabriel de Migolla—who had been teaching the choirboys since January 15, 1585—was dismissed “for lack of funds.”50 At the same time the chapter bestowed the title of organist on Francisco de Mesa, the “poor blind man” endorsed by the notorious Ordóñez Villaquirán51 not because he was a competent keyboardist but because he would play for very little money.
Canon Francisco Talavera, an eager pluralist, succeeded in convincing the other chapter members at a meeting on January 27, 1587, that Mesa knew so little and played so nauseatingly and even he—a gross amateur—would do better.52 The archdeacon soon stopped Canon Talavera from this breach of Church law.53
A turn for the better was not taken until five years after Bishop Peña’s death. On January 12, 1588, Gutierre Fernández Hidalgo (1553-C.1620), the truly great composer who had spent two years at Bogotá (1584-1586), won formal appointment to a combined post in the new conciliar seminary and in the cathedral.54 To make up a stipend commensurate with his renown and ability, the chapter agreed on giving him two salaries—that budgeted for the cathedral maestro de capilla plus the sum set aside for teaching the seminarians music. For all this money he was to give two lessons every day in singing and in counterpoint,55 one in the morning, the other in the afternoon. His pupils were to be every cleric in Quito wishing to learn music and a dozen youths hired to serve as altar boys and cathedral seises. Four days later the chapter stipulated that his pay must be taken entirely from sums earmarked for the seminary.56 Meanwhile, Francisco de Mesa (the “poor blind organist”) won the right to continue—Canon Talavera’s protests being brushed aside. A year later the chapter discussed Gutierre Fernández’s salary once more.57 The archdeacon, the maestrescuela, and the thesorero proposed allowing him another 100 pesos beyond his seminary salaries, such sum to derive from the cathedral endowment for support of a maestro de capilla. Canon López Albarrán protested vigorously, averring that no cathedral in Peru still allowed such multiplying of salaries.58 The dispute continued through several further chapter meetings, to cease only at the close of 1589 with Fernández Hidalgo’s quitting Quito. At La Plata, an archiepiscopal see that competed with Lima and Toledo in wealth, he finally found between 1597 and 1620 a cathedral and a seminary rich enough to support his musical ambitions.59
On February 6, 1590, Quito Cathedral re-engaged Diego Lobato “because he is competent for the task and has been serving since last Christmas.”60 His salary was to be 100 pesos, far below what the cathedral had paid him in Bishop Peña’s time; a paltry four boys were to serve as his paid treble choristers. Edictos for a new chapelmaster “to be presented by the president and collated by the bishop, in accordance with the rules of the royal patronage” were called for December 5, 1610.61 Pedro Pacheco, a clergyman, had served as principal organist with an annual salary of 250 patacones since at least November 14, 1607.62
At the onras y obsequios for Philip III on September 30, 1621, the choir sang “mucha música a canto de órgano.”63 Francisco Coronel, now chapelmaster, composed the music for the first responsory in the vísperas de defunctos. On November 5, 1623, Antonio de Castro, a clergyman who had been serving as organist of the sacristía menor, won promotion to principal organist;64 Nicolás del Egama succeeded him in the sacristía menor.
On July 9, 1627, Juan Méndez Miño, a prebendary, offered to endow the music instruction of local boys.65 His 50 patacones annually henceforth obliged the chapelmaster to give morning and afternoon music lessons to all the local youth desiring them. The only paid trebles in the Quito choir at the moment were the boys Juan de Salas and José de Silva, each of whom earned 20 pesos.66 Three years later Bishop Pedro de Oviedo chose Juan de Salas as winner among a trio contending for the post of cathedral organist.67 Lucas Ortuño, who finished second in the competition, gained the post of organista supernumerario at 100 pesos annually May 11, 1635 (succeeding the deceased Álvaro Arias).68 Juan de Salas’s salary on the same date rose to 100 pesos plus 60 patacones.
The chapter lamented the short supply of ready money for music, however. The example of Lima suggested a remedy on August 14, 1635, when the Quito canons decided to start paying the chapelmaster, singers, and instrumentalists from fábrica funds instead of any longer from the mesa capitular.69 As an immediate result, the chapter could on August 19, 1636, hire Francisco Montoya as maestro de canturía (vocal music) to assist Francisco Coronel.70 Even with 200 pesos, Montoya would still be earning less than Juan de Ortega, a cornettist from Spain, who was receiving 200 plus another 100 from Bishop Oviedo’s privy purse.71 A tenor from Spain was also receiving more than local tenors.72
On June 16, 1638, Montoya earned a raise to 300 pesos annually and the rights of a coadjutor.73 Three months later he was defaulting in his instruction of the local youth, whereupon the chapter called for re-examination of the Méndez Miño deed “which requires the chapelmaster or his deputy to teach.”74 Diego de Arrieta, the imported Spanish tenor, continued doing so well that his salary was doubled on January 21, 1639.75 Lucas Ortuño, restive at being only organista supernumerario, was sharply reminded four days later that Salas enjoyed all rights belonging to principal organist.76
The Ortuños were not to come into their own as monopolists of Quito music until later in the century. In April of 1648 Francisco Ortuño de Larrea, clérigo de menores ordenes, succeeded Juan de Salas,77 who after Bishop Oviedo’s death had resigned as principal organist of the cathedral to become an Augustinian.78 On August 11, 1651, Juan Ortuño de Larrea became chapelmaster, in succession to Juan de la Mota Barbossa.79 On March 31, 1648, after Coronel’s decease, Mota Barbossa had been inducted as maestro de capilla with 400 pesos annually,80 only to die, himself, five years later. This left the post open for an Ortuño de Larrea. During the next seventy years this family held Quito cathedral music in fief, with one member succeeding another.81 Juan Ortuño de Larrea was ejected from the chapelmastership in 1682 when it was proved that after thirty years in office he had grown “totally deaf and inept.”82 However, another Ortuño de Larrea (an organista menor whose petition for a salary increase on January 17, 1681, was denied)83 managed to wheedle the chapelmastership in 1697,84 and to continue in that role until his death in 1721 or 1722.85
