EUROPEAN MUSIC IN 16th-CENTURY GUATEMALA

Abstract

T HE honor of having been the first to give Guatemala an entry in a history of music to 1600 belongs to Gustave Reese, who at page 593 of Music in the Renaissance (1954) mentioned Fernando = Hernando Franco's having worked there before becoming maestro de capilla at Mexico City in 1575.1 In the decade since 1954, both Franco's peninsular origins and his Guatemalan connections have been sufficiently clarified to double the size of the Grove's Dictionary, fifth edition (III, 480) article on him. In the August 1946 issue of Hispanic American Historical Review (XXVI/3, p. 313), Lota Spell broke ground so far as Franco's biography is concerned. Her article, Music in the Cathedral of Mexico in the Sixteenth Century, adduced data from the Mexican Archivo General de la Naci6n to show that both he and Lazaro del Alamo,2 his predecessor at Mexico City Cathedral, came to the New World on the invitation of Dr. Matheo Arevalo Sedefio, professor of canon law at the University of Mexico 1554-1572, rector in 1575, and sometime oidor in Guatemala.'