Music and Urban Society in Colonial Latin America

The Spanish colonial project in Latin America from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries was distinctly urban in focus. The impact of the written word on this process was explored in Ángel Rama's seminal book The Lettered City, and much has been written by historians of art and architecture on its visible manifestations, yet the articulation of sound, urban geography and colonial power - 'the resounding city' - has been passed over in virtual silence. This collection of essays by leading scholars examines the role of music in Spanish colonial urbanism in the New World and explores the urban soundscape and music profession as spheres of social contact, conflict, and negotiation. The contributors demonstrate the role of music as a vital constituent part of the colonial city, as Rama did for writing, and therefore illustrate how musicology may illuminate and take its place in the broader field of Latin American urban history.

Preface; 1. The resounding city Geoffrey Baker; 2. Music and ritual in urban spaces: the case of Lima, c.1600 Tess Knighton; 3. A conflicted relationship: music, power and the inquisition in viceregal Mexico City Javier Marín López; 4. Making music, writing myth: urban Guadalupan ritual in eighteenth-century New Spain Drew Edward Davies; 5. 'Gold was music to their ears': conflicting sounds in Santafé (Nuevo Reino de Granada), 1540–90 Egberto Bermúdez; 6. The 'spirit of independence' in the Fiesta de la Naval of Caracas David Coifman; 7. Employment, enfranchisement and liminality: ecclesiastical musicians in early modern Manila David R. M. Irving; 8. Chapelmasters and musical practice in Brazilian cities in the eighteenth century Paulo Castagna and Jaelson Trindade; 9. Music, authority and civilization in Rio de Janeiro (1763–90) Rogério Budasz; 10. Transcending the walls of the churches: the circulation of music and musicians in Santiago de Chile Alejandro Vera; 11. The slave's progress: music as profession in Criollo Buenos Aires Bernardo Illari; 12. Urban music in the wilderness: ideology and power in the Jesuit reducciones, 1609–1767 Leonardo J. Waisman; 13. Enlightened Reformism versus Jesuit Utopia: music in the foundation of El Carmen de Guarayos (Moxos, Bolivia), 1793–1801 María Gembero Ustárroz; Bibliography; Appendices.

The fields of colonial history and urban music history are growing areas of interest within musicology. This collection of essays proposes a new view of the history of music in colonial Latin America, and will be of interest to social and cultural historians as well as musicologists.

Geoffrey Baker is a Senior Lecturer in the music department, Royal Holloway, University of London. He has published Imposing Harmony: Music and Society in Colonial Cuzco (2008) and his essays on music in colonial Peru have appeared in Early Music, the Latin American Music Review, Il Saggiatore Musicale and Revista Andina. His research also encompasses Cuban popular music and music education in Cuba and Venezuela.
Tess Knighton is a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and is Editor of the Boydell Press's Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Music series. Her research interests focus on music and culture in early modern Spain, Portugal and the New World and she has taught and published widely in these fields. Recent publications include Devotional Music in the Iberian World, 1450–1800, coedited with Alvaro Torrente, which won the 2008 Robert Stevenson Award.