From the fifteenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth century, devotional music played a fundamental role in the Iberian world. Songs in the vernacular, usually referred to by the generic name of 'villancico', but including forms as varied as madrigals, ensaladas, tonos, cantatas or even oratorios, were regularly performed at many religious feasts in major churches, royal and private chapels, convents and in monasteries. These compositions appear to have progressively fulfilled or supplemented the role occupied by the Latin motet in other countries and, as they were often composed anew for each celebration, the surviving sources vastly outnumber those of Latin compositions; they can be counted in tens of thousands. The close relationship with secular genres, both musical, literary and performative, turned these compositions into a major vehicle for dissemination of vernacular styles throughout the Iberian world.

This model of musical production was also cultivated in Portugal and rapidly exported to the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in America and Asia. In many cases, the villancico repertory represents the oldest surviving source of music produced in these regions, thus affording it a primary role in the construction of national identities. The sixteen essays in this volume explore the development of devotional music in the Iberian world in this period, providing the first broad-based survey of this important genre.

Contents: Preface; Introduction, Tess Knighton and Álvaro Torrente; Waving ensaladas, Pepe Rey; Song migrations: the case of Adorámoste, Señor, Tess Knighton; The villancico in the works of early Castilian playwrights (with a note on the function and performance of the musical parts), Alberto del Río; Function and liturgical context of the villancico in Salamanca Cathedral, Álvaro Torrente; 'The third villancico was a motet': the villancico and related genres, Andrea Bombi; The villancico as music of state in 17th-century Spain, Pablo-L. Rodríguez; Religiosity, power and aspects of social representation in the villancicos of the Portuguese Royal Chapel, Rui Cabral Lopes; 'Music charms the senses…': devotional music in the Triunfos festivos of San Ginés, Madrid, 1656, Janet Hathaway; A literary and typological study of the late 17th-century villancico, Alain Bègue; Pastorelas and the pastoral tradition in 18th-century Spanish villancicos, Pilar Ramos López; The noël à grand chœur of south-western France and the Iberian villancico: towards a comparison, Benoît Michel; De rosas cercada: music by Francisco de la Huerta for the nuns of Santa Ana de Ávila (1767–78), María Gembero Ustárroz; Historical and literary vestiges of the villancico in the early modern Philippines, David Irving; The 'ethnic villancico' and racial politics in 17th-century Mexico, Geoffrey Baker; The popular, the sacred, the colonial and the local: the performance of identities in the villancicos from Sucre (Bolivia), Bernardo Illari; Bibliography; Index.

About the Editor: Tess Knighton is a Fellow at Clare College, University of Cambridge, UK. Álvaro Torrente is Research Fellow at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK, and Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain.

Reviews: Winner of the American Musicological Society Stevenson Award 2008
'We are proud to announce the 2008 winner of the Robert Stevenson Ward. Spearheaded by the solid and imaginative editorial hand of Tess Knighton and Álvaro Torrente, Devotional music in the Iberian World, 1450–1800: The Villancco and Related Genres (published by Ashgate in 2007) is an extraordinary book. It covers the breadth, depth, and multiple meanings of a vast semantic field that the master story largely has ignored, addressing compositional innovation, ethnic diversity, and power structures as well a the strategies by which they were subverted in a vast area of influence. Prefaced by a masterful introduction, Devotional Music also communicates the energy of a younger generation that raises provocative questions, refuses to accept derivative historiography uncritically, and has assimilated post-colonial revisionism while also paying homage to the work of the pioneers. Most of all, we believe in its power to stimulate further research, thereby honoring the intention that drove Robert Stevenson to institute this award.'
Leonora Saavedra, President, Stevenson Award Committee 2008, University of California, Riverside, USA

‘This is primarily a book for scholars (and a valuable one)…’ Early Music Review

‘… magnificent volume… For the time being, at least, this publication stands as the launching pad for all future investigation of the villancico. My hope is that this work reaches beyond the scholarly world to the community of performing musicians, so that through concerts and recordings the villancico repertory will reach the wider public that it so richly deserves.’ Renaissance Quarterly

‘Tess Knighton and Alvaro Torrente have here assembled a collection of essays which illuminate many aspects of the Villancico, and which will certainly do much to stimulate further work.’ Ecclesiastical History

‘Knighton,Torrente, and their fellow authors have assembled a study that must be consulted by anyone with a specific interest in the area covered by the title, and also by those with a larger interest in music of the Spanish Empire.’ Music and Letters

‘… the topics cover a great deal of (literal) ground, and as you can perhaps imagine, the articles vary considerably in scope, length, and method– though not, I should immediately add, in quality. …The point about this music, whether we call it devotional or whatever word we may yet find, is that it bloomed in a large area for a long time in a strikingly continuous tradition – and a tradition that tells us much about individual communities’ experience of religion and the church. No musical or cultural historian of Spain in these centuries can afford to ignore it.’ Bulletin of Spanish Studies

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Full contents list

Introduction

Index