Time and again the seventeenth-century capitular acts reveal that a member of this clan was appointed for lack of other candidates. The family monopoly would have benefited Quito if all had been zealous Bachs; but once appointed such a chapelmaster as Juan Ortuño de Larrea slackened his efforts. A clérigo presbítero cantor y apuntador del coro of acknowledged probity when first appointed on August 11, 1651, he steadily deteriorated thereafter. Finally, on July 19, 1680, the chapter obtained sworn testimony that bloated salaries continued to be paid singers who came irregularly, lacked voices, and knew little or nothing about music.86 Lorenzo Abad, the succentor, was then asked to undertake the reform of the choir. But he could make little headway against an intrenched tribe. The chapter did vote unánimes y conformes not to allow José Ortuño Sáenz de Larrea cosa alguna when he petitioned on January 17, 1681, for a raise ; and at the same session the chapter forbade any increase for the singer José de la Vega. On July 1, 1681, the chapter decreed that not only the chapelmaster but also the succentor and the organist must swear that three new singers proposed for the cathedral (Lucas Camino, Blas Mendes, Lorenzo Rodrigues) really had acceptable voices and were actually needed.87
By this time several canons felt that only a Herculean outsider would have sufficient strength to clean the Quito musical stables. The next year he was found in the person of Manuel Blasco, a Jeronymite88 already well known at Bogotá,89 a composer of distinction who was exceptional also as conductor and organist. To pay him the same 400-peso salary that the deaf, inept, and family-favoring Juan Ortuño de Larrea had received meant lopping the veteran’s salary in half (200 pesos remained as his retiree’s pay) and taking the other 200 from fired singers’ salaries.
Engaged with this understanding September 4, 1682, Blasco presented his list of singers and players to be dismissed seven weeks later (October 17).90 Martín de Quiroz, bajón tenorete, must be fired and Sebastián de Quiroz,91 desiring to be appointed a shawmplayer, refused admittance. A blind harpist must be reduced from 80 to 40 patacones and room made for a new harpist. Tomás Albares must take a reduction in pay if Manuel Albares continued on the cathedral payroll. A contra alto must be reduced from 80 to 50 patacones. As if these changes were not sufficiently drastic, Blasco was instructed again on February 20, 1687, to draw up a list of singers not doing their best, notifying them of their imminent dismissal.92 Bernardino Muñoz, presbítero, gained admittance as cantor at 130 pesos annually on this date and two months later the chapter agreed to pay 80 pesos de a ocho reales for repairing the two cathedral organs;93 but catastrophe again befell cathedral music at the end of April when the chapter was asked suddenly for 1000 pesos toward the million-peso ransom demanded by the French pirates sacking Guayaquil.94
Blasco, the most eminent composer in Quito colonial annals after Gutierre Fernández Hidalgo, served from late 1682 through 1695. On September 9 of the latter year the canons suggested that time had at last come to make Blasco more than an acting chapelmaster.95 Since everyone agreed that he was a musician the like of whom Quito had never seen, several canons proposed asking Bishop Figueroa y Andrade96 to begin styling Blasco titular chapelmaster. This moment paradoxically spelled Blasco’s ruin. To be titular chapelmaster he needed both letters patent from the Jeronymite superior in Spain and written permission for his translation to America from the Council of the Indies. He could produce neither; whereupon he lost even the right to continue as acting chapelmaster. The brightest epoch in Quito’s seventeenth-century music ended with his abrupt suspension on December 16, 1695.97
The capitular acts strongly hint that Blasco’s troubles toward the close of his Quito career were fomented by the Ortuño de Larrea clan, who again began dominating Quito music the moment José Ortuño de Larrea succeeded Blasco in 1696.98 At once José tried to advance his relative, Bernabé Ortuño de Larrea, to principal organist, a move frustrated on July 3, 1699, when Jacinto de Santa María was promoted from second to first organ and Bernabé declared ineligible.99 On this same day, the chapter hired Gabriel Guacarache indio as sackbut player. Two years later the choirboys mentioned in the capitular acts were Indians also.100
The prostration of Quito music, after three quarters of a century of inbreeding, was so complete at José Ortuño de Larrea’s death that for nine years thereafter the chapelmastership went begging. Finally, on January 16, 1731,101 the chapter “decided that since the chapelmastership has now been vacant more than nine years following José Ortuño Sáenz de Larrea’s death, and since no longer does there remain the slightest hope that any accomplished or even competent composers will present themselves for the post, nought remains for us but to content ourselves with the mediocrities already here and to allow these local musicians to compete for the title.” Francisco Haranjo was thereupon named;102 and on his death in 1742 Carlos Gordillo,103 a priest who had been succentor previously, succeeded him. Gordillo, who had sung in the cathedral since childhood, had to share 100 pesos of the 400 set aside for the chapelmaster with a sick priest, Pedro de Acosta, another veteran polyphonic singer in the Quito cathedral. With the assent of the Presidente de la Real Audiencia de Quito, Gordillo ascended to titular chapelmaster on October 21, 1743.
Ten years later a report to Madrid revealed the true reason why all arts and industries had so disastrously declined in the province—poverty.104 Guayaquil, after repeated sackings, remained nothing but a village of rush houses infested with insects; 105 the people of Cuenca were reduced to beggary.106 Not even in the late 1790’s did music revive at Quito (though the ruined cathedral was itself largely rebuilt during the next fifteen years).107 A new Plan de Música won chapter assent on July 6, 1799.108 After reviewing the records of the two plainchanting friars on October 16109—José Pita (getting 200 pesos) and José Querelaso—the chapter decided to dismiss the second for ineptness. The cathedral no longer hired a chapelmaster.
