The Oaxaca Cathedral Examen de oposicion : The Quest for a Modern Style

Abstract

When a vacancy occurred in chapelmastership of Mexican cathedrals during colonial period, it was customary to open a competition, an examen de oposicidn, inviting composers from near and far to submit their works. The candidates would oppose each other for a chance to obtain what was usually most prestigious musical appointment in region. By seventeenth century, competitive contest usually required participants to show their skill at composition, counterpoint, and organ performance. A number of exdmenes de oposici6n' have recently emerged from archives of Oaxaca Cathedral. They include compositions by Mateo Vallados, Francisco de Herrera y Mota,Juan Perez de Guzman, Luis Gutierrez, and two byJuan de Tobar Carrasco. These works shed light on process of selection at cathedral, and on level of musical skill and sophistication of style expected by cabildo and offered by candidates. Table 1 provides a time line of events in Oaxaca Cathedral, and shows years in which vacancies in chapelmastership occurred. The custom of evaluating candidates for high musical posts by composition of contrapuntal settings over given tenors can be traced back to Spain and Italy, where practice had been prevalent since sixteenth century and continued during Baroque period. The examen de oposicion in Spain has been well documented by musicologists and historians, including Sim6n de la Rosa y L6pez,2 Antonio Lozano Gonzales,3Jose Artero,4 and Robert Stevenson, who observed that the heart of Baroque Spanish church music pulsed in its maestro de capilla system.5 In 1904 Rosa y L6pez described procedure of examen in cathedral of Seville, on which most of cathedrals in New World based their own traditions. The candidates were expected to: