Juan Ruiz Jiménez

A detailed analysis of a Graduale and a Psalterium-himnarium, which were prepared under the patronage of the Catholic Monarchs, has allowed a significant number of fragments scattered around the world to be identified as belonging to them, and their provenance to be reassessed. An indepth liturgical-musical study of the Psalterium-himnarium reveals that it belongs to the Franciscan tradition and has uncovered several distinguishing features in its hymn cycle indicating that it was enriched locally through the inclusion of texts and melodies of Spanish origin. Evidence will be presented suggesting that these choirbooks were commissioned for the monastery of San Juan de los Reyes, funded by Ferdinand and Isabella as their royal pantheon, in the context of their active involvement in the struggle between the conventual and observant factions of the Franciscan order.

Music and Ritual in the Procession of All Souls Day in Seville Cathedral (14th – 17th centuries)

The All Souls Day’s procession is one of the highlight ritual events associated with the Omnium Sanctorum and Commemoratio omnium fidelium defunctorum festivities, which have a clear theological connection and a unified liturgical treatment. The ceremonial apparatus of these two feasts in Seville Cathedral derived from the rank, first and second respectively, they had in the Sevillian calendar. The procession had a strong emotional impact on citizenship, reflecting the influence of the doctrine of the Purgatory, and this translated into a gradual increase in private endowments that accumulated over time. In this article special emphasis is placed on the spatial - dramatically transformed in the second half of the fifteenth century - and sensory aspects of the procession’s itinerary, with particular attention to the sound elements that identified it. The idiosyncrasy and deployment of resources pertaining to this procession gave a unique character to all the two hundred and eleven processions that circulated annually through the interior of the Cathedral of Seville in the early eighteenth century.

The private foundation of chaplaincies and anniversary devotions, as well as other kinds of votive endowments, represents an important manner in which religious institutions increased their wealth. The donor not only aided his salvation, but he also ensured his personal memory and social status for future generations
while forming a cohesive bond among members of a specific lineage. The cult and ritual associated with death generated, under the auspices of private sponsors, diverse musical activity of considerable importance within the cathedral precincts that
extended throughout the religious establishment of Seville during the transition from late medieval to early modern society. The different types of endowments linked to death are discussed, as well as the direct and indirect musical implications arising from their foundation: for example, the creation of new performance spaces, the direct increase in musical forces, the economic improvement of those already in existence, and the composition of new repertory.

From the late Middle Ages, wind bands were long established as independent groups in urban centres or as members of royal or noble households. In 1526, Seville cathedral chapter decided to place them on the pay roll. Since then, these groups of ministriles became formalized at Spanish major ecclesiastical institutions and a major distinguishing feature of them. From at least the beginning of the sixteenth  century, and separate from their likely participation in the performance of improvised polyphony, these instrumentalists made use of music books, including those of vocal polyphony, compiled or acquired exclusively for them. Into these books was copied a varied repertory that allowed them to fulfil the diverse services required of them. Four extant books for wind-players, and the detailed inventory of a fifth book now lost, bear witness to the existence and use of these books in Spain and Spanish America. These books generally include works by important local composers as well as imported international repertory of the highest quality. The paper examines the group of pieces originally in Italian or created by Italian composers in this context. Some of these works are known only through these instrumental sources; others may have been copied, directly or indirectly, from prints. Many elements in these books suggest a degree of selection in the repertory and a direct line of transmission through instrumentalists who were also copyists. With instrumental performance, the limits between vernacular and sacred were blurred, making the wind band one of the most important agents for the circulation of international repertory in the Spanish crowns.

With the restoration of the Seville diocese in 1248, its organization followed the model established by other Castilian cathedral chapters. Seville Cathedral's symbolic importance and the wealth created by its endowments resulted in a flourishing development of worship, in which music played a key role. The ritual space in the Mozarabic cathedral was radically transformed with the construction of the Gothic building over a period of almost a hundred years, from 1434 to 1517. In tandem with this architectural program, the cathedral's musical resources also underwent transformation, being adapted according to changing aesthetic considerations, liturgical modifications and new spatial and acoustical demands. The city of Seville periodically welcomed the court, with the monarch and the royal household residing for extended sojourns in the Alcázar, which was renovated by Pedro I in the fourteenth century. These royal visits favored musical exchange with the royal chapels, especially during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabel. Seville became the paradigm for the consolidation and standardization witnessed during the 15th c. throughout the ecclesiastical institutions of Castile and Aragon. The direct consequence of this reforming impulse was an exponential increase in the number of composers active in this environment, and the amount of polyphonic repertoire created through church patronage in both the institutional and private spheres, as well as the increase in the use of that polyphony in liturgical and devotional ceremony.