The downward trend in polyphonic music from 1708 onwards can be illustrated from the inventories of libros de facistol containing canto de órgano. There were 35 in the 1708 inventory, but only 20 in that of 1754. After the disastrous series of earthquakes between 1755 and 1757 nothing remained of the former precious archives of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century polyphony. Twenty-nine huge plainchant books copied on vellum did survive; others carried away were eventually restored to Quito, such as an exquisite 132-folio (Franciscan saints’ offices) completed in 1673 by Francisco de Peña Herrera, Doctrinero de San Pablo de la Laguna.110 But such collections mentioned in 1754 as the four choirbooks containing motets were gone forever after 1757.
In 1832, while the State of Ecuador in Colombia still existed formally,111 the chapter hired Crisanto Castro as chapelmaster; his motley musicians included three flautists, five violinists, a string bass, two organists, four plainchanters, and a few boys. To stop the absenteeism that the “intolerably inefficient and impudent” Pedro Moncayo had previously allowed, the chapter decided on December 21, 1832, to make Manuel Pauta fifth violinist at 30 pesos annually on condition that while doubling as policeman of attendance he assessed at least 30 pesos in fines from absentee and tardy singers.112 Within six months in his office of apuntador de fallas Pauta had so infuriated the plainchanter Francisco Portugal and the string bass Juan Correa that they caught him alone in San Agustín convento.113 After beating him severely, they left him lying in his own blood. On July 19, 1833, the chapter fired both assaulters. At the same session, the canons warned the plainchanters exchanging insults and taunts inside the sacred enclosure to stop or face dismissal. Both the plainchanter Francisco Portugal and the string bass Juan Correa made their peace with the chapter in time to be reappointed in 1835:114
By January 19, 1836, poor Pauta had gone too far with his fines. Fired with zeal to collect at least the 30 pesos necessary if he himself were to be paid, he had mulcted the chapelmaster for absences during an official trip to Riobamba (accompanying Dr. José Guerrero, the canon-treasurer).115 The chapelmaster protested that Pauta never failed to fine his enemies even when absent because of sickness, while giving his friends unbounded leave. To correct this abuse, the chapter thereupon deputized Juan Pablo Pizarro (first plainchanter) to draw up a secret list of absentees ; this was to be presented independently. By such an expedient the chapter hoped to learn if Pauta lied about absences. Two months later (March 22)116 the chapter instructed the notario serving as chapter secretary to post himself at one of the coro doors ; there he was to watch all entrances and exits. A few days later the discredited Pauta relinquished his post of apuntador ; his successor was Marcos Herrera.117 Half the fines assessed by Herrera were to go for cathedral repairs and Canon José Barba was to verify Herrera’s list of delinquents before it reached the dean.
This was an egalitarian year in which everyone was entitled “Citizen. ” “Citizen” Juan Bastidas, “Citizen” Bernardo Correa, and “Citizen” Agustín Baldeón118 served as violinists 1, 2, and 3; but to placate the former third violinist, Santa Cruz (who had been promised promotion),119 the chapter decided November 11, 1836, to name both Correa (a better, though younger, violinist) and Santa Cruz second violinists.
As soon as fines stopped in 1837, absenteeism from coro again became rife. Wearied with the idleness of plainchanters, the chapter abolished one position of cantollanista for the benefit of general cathedral funds February 9, 1838.120 The holder of the suppressed position thereupon became fourth violinist (really fifth, since there were two “seconds”).
On March 3, 1843, three more musicians’ posts were suppressed; on October 17 of the same year, “Citizen” Bernardo Correa succeeded Juan Bastidas in the first violinist’s chair.121 Francisco Portugal, now third plainchanter, petitioned for a change of status on December 1, fearful lest even his post of third would soon be abolished.122 Simultaneously, Ignacio Miño123 asked to succeed his defunct father as first organist; however, the chapter preferred to disregard the son’s donated services throughout many years and called for an open competition. Worse blows awaited the musical establishment. Crisanto Castro, after twelve years as chapelmaster, read the bad news to his subalterns on May 17, 1844:124 nine of the adult singers’ and players’ posts listed in 1832 were to be abolished; henceforth there were to remain only five such posts. Francisco Portugal’s petition to the bishop having proved of no avail, the dispossessed musicians clung to one small consolation; they knew that even the dignitaries and canons were now the creatures of the Supremo Poder Ejecutivo. All the traditional restraints on the Real Patronazgo having been removed, cathedral appointees henceforth found themselves at the mercy of every shifting political current. The power of the purse passed to the cathedral majordomo, Juan Gualberto de Aulestia, a secular official. “Citizen” Juan Correa, contrabajista del coro, complained to the chapter on March 31, 1848, that Aulestia no longer paid any of the musicians in currency, but in kind worth not half the debased efectivo due them.125 Their requests for redress having met with insults, the chapter deputized the chantre to go personally to the majordomo each time musicians’ salaries were due, to collect their wages in currency, and to distribute the money himself.
From 1871 till García Moreno’s assassination five years later, the German Jesuit Joseph Kolberg taught at the Quito Escuela Politécnica. In Nach Ecuador he describes music at Quito:
Every festival in and out of churches is enlivened with instrumental music and song—though of a kind hardly calculated to soothe European ears. On my first Christmas Eve, a crowd of bell jinglers, triangle beaters, and whistle blowers began imitating bird trills to stimulate the devotions of the bystanders. Nevertheless, the quiteños have a natural bent for music that García Moreno fostered.126 While I was there an army band within hearing distance practiced so continuously from dawn till dusk that the players scarcely took time to eat. They became proficient with even some complicated numbers and could have made a good impression in Europe—provided they left behind the big drum to which they are so addicted. Able pianists,127 clarinettists, and violinists were being trained. Their singing suffers from lack of method,128 and the boys croak more than sing.
