El Maestro Research Articles

Some precursors of the Spanish lute school

There can be little doubt that one of Spain's most remarkable contributions to the history of music lies in the celebrated school of the vihuelistas in the 16th century. The earliest representative of this tradition is generally held to be Luis Milan (d c.1561) who spent part of his career in Valencia at the court of the Duke of Calabria. It is clear, however, that Milin was already working with a highly refined instrumental idiom that would suggest that his output was not only a point of departure for later vihuelists, but also one of arrival in the sense that his publication El maestro (1536) marked the summation of an earlier tradition. In any search for the possible precursors to Milan and the 16th-century school, among the first to be considered must be Rodrigo de la guitarra (literally 'Rodrigo of the gittern'). His name is first documented in two letters of recommendation from Prince Alfonso, heir to the Aragonese throne, to

Ornamentation in Spanish Renaissance Vocal Music

Presents a survey of vocal ornamentation as descibed in Luis de Milan's El maestro (1535), Domenico Pietro Cerone's El melopeo y maestro (1613), and intervening 16th-c. Spanish publications. Discusses musical terms such as redoble, quiebro, glosa, trinar, and hacer garganta. Also includes a summary of the material provided in the eight book of El melopeo, with 54 pages of musical examples from Cerone's suggested diminutions.

The Threat of Long-Haired Stars: Comets in Lope de Vega's El maestro de danzar

During the Spanish Golden Age, comets were perceived as ominous and puzzling phenomena in an ordered cosmos. They were signs of sudden change and disaster, particularly in the political and social arena, bringing sudden death to princes, and famine or plague to the people. Towards the close of the sixteenth century an astronomical curiosity to observe and determine the causes and nature of the phenomenon began to balance out the traditional astrological view. Lope de Vega began his literary career shortly after the visitation of the 1577 comet. He was reaching the peak of his creative powers when the 1607 comet, later labeled Halley's, made its appearance. As a result, it is not surprising then to find numerous references to comets in his comedias . This paper studies the presence of comets in a number of Lope's plays, concentrating on El maestro de danzar .

Triple pavans: clues to some mysteries in 16th-century dance

Until recently most musicologists and dance historians have defined late 16th-century dance types largely on the basis of descriptions in Arbeau's Orchesographie (1588).' Though not the first nor even the most complete manual from the second half of the century, Orchesographie has been the most readily available in translation; it also seems to give simple and clear definitions of a number of important dance types.2 Yet Arbeau's definitions leave many questions unanswered; with regard to the pavan alone, for example, Arbeau defines it as a duple-metre dance, but provides no explanation of the triple pavans in some of the musical collections of the century (e.g. Luis de MilAn, Libro de mtzsica de vihuela de mano intitulado El maestro [Valencia, 1536]). This article will, I hope, shed some additional light on the mystery of triple pavans, and propose a possible solution to it. It will also present evidence for a theory that a number of unnamed Italian dances in the manuals and musical collections are pavan types. The major Italian manuals contemporary with Arbeau -Fabritio Caroso's II ballarino (1581) and Nobiltd di dame (1600) and Cesare Negri's Le gratie d'Amore (1602/R1604 as Nuove inventioni di balli)-are larger, more detailed, much more complex and far more complete than Arbeau's volume; they do not, however, apparently offer as clear definitions of the dance types they contain. Frequently, too, dance types are not even named, but fanciful titles given instead, like Bellezze d'Olimpia, Balletto. Nevertheless, it seems obvious that in all their dances the choreographers had models of certain dance types in mind. It is important, therefore, to understand what these underlying models may have been, not only with regard to the dances whose types are named, but to those which are unidentified.3 Some of the named dance types in Caroso's publications, such as the pavan and galliard, are clearly the same in title as in Arbeau. We cannot automatically assume, however, that the Italian dancing-masters, who taught at some of the richest and most fashion2 Fabritio Caroso at the age of 74, from Nobilta di Dame

Azorin in 1960 and after

newspaper, which first appeared as a daily in 1905. It further recalls that this year was noteworthy also for the publication of Azorin's volume of essays, Los pueblos, with its unusual Epilogo en 1960. As el maestro then looked fifty-five years into the future, he foresaw that even the older men of his village would remember only vaguely the name of Azorin and would be very uncertain as to what the man had written. As the future scene is imagined, one of these men is quite certain that Azorin published books, perhaps novels; another is sure that there was later a dra-

More on Lopean Chronology

(1950), 223-245. [See Girodon, above, and our 1952-L] Comedia—Performances Miscellaneous. Los estudiantes. A history of the interlude. Presented by Professor Ernesto Giménez Caballero, Madrid. Including Juan del Encina, El aucto del Repelón, Cervantes, La cueva de Salamanca, Ramón de la Cruz, El maestro de rondar, and Ricardo de la Vega, Pepa la frescachona o el colegial desenvuelto.—Spanish Cultural Index, No. 87 (Apr. 1, 1953), 371. Don Juan Theme. La moglie dì Don Giovanni play in three acts by Carlo Terrón, performed for the first time in Turin by the Company of the "Nómadas," May 5, 1953. —Teatro (Madrid), No. 7 (May, 1953), 75-76. Calderón de la Barca. Auto sacramental, La cena del rey Baltasar, performed at the Pius Palace Auditorium, Vatican City, at the Feast of the Ascension of our Lord, by the Lope de Vega Company, directed by José Tamayo. With the accompaniment of the Sistine Chapel Choir and the corps de ballet of the Rome Opera House.—Spanish Cultural Index, No. 89 (June 1, 1953), 630631 . Calderón de la Barca. La Dévotion à la Croix. Pièce en 3 journées. Texte français d'Albert Camus. "Marcel Herrand ... a choisi d'en donner trois représentations, cette année, à l'occasion du Festival d'art dramatique qu'il organise dans la court du château d'Angers."—Gallimard, Bulletin, Aug., 1953. Calderón de la Barca. Auto sacramental, El gran teatro del mundo, in the repertory of the Dettweiler (Lower Alsatia) Catholic Club.—Spanish Cultural Index, No. 86 (Mar. 1, 1953), 314. Calderón de la Barca. Das grosse Welttheater . Performance announced for the 1952-1953 season, Landestheater Salzburg. Calderón de la Barca. Auto sacramental, No hay más fortuna que Dios, performed by the Teatro Nacional de Educación y Descanso , under the direction of Piai Enciso Pellico, in the Gardens of the National Palace, Madrid.—A B C, June 28, 1953, p. 63. Rojas, Fernando de. La Celestina, adapted by Corrado Alvaro, performed in the Piccolo Teatro di Genova, directed by Camillo Pilotto, December 6, 1952.—// Dramma, Nos. 170-171-172 (Jan. 1, 1953), 112. Tirso de Molina. Don Gil de las calzas verdes, directed by Luis González Robles, under the auspices of the Ministerio de Informaci ón y Turismo, in the Gardens of the National Palace, Madrid, July 10, 11, 12, 1953. More on Lopean Chronology by Courtney Bruerton, Cambridge, Mass. In 1940 there was published in Seville a little book of 106 pages: Teatros y comediantes sevillanos del siglo XVI. Estudio documental por Celestino, López Martínez. I do not know when it reached American libraries during the war years; I know only that Mr. Thornton Wilder, who had seen it in the Library of Congress, called it to my attention in 1950. Many comediantes may be thoroughly acquainted with the book; but, since it has some interesting and important material with regard to Lope, it seems desirable that none should fail to know what it contains. Like the work of Pérez Pastor and F. B. de San Román, it is based on the documents of notaries, but is different in one respect: the author does not print the documents, he merely summarizes them, occasionally quoting . Rennert and Castro (Vida de Lope de Vega, p. 161) were not sure when Lope returned from Seville in 1604. López Martínez shows, by a document of July 28, 1604 (p. 39), that Lope was then still in Seville but on the point of leaving. The most important new information 30 furnished, however, deals with chronology. On page 31, López Martínez notes that in 1588 (and quite evidently towards the end of that year), Gaspar de Porres authorized the Sevillian autor, Mateo de Salcedo, to perform in Granada, on or after January 6 (1589?) two plays by Lope with which Porres had had success: Los celos de Rodamonte and Las ferias de Madrid. It may be recalled that the MS copy of El trato de la corte y ferias de Madrid in the Biblioteca de Palacio is dated Granada, January 17, 1589. Thus López Martinez...

José Vasconcelos

José Vasconcelos, whose lawyer’s degree entitles him to the designation “Licenciado,” but who more commonly is referred to respectfully as “El Maestro Vasconcelos,” has suffered in recent years a political eclipse which has deprived him of the publicity enjoyed by less distinguished Latin Americans who have kept themselves more attuned to political changes. The writer of this article does not share Vasconcelos’ political or religious creeds, but he cannot help recognizing in him one of the noblest expressions of Latin-American thought. His vast culture and universal philosophy is free from the parochialism which is the curse of much Latin-American culture. This eulogy by one of a different persuasion is intended to counteract the oblivion into which a hostile partisan spirit would relegate him.

Los Dominicos y el Concilio de Trento by Venancio D. Carro, O. P.

BOOK REVIEWS Los Dominicos y el Concilio de Trento. By VENANCIO D. CARRO, 0. P. Salamanca: 1948. Pp. ~~7. L a work that is of equal interest to. theologians and historians, Father Carro, who is a competent writer in both fields, presents for the first time an account of the part taken by the Order of Preachers in the remarkable work of one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of Church Councils. Father Carro is well at home in the field, for he is a widely recognized authority on medieval theology and especially on the great Spanish theologians of the 16th century. His work in two volumes, El Maestro Fr. Pedro de Soto, 0. P., Y las Oontroversias Politico-Theologicas en el Siglo XVI (Salamanca, 1981), although not widely known among American scholars who, for some unknown reason are prone to discredit Spanish scholarship, is a classic of its kind. His briefer work on the other de Soto, Domingo de Soto y el Derecho de Gentes (Madrid, 1980), is an important contribution to the history of international law. The present work started out as an article in the Spanish Dominican review, La Ciencia Tomista, but research on the subject uncovered so much important material that it was decided to expand the original article to the proportions of a book. It is the author's expressed intention to give as complete and objective a piciure as possible of the part taken by the Order of Preachers in the work of the Council of Trent, both inside and outside the Council. He admits in the prologue that this is not a definitive history, because much more research remains to be done. As for complete objectivity, Father Carro is too much the Spaniard and too fervent the Dominican to bear even a remote resemblance to that queer specimen of homo sapiens, the objective historian. (Does he really exist?) Faced with the evidence of the great work done at Trent by both Spaniards and Dominicans, he often breaks into eulogy. Even though he goes out of his way to give credit to the other Orders and the non-Dominican hierarchy of the Church, one is inevitably drawn to the conclusion that without the Dominican and Spanish contributions the Council of Trent, saving, of course, the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Ghost (as Father Carro explicitly points out), would not have been a success. Yet, in spite of his enthusiastic and frank admiration of the greatness of his nation and his Order, an attitude condemned by the canons of objective historiography, Father Carro succeeds in presentin.g an objective picture; for the facts are there whether or no the reader shares Father Carro's enthusiasm for them. The work might be divided into three parts. In the first part, the writer attempts to give a brief history of theology before Trent, with special 400 BOOK REVIEWS 401 attention to theological error; the second part consists of biographies of many of the Dominicans who participated in the Council, the third part is a summary of the debates on the basic doctrines. In the first part great emphasis. is laid upon the theological errors that led to heresy. The errors of Luther did not spring suddenly into existence hi the 16th century, and they were not invented by Luther and the other heretic theologians (if it is permissible to style Luther a theologian) . The seeds of these errors as well as the other errors which caused controversies within the Church in the 16th century were inherited from preceding ages. The seeds that were. planted by Lombard in the 12th century, seeds of error regarding original sin, free will, concupiscence, etc., blossomed into the noxious flower of heresy in the 16th. The errors on grace taught by Ariminense and the pseudoAugustinian school of the 14th century became a basic doctrine of faith for the religious revolutionist of the 16th. Luther's doctrine of justification and his teaching on the remission of sin was a logical development of nominalist error of earlier times. The Protestant creed did not spring Minerva-like from the brain of Luther, Melancthon or any of the other heretics. It had been in...