This article, which falls within the context of studies of urban music history and forms part of a much broader analysis of musical activity and development in the city of Seville (1450– 1625) on which I am currently working, aims to explore the musical patronage of one of the most important noble dynasties in the social fabric of the city: the ducal house of Medina Sidonia. One of its main focal points is that of the connections of both musicians and musical repertories between this household and its immediate surroundings and its projection beyond the city. The contact that followed from the loan and exchange of musicians with Seville Cathedral, other noble households and even the royal chapel, enabled the important transmission of repertory and practices. The central role of music in the ducal household was visible (and audible) in all the different spaces of the city and to all social classes. The different ensembles that comprised the ducal musical resources (which can be seen in the glimpses provided by the pay rosters of 1516 and 1535) covered all the duke ’ s musical needs, both in terms of private musical consumption and as regards the representation of his image outside his residence. His extraordinary wealth and commercial ties abroad enabled him to contract foreign musicians and to develop a wide range of musical activity in his palace and in the city as a whole, the impact of which remains to be studied more fully.

The article studies the characteristics of the polyphonic hymn cycle contained in Tarazona Cathedral, Ms. 2–3 within the context of the transitional period in the liturgy of the Iberian Peninsula in the 15th and 16th centuries. New information on the biographical profile of the composers of these hymns, as well as the analysis of breviaries and other chant sources, some of them previously unknown, from the places with which the Tarazona anthology has been associated, establishes a Sevillian origin for the cycle and by extension for the rest of the repertory in the manuscript. The conclusions reached in the article permit the identification of the chant melodies, from a Sevillian hymnary, that would be most appropriate for alternatim performance of the polyphony in this most important source from the time of the Catholic Monarchs.

Granada was unusual in that it possessed three stable musical chapels that served the three most important religious institutions of the city: the Cathedral, the Capilla Real and the Collegiate Church of El Salvador. Significant earnings accrued from their participation in the principal local religious feasts, as well as from their appearances at various localities within the dioceses, and beyond it, was to favour the survival of these three musical chapels. These outside performances constitute the most important connecting point between the music developed inside the temples and its projection to diverse religious and secular settings within the urban environment.
The structure of the city's three musical chapels included, besides the customary structure common to the rest of Spain, three job categories classified according to earnings. The main characteristic being that none of these positions included a fixed salary from their institutions. Their study enlightens our knowledge of musical training as well as of the qualitative and quantitative changes and development in the Granadine musical chapels, especially from late 17th century until well into the 19th century.

Granada was one of the most important musical centers in Spain during the 16th c., attracting musicians from many different parts of the country and functioning as a point of convergence of Iberian, Italian, and Flemish musical traditions. Works by maestros de capilla that were active in Granada in the 16th c. are now preserved in various archives throughout Spain, including that of the Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo in El Escorial. Other sources are now housed at the Palácio Ducal in Vila Viçosa, Portugal, and at the Hispanic Society of America in New York. The most important group of works is the collection of hymns by Rodrigo de Ceballos preserved in the archive of the collegiate church of Baza, which were formerly considered to be anonymous.

Biography of the Granada composer Luys de Narváez, with the focus on his collection of music for vihuela Seys libros del Delphín (published 1538), dedicated to Francisco de los Cabos, secretary to Carlos V, and the privilege granted for the publication of the work, granted to him by the king on 18 May 1537.

A manuscript dating from around 1575 has been located at the Manuel de Falla Archive. This anthology, made up of over a hundred sacred and secular works, faithfully reflects the prevailing national tastes with its inclusion of seven prominent Spanish composers alongside thirteen foreigners, most of whom maintained close ties with the Flemish chapel of Charles V. Apart from containing previously unknown compositions, including several by Francisco Guerrero, constitutes an important source for the French chanson in Spain.