The indigenes especially tend towards melancholy formulas that soon grow monotonous, through excessive repetition of three or four notes of the minor scale accompanied by guitars and harps that never carry an independent line. Their favorite instruments are flageolets, trumpets, and drums; and the more solemn the religious procession the greater racket do they make. With all this noise, they attract big crowds for their fiestas and drinking bouts. In contrast with this noise, the Indians often go about late at night playing a small cane syrinx129 with a delicious soft sound. During their long nocturnal walks they seem to be conjuring with its sound the ruins of the golden palace built by Huayna Capac to adorn ancient Quito.
Religious music indoors, except possibly in the cathedral, scarce deserves the name. The altars are always sumptuously adorned for a Missa Cantata and the churches beautifully lighted. But the music is another matter. A singer with a voice strident enough to shatter the very windows begins the Introit, no more adhering to the written melody than if it were not before him in large print. Next comes the Kyrie, executed by two or three rasping voices accompanied by violins and flutes. So it goes till the end. For Solemn Mass, the accompaniment consists of violins, flutes, harmonium, and a bassoon. Marches, waltzes, and at best Lieder ohne Worte form the organist’s staple. None of this noise disturbs the worshippers, however. Even when paid singers gargle the most affecting Italian opera arias to sacred words and when military bands pass by the open doors playing quickstep marches, no one is scandalized; instead, they welcome all this distraction as a means of enlivening the ceremony.130
Early in 1911 Dr. José Mulet from Spain became cathedral chapelmaster. During three years of unremitting effort, he succeeded in establishing a Schola Cantorum for boys and a private conservatory, in writing a theory text, and in presenting a number of his original compositions. With the outbreak of World War I, he returned to Spain, leaving cathedral music during the next half century to continue much as he had found it.131
Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Biographie Nationale (Brussels: H. Thiry, 1876), V, cols. 691-693. J. F. Foppens, Bibliotheca Belgica (Brussels: P. Foppens, 1739), II, 770. The earliest documents in Ecuador having to do with Rycke have been printed in José Rumazo González’s transcription of the Libro Primero de Cabildos de Quito (Quito: Archivo Municipal, 1934), pp. 260-262.
José G. Navarro, Los franciscanos en la conquista y colonización de América (Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispánica, 1955), p. 110. Marcellino da Civezza discovered the 1575 manuscript at the Archivo de Indias in Seville, and printed the pertinent passages in his Saggio di bibliografía geografica storica etnografica Sanfrancescana (Prato: Ranieri Guasti, 1879), p. 253: “Enseño a los Indios a leer i escrivir . . . i tañer todos los instrumentos de música, tecla i cuerdas, sacabuches i cheremias, flautas i trompetas i cornetas, i el canto de organo i llano.” However, the rest of El espejo de verdades, which Marcellino says was written in Española, seems never to have been published.
Navarro, p. 111. Marcellino da Civezza, p. 253, quotes the letter in extenso. Francisco María Compte, Varones ilustres de la Orden Seráfica en el Ecuador [second edition] (Quito: Imprenta del Clero, 1885), I, 26, takes it from Marcellino.
Federico González Suárez, Historia general de la República del Ecuador (Quito: Imprenta del Clero, 1892), III, 335.
Ibid., III, 339.
Ibid., III, 336.
Diego de Córdova Salinas, Corónica de la Religiosíssima Provinçia de los Doze Apóstoles del Perú, Lima, 1651 (Washington: Academy of American Franciscan History, 1957), p. 1036.
Fernando Montesinos, Anales del Perú (Madrid: Imp. de Gabriel L. y del Horno, 1906), II, 253: “todas las flautas son de madera avetunada por la polilla; no ai otro en este Reyno.” González Suárez, Historia general (1893), IV, 198, acknowledges the luster of the culto público and the excellence of el canto del oficio divino in all the leading Franciscan houses of Ecuador c. 1630.
Navarro, p. 113: “este Combento fue la primera fuente en lo temporal y espiritual de estos rreynos.” For Cozar ’s dates see Córdova Salinas, p. 1043.
Biographical data in Rubén Vargas Ugarte, Historia de la Iglesia en el Perú (1511-1568) (Lima: Imp. Santa María, 1953), I, 130, n. 33. He cites Archivo de Indias 77-1-29 for his source.
Ibid. On Atahuallpa’s survivors at Quito, see C. Gangotena y Jijón, “La Descendencia de Atahualpa,” in the Ecuadorean Boletín de la Academia Nacional de Historia (Quito: “La Prensa Católica,” 1958), XXXVIII, nos. 91 and 92, pp. 107-124, 259-271. Among the indigenous quiteños any connection with Atahuallpa, however remote, conferred great prestige.
Raimundo Rivas, Los fundadores de Bogotá (Bogotá: Imprenta Nacional, 1923), p. 153.
Quito Cathedral, Libro del Cabildo desta Santa Iglesia . . . de 1562 a 1583, fol. 5v. On the same day the chapter appointed Andrés Laso maestro de capilla, succentor, and priest a los indios who frequented the cathedral. Since Laso was expected to teach the Indians doctrina Sunday afternoons, he spoke Quechua (Quito dialect). Alonso García succeeded him as chapelmaster in 1563.
Ibid., fol. 86. On the same day Juan de Ocampo became a cathedral singer at 50 pesos annually.
Ibid., fol. 6: . . . y cantar al facistor el canto de Organo guando fuere menester.
Ibid., fol. 46v. (September 12, 1564). Ruanes was a mercader in 1559, vecino in 1561, alcalde in 1563. See Oficios o cartas al Cabildo de Quito . . . 1552-1568, transcribed by Jorge A. Garcés G. (Quito: Archivo Municipal, 1934), pp. 232, 470, 527, 533. On October 6, 1559, Lorenzo de Cepeda paid Ruanes mercader for four bells to be installed at San Francisco convento. In 1574 Capitán Luanes, an hombre de edad y suficiencia, was a candidate for election to the Quito cabildo.
Of Saint Theresa’s five brothers who immigrated to what is now Ecuador, one was killed and two were wounded at the battle of Iñaquito. For further details of her family in the New World, see Alberto María Torres, “Otro pariente de Santa Teresa de Jesús en la República del Ecuador,’’ Boletín de la Sociedad Ecuatoriana de Estudios Históricos Americanos (Quito: Universidad Central, 1920), IV, 153-157.
Quito Cathedral, Actas Capitulares. Año de 1675 á 1681, fol. 8v.
Quito Cathedral, Libro . . . 1562 a 1583, fol. 35v. See also Jorge A. Garcés G., Colección de documentos sobre el Obispado de Quito (Quito: Archivo Municipal [Volúmen XXII], 1946), I, 223, 572, 580. Concurrently the contralto Alonso García was receiving 400 pesos annually as chapelmaster (I, 572, 580). Lorenzo de Cepeda, after donating 234 pesos towards the organs, expected burial sites for both himself and his wife, Juana de Fuentes of Trujillo, in the cathedral; she died three years later (1567) but he died in Spain (1580). Evidently the organs were wholly paid for by conceding burial sites; Marina Gómez (May 23, 1562) secured a like concession for donating 60 pesos to the organ fund.
Garcés G., Colección, p. 303 (May 1, 1567).
Vargas Ugarte, p. 130, n. 33; Bishop Peña took possession March 22, 1566; the cathedral act of June 19, 1566, calls Lobato a priest. See Garcés G., pp. 275 and 284.
González Suárez, III, 106.
Ibid., III, 68.
For such combined duties Laso’s precedent could have been invoked (see note 13). In due time Lobato did resign the San Blas curacy. Licenciado Cristóbal Tamayo was his not very satisfactory successor in 1583 (see the cathedral act of August 27).
Libro . . . 1562 a 1583, fol. 110. Simultaneously the chapter devalued salaries by making them payable in silver rather than in gold.
Ibid., fol. 114v.
Eliecer Enriquez B., Quito a través de los siglos (Quito: Imprenta Municipal, 1938), pp. 49-50: “sine embargo que es mestizo es virtuoso y recogido y hábil en la música; es organista en la santa iglesia.”
Ibid., p. 50: “En lo tocante a la música y cantores de la iglesia, échase bien menos el obispo antecesor, el cual la tuvo siempre tal, que no se hallaba mejor en aquellos reinos, porque se preciaba de tenelle.”
González Suárez, II, 433: “amieisimo del coro; todos los días no faltaba de misa mayor y vísperas . . . los sábados jamás faltaba de la misa de Nuestra Señora: gran eclesiástico, su iglesia muy bien servida, con mucha música y muy buena de canto de órgano.”
Oficios o cartas al Cabildo de Quito, p. 609: “en poco más de tres años se hizo el más suntuoso templo que hay en el Pirú.” For a less sanguine view than the archdeacon’s, see González Suárez, III, 107. See also Quito a través de los siglos, pp. 48-49.
Garcés G., Colección, p. 395: “como nuevo y menor de estos señores,” he spoke and signed last.
Ibid., pp. 417-418. Since Ordóñez Villaquirán had both the dean and cathedral treasurer on his side, he needed less courage when opposing Peña. A dissembling scoundrel, Villaquirán threw off the mask during a tour of the diocese late in 1585. After flight to Cuzco and Charcas audiencia, he was captured and hanged at Lima. González Suárez, III, 433-434.
Ibid., p. 437 (July 24, 1577).
Ibid., p. 439 (Libro del Cabildo . . . 1562 a 1583, fol. 158v.).
Ibid., p. 441.
Ibid., p. 471.
October 13, 1562, the chapter decided to assist only at funerals when surpliced choirboys joined the adult choristers in singing un noturno y él responso y misa . . . a canto de organo (ibid., p. 194).
Ibid., p. 475. Article 15 of the Constituciones Synodales para los beneficiados desta santa yglesia de San Francisco de Quito copied in the Libro del Cabildo . . . 1562 a 1583 at fol. 149 forbids the organist’s playing the Gloria, Credo, preface, and Lord’s Prayer, in lieu of the choir’s singing these wordy parts. Organ Masses, so common in Europe, were not permitted. This interdict together with Article 9 calling for the singing of antiphons and responsories al facistor was enough to burden even a full-time maestro. See Garcés G., Colección, pp. 325-326.
Libro del Cabildo . . . 1562 a 1583, fol. 177v. Caput 75 of the constitutions enacted at the Second Lima Council required that qui dignitatem cantoris in cathedrali obtinet, servitores et ministros ipsius ecclesiae cantare doceat. See R. Vargas Ugarte, Concilios Limenses (1551-1772) (Lima: Tip. Peruana, 1951), I, 134.
Libro de los muy Illes Señores Bean y Cabildo . . . 1583-1594, fol. 101v.
Libro . . . 1562 a 1583, fol. 183.
Vargas Ugarte, Concilios Limenses, I, 46. The Third Lima Council (1582-1583) made the Saturday singing of the Salve mandatory not only in cathedrals but in parish churches as well. See caput 27 (ibid., I, 355).
See indexed entries under Salve Regina in R. Stevenson’s Spanish Music in the Age of Columbus and Spanish Cathedral Music in the Golden Age.
Juan Lobato, a conquistador who became a Quito vecino on December 6, 1534, was rewarded with land in July of 1535 that enabled him to engage in large-scale agriculture in 1537. He was a Quito regidor in 1538. See José Rumazo González, Libro Primero de Cabildos de Quito, pp. 56, 111, 292, 307, 370, 396.
Libro . . . 1562 a 1583, fol. 203. Garcés G., Colección, pp. 522-523.
Garcés G., Colección, pp. 543, 544, 546.
At the chapter meetings of October 5, 9, 10, 11, 12 of 1582 and March 27, 1583, the canons bruited the problem of representation at the council. Bishop Peña reached Lima in October, 1582, and died on March 7, 1583 (González Suárez, III, 105). Two months later (May 13) the news reached Quito. On July 1, 1583, Lobato resigned the post of majordomo.
González Suárez, III, 128.
See the 55 constitutions in favor of Indians passed by the 1570 Quito Synod (Concilios Limenses [1952], II, 172-173). At Bishop Peña’s prodding, this synod enacted model legislation in their behalf. Peña always insisted that every cura of Indians know Quechua, la lengua general del Inga. After his death the Quito chapter still enforced this rule. See the Cathedral Acts of August 21, 1583, and September 6, 1584.
Libro de los muy Illes Señores Dean y Cabildo . . . 1583-1594, fol. 115. On December 9, 1586, Migolla was installed in a cathedral chaplaincy (ibid., fol. 180). After naming him Vicar of Guayaquil, the chapter removed him on July 31, 1592, for improper conduct (ibid., fol. 278).
See note 32. Villaquirán protested justly against Lobato’s continuing to double as organist and choirmaster: “como es costumbre en todas las Iglesias Catedrales que el Maestro de Capilla asista en su fascistol e reciba tono del organista. ” Villaquirán, who became master of ceremonies at Quito Cathedral on June 12, 1585, was well acquainted with musical usage in the principal Spanish cathedrals. Never in Renaissance Spanish or New World cathedrals did custom allow the choir to sing a cappella. The choirmaster always conducted from a station beside the immense choirbook stand, taking the pitch from the organist. More than one organ was needed to allow for transposition into comfortable vocal ranges.
Libro . . . 1583-1594, fol. 184. Talavera, appointed a Quito canon on July 10, 1569, began attending chapter meetings in 1573. Always irregular in attendance, he sometimes signed Talavera and other times Talaverano. The act of January 17, 1587, impugns Francisco de Mesa “por ser ombre ciego y saber poca” and adds that “por otras cosas que a ello les mueuen y por que [fol. 184v.] El señor canónigo Francisco Talaverano quiere ocuparse en tañer el dicho Organo,” Mesa is fired.
Pluralism—the dangers of which mounted en tiempo de sede vacante—earned a stinging reproach from the Third Lima Council (Concilios Limenses, I, 355 [28]).
Libro . . . 1583-1594, fol. 208v.: “atento a lo que se a ordenado en lo tocante al seminario y se a aplicado la tercia delo que valiere el dicho seminario a los que leyeren la lection dela gramatica en la compañía del nombre de Jhus y conforme a lo proueido por el dicho auto dixeron que aplicauan y aplicaron al m° gutierre fernandez hidalgo, maestro de capilla desta sta yglesia la otra tercia parte delo que valiere el dicho seminario.” Within a year, one of the canons was protesting not only Fernández Hidalgo’s double salary, but also paying the newly arrived Jesuits to teach Latin grammar (fol. 232v.: “es ynconbeniente darse a los del nombre de Jesus”). The Jesuits occupied Santa Barbara Church from their arrival in July, 1586, till 1589 (González Suárez, III, 181-182).
Libro . . . 1583-1594, fol. 208v.: “y las lecciones del canto y contrapunto las a de dar cada dia dos lectiones vna por la mañana y otra por la tarde a todos los clerigos que quisieren aprender y a doze muchachos, que an de seruir en esta sancta yglia de Cantores monazillos y ayudar a missa.”
Ibid., fol. 210: “ a de ganar el dicho salario del seminario y no otro.”
Ibid., fol.231v. (January 10, 1589).
Ibid., fol. 232. Albarrán appealed to a decision of the Third Lima Council (see note 53).
Stevenson, The Music of Peru, pp. 182-184.
Libro . . . 1583-1594, fol. 242v.: “se trato de nombrar y nombraron Por m° de capilla desta sancta ygla al pe diego lobato de sosa clgo presbytero por ser abil y sufficiente para el dicho officio, por se hauer ydo gutierre fernandez que lo seruia.”
Libro del Cabildo desta santa yglesia . . . [1607-1627], fol. 12. A hiatus in the capitular acts (1594-1607) coincides with the episcopate of Luis López de Solís, fourth bishop (1594-1602) ; he gave the cathedral a better organ (González Suárez, III, 302). Pedro Ordóñez de Ceballos whose Viaje del mundo took him as far afield as China visited Quito more than once during López de Solís’ term. The cantores y música of the Quito Cathedral in 1594 struck him as a “procession from heaven.” The ceremonies at Quito for the deceased fray Miguel de San Miguel, bishop of Chile, were the “más sumptuoso que jamás he visto.” See M. Serrano y Sanz, Autobiografías y memorias (Madrid: Bailly-Bailliére, 1905 [Nueva Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, V]), 332, 415, 453. Salvador Romero, bishop of Quito from 1607 to 1612, patronized plays as well as music. The earliest comedias presented at Quito were given at his palace. González Suárez, IV, 61.
Libro . . . [1607-1627], fol. lv.
Ibid., fol. 151v. See also González Suárez, IV, 95.
Libro . . . [1607-1627], fol. 273v.: “Sobre el dar el Organo . . . por fin y muerte de Francisco de Mesa que lo tenia. Y se acordo que se de al dicho Antonio de Castro con el mismo salario que le lleuaba el dicho Francisco de Mesa. Y se haga la nominación para el sr Patron.” The president of the Audiencia was Vice-Patron.
Ibid., fol. 403v.: “Hallose en este cabildo el rracionero Joan Mendez Miño a proponer como propusso. que sera muy conueniente que en esta sta yglesia se enseñe a cantar a los monajillos y otros niños y moços. Ordinariamente que sean naturales desta ciudad; y que este cuidado aya de tener y tenga el maestro de capilla . . .. y para que tenga efecto, ofresce de su hazienda el dicho rracionero cinquenta patacones, de a ocho Reales.”
Ibid., fol. 404. Coronel was still chapelmaster.
Libro del Cabildo Eclesiastico . . . [1628-1645], fol. 74v. (April 16, 1630). For the ceremony of Oviedo’s taking possession in Quito Cathedral January 17, 1630, see González Suárez, IV, 183.
Libro . . . [1628-1645], fol. 158.
Ibid., fol. 165.
Ibid., fol. 219.
Ibid., fol. 219v.
“Joan de Arrieta tenor español llamase Diego de Arrieta sele señalan por cantor cinquenta pesos de a ocho Reales.” Tension between creoles and Peninsulars ran high in conventos as well as in cathedrals. See González Suárez, IV, 138: “los españoles oprimían a los americanos: los americanos aborrecían a los españoles.” The Peninsulars themselves lived in disunity, Basques contending against Extremadurans at Potosí, for instance (ibid., 129).
Libro . . . [1628-1645], fol. 271v.
Ibid., fol. 297.
Ibid., fol. 304: “atento a su destreza y que acuda con cuidado, sin hazer fallas.”
Ibid.: “sobre que solo vn organista tiene la yglesia conforme la erección y que el otro es supernumerario.”
Libro del Benerable dean y Cauildo . . . [1646-1673], fol. 48v. There were no other competitors for the post of organist, although announcement of the vacancy had been posted a long time. Early the next year, Bishop Ugarte y Saravia interdicted organ playing in Quito cathedral and in all local churches (from January 29 to April 4). See González Suárez, IV, 235.
For sketches of Augustinian life in seventeenth-century Quito, see González Suárez, IV, 154, 170, 351.
Libro . . . [1646-1673], fol. 144. Ortuño de Larrea started with only half the salary Mota Barbossa had been paid.
Ibid., fol. 47v.: “por quanto Franco Coronel maestro de capilla desta santa yglesia murio conviene nombrar otro maestro en su lugar.” Mota Barbossa, a persona perito en canto y música, took the post at an annual salary of 400 pesos de a ocho reales and vna resma de papel. The ream of paper (500 sheets) shows how much new music the chapter expected him to provide annually.
A like trend toward family ownership of cathedral musical posts coincides with declining artistic standards at Bogotá, Trujillo, and Lima. See Stevenson, The Music of Peru, pp. 96-97; “Colonial Music in Colombia,” The Americas, XIX/2 (October, 1962), 135.
Actas Capitulares. Año de 1675 á 1681 [1701], fol. 74 (September 4, 1682) : “Dixeron que por quanto el Lizdo Dn Juan Ortuño mro de capilla de esta santa yglesia esta totalmente sordo y por esto ynepto para seruir el oficio de tal Mro y que es notable el defecto que se alia en el coro y musica con que se ofician los diuinos oficios y que se alie en esta ciudad fray Manuel Blasco Monje Geronimo que entiende con grande destreza el arte de musica y es aproposito para ser Mro de Capilla y enseñar Musica a los Cantores que concurren y ganan salario en el dho coro se nombra para que siruia el dho oficio de mro de Capilla.”
Ibid., fol. 55.
Ibid., fol. 261v. An act of January 5, 1699, states that José Ortuño had been promoted to chapelmaster two years previously.
Libro . . . Año de 1726 a 1733, fol. 88. According to the act of January 16, 1731, the post of chapelmaster had been vacant more than nine years since the death of José Ortuño Sáenz de Larrea, the previous maestro.
Aetas . . . 1675 á [1701], fol. 48.
Ibid., fol. 61.
Cardinal Ximénez de Cisneros dispatched Jeronymites to the New World as early as 1516. See Pedro Henríquez Ureña, La cultura y letras coloniales en Santo Domingo (Buenos Aires: Imprenta de la Universidad, 1936), p. 53. Charles V retired to their monastery at Yuste, and Philip II gave them the Escorial.
Blasco’s Officium defunctorum (1681), Laudate Dominum, a 12 (1683), and Versos al organo en duo para Chirimías (1684) survive at Bogotá in dated copies. In addition, the Bogotá archives possess an undated Magnificat, a 12 (organ part), Sedet a dextris meis, a 12 and two undated villancicos with Spanish texts.
Actas . . . 1675 á [1701], fol. 76.
As soon as Blasco left, this player crept into the cathedral. Martín de Quiroz took over the chirimía post in succession to Sebastián on January 5, 1699 (ibid., fol. 261v.).
Ibid., fol. 144.
Ibid., fol. 149 (April 19, 1687). Francisco Narbáez fixed the organs.
González Suárez, IV, 339.
Aetas . . . 1675 á [1701], fol. 241v. Don Diego Gallegos de Aguilar Presbytero, the titular chapelmaster, had just died. He had enjoyed the title while Blasco did all the work.
Concerning this bishop, see González Suárez, IV, 349.
Aetas . . . 1675 á [1701], fol. 242.
The post of chapelmaster was announced as vacant on March 16, 1696. Ibid., fol. 243v.
Ibid., fol. 266.
Ibid., fol. 280v. On Indians in Peruvian cathedrals, see Stevenson, The Music of Peru (indexed references to Indian instrumentalists, Indian singers).
Libro . . . 1726 a 1733, fol. 88. “Dixeron y determinaron dichos señores, que respecto destar vaca la Maestria de Capilla del Choro de esta Iglesia a mas tiempo de nuebe años por muerte de Joseph Ortuño Saenz de Larrea y no auer esperanza, ni aun remota de que aya oppositiores sufficientes, e idoneos en la Musica y Compossicion de el Canto de Organo, y que los que oy existen, son aquellos que regularmente se han conserbado sin adelamiento alguno Mandaron que para proceder â proueerse en propriedad se despache edictos en la forma acostumbrada con termino de ocho dias.”
Libro Capitular . . . 1733-[1753], fol. 43. The act of February 9, 1742, speaks of the death of Lizdo Francisco Haranjo, chapelmaster.
Ibid., fol. 47. Named interim maestro on February 9, he gained the full title (with the “Vice-Patron’s assent”) October 21, 1743.
Ibid., fol. 176. The viceroys at Bogotá lamented the decadence of Quito; see J. A. García y García, Relaciones de los Vireyes del Nuevo Reino de Granada (New York: Hallet & Breen, 1869), p. 93.
Guayaquil disputes pre-eminence today with Quito, but received her first bishop in 1838. Throughout the nineteenth century the cathedral was of wood, and burned several times. The predecessor iglesia mayor at Guayaquil obtained a small organ from Spain in 1777, in which year Pedro de la Peña was chapelmaster. Concepción chapel, on the site of the old iglesia mayor, had a harmonium made by an Augustinian brother. See Modesto Chávez Franco, Crónicas del Guayaquil antiguo (Guayaquil: Imprenta Municipal, 1930), p. 26.
Cuenca, the oldest see in Ecuador after Quito, obtained its first bishop in 1786. According to Segundo Luis Moreno, an organ installed at Cuenca in 1730 was still in use two centuries later (see Nicolas Slonimsky, Music of Latin America [New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1945], p. 199).
José G. Navarro, “El Arquitecto Español Don Antonio García y la Catedral de Quito,” Boletín de la Academia Nacional de Historia (Quito: “La Prensa Católica,” 1958), XXXVIII, 180-208.
Actas Capitulares. Año de 1790 a 1802, fol. 140.
Ibid., fol. 142.
Fol. 132v. shows this legend: “Dar fin a este libro a 8 de diziembre del año de 1673 el P. Praeor Fr. Francisco de Peña Herrera cura, Doctrinero de san Pablo dela Laguna, se debe a N. M. R. P. Fr. Dionysio Guerrero. Lor jubilado. P. perpetuo y Ministro Prou. desta Sta Prouincia pues por su vigilancia, cuidado y zelo se comenzo, y acabo este volumen delos santos de nra orden, quisiendo obra serafica, claro està, auia de ser por su patrocinio Y amparo, siendo tercera vez dignissimo Guardian del Conv. de san Pablo de Quito el R. P. fr Diego de Escalante y Mendoza. Lor jubilado, y Diffor habitual desta sancta Proua.” The exquisite illuminations in this volume—SS. Elizabeth of Hungary, Anthony of Padua, and Clara, for example—stand comparison with the finest in any Spanish American choirbooks. In 1907, Pedro Traversari retrieved this volume at Rome, whither it had immigrated. A systematic search in foreign archives might bring to light the polyphonic choirbooks so conspicuously missing from the present-day Quito Cathedral archives.
The last leaf in Quito Cathedral acts with the seal of Colombia, State of Ecuador, is fol. 60 (May 29, 1835) in the Libro de Actas 1831-1838.
Ibid., fol. 8v.
Ibid., fol. 15.
Ibid., fol. 64 (August 14, 1835).
Ibid., fol. 75.
Ibid., fol. 79.
Ibid., fol. 91.
Baldeón was the first Ecuadorean to write “symphonies.” He founded a music school, the direction of which after his death passed to Miguel Pérez, another cathedral violinist. See O. Mayer-Serra, Música y músicos de Latinoamérica (Mexico: Editorial Atlante, 1947), I, 337. Miguel Pérez asked for the second violinist’s chair in the cathedral orchestra on October 27, 1843 (Actas Capitulares 1840-1844, fol. 50v.).
Libro de Aetas 1831-1838, fol. 97v. The habit of promising a player the reversion of a post swelled the cathedral orchestra at both Lima and Bogotá in the early 1800’s. See Stevenson, The Music of Peru, p. 91.
Libro . . . 1831-1838, fol. 142.
Actas Capitulares 1840-1844, fol. 50v.
Ibid., fol. 52v.
On February 9, 1841, José Miño had been sick a whole year, during which time Ignacio had substituted (ibid., fol. 14v.).
Ibid., fol. 64.
Libro que contiene las actas 1845-1861, fol. 39.
In 1870, under García Moreno, the Ecuadorean National Conservatory was founded.
F. Hassaurek, Four Years among Spanish Americans (New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1867), p. 168, counted “about one hundred and twenty pianos in Quito, very indifferently tuned; but there are only very few ladies who play well.”
Hassaurek complains that the quiteños sang “chiefly through the nose.” Even at funerals, “for two or three mortal hours the ears are torn by the music of a very bad organ, and the worse chant and cracked voices of hoarse and ugly friars and their assistants” (ibid., p. 171). He has much kinder words for painters at Quito, “some of whom are men of talent, and even genius” (p. 196).
Rondador. Hassaurek agrees that the syrinx was the favorite instrument of the Indian. “It accompanies the herdsman as well as the muleteer; and simple, few, and melancholy, are the tunes it yields” (ibid., p. 273).
Condensed from Nach Ecuador (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1897), pp. 406-410. See Quito a Craves de los siglos, pp. 178-180, for Spanish translation.
O. Mayer-Serra, I, 337-338.
Author notes
The author is a professor in the Department of Music, University of California, Los Angeles.
