Music in sixteenth-century South European feminine institutions.
This program brings together repertoires that, despite today being often performed in various concert or musicological contexts, were conceived with a specific female audience in mind: nuns. The documentation related to musical training in women’s monasteries in the Iberian Peninsula and Italy allows us to recognize the active role that women played as performers, students, educators, and sometimes composers. When publishing his treatise Arte Tripharia (1551), Juan Bermudo stated he did so “mainly for nuns”, in response to a direct request from Doña Isabel Pacheco, abbess of the convent of Santa Clara de Montilla. This work, conceived as a practical and accessible manual, shows that there were communities where the musical education of nuns was structured and valued. The Libro de cifra nueva (1557) by Luis Venegas de Henestrosa reinforces this idea. In the introduction, the author justifies the publication with the hope that la otra que quiere ser monja (the one who wishes to become a nun) might learn to play, to listen, and to elevate the spirit. It is in this context that the piece by Gracia Baptista, Conditor alme, is included – the oldest surviving work written by a female composer from the Iberian Peninsula. Similarly, the Obras de música para tecla, arpa o vihuela (1578), published by Hernando de Cabezón following the legacy of his father Antonio, are dedicated “especially to monks and nuns”. The explicit mention of nuns as recipients reveals not only their familiarity with these repertoires but also their active participation in instrumental practice. It is also known that the eminent musician Francisco Peraza had two Berber students in Seville, las Alcázeres, who each went on to become teachers to other nuns, possibly from the Convent of San Leandro in the city. In Italy, Claudia Francesca Rusca (c. 1593-1676) and Raffaella Aleotti (c. 1570-c. 1640) were two notable composers, both were nuns and active in convent settings. Aleotti, an Augustinian nun in Ferrara, stood out for her publication, in 1593, of the book Sacrae cantiones, the first collection of sacred music printed by a woman that has survived to the present. Rusca, a Benedictine at the Monastery of Santa Caterina in Brescia, published in 1630 the collection Sacri concerti, reflecting convent musical practice with a great variety of arrangements, ranging from songs for solo voice and basso continuo to polychoral concertos for eight voices. Both demonstrate how women’s convents in Renaissance and Baroque Italy were important creative spaces for music composition and performance, even within a context of enclosure and the social limitations imposed on women. In Portugal, the polyphonic codex of Arouca stands as one of the most revealing sources of musical practice in female communities. In it, there are instrumental indications in the bass parts – such as fingerings for bassoon and strings for viol – suggesting the replacement of low vocal parts with supporting instruments played by nuns. In Coimbra, there are accounts of convents commissioning music from the composers of Santa Cruz for the use of the nuns, particularly the genre of the chançoneta, songs in the vernacular that were integrated into liturgical services during solemn celebrations. Pedro de Cristo, as quoted by Ernesto Pinho, “had a gift for chansonetas and lively music”, which explains why he was sought after for composing in this genre.
— Maria Bayley —
25 October
Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Conceição, Machico
Saturday, 9.30 pm
Maria Bayley, organ and voice
Gracia Baptista (fl.1557)
¬ Conditor alme (Henestrosa, L. V. Libro de Cifra Nueva. Alcalá de Henares: Brocar, 1557)
Thomas Crequillon (c.1505-1557)
¬ Mort m’a privé (Sixiesme livre contenant trente et une chansons. Antuérpia: Susato, 1545 )
Francisco Fernández Palero (fl.1557)
¬ Mort m’a privé (Henestrosa, L. V. Libro de Cifra Nueva, 1557)
Juan Bermudo (1510-1565)
¬ Tiento (Declaración de Instrumentos Musicales, 1555)
Claudia Francesca Rusca (1593-1676)
¬ Salve Regina
¬ Canzon prima a 4 (Sacri concerti, 1630)
Pierre Sandrin (c. 1490-1561)
¬ Doulce mémoire (Pierre Attaignant, Livre 2: 27 chansons a 4, 1538)
Hernando de Cabezón (1541-1602)
¬ Doulce mémoire (Obras de música para tecla, arpa & vihuela, 1578)
Raffaella Aleotti (c.1570-c.1646)
¬ Angelus ad pastores (Sacrae cantiones, 1593)
Francisco Peraza (1564-1598)
¬ Medio registro alto de primer tono (E-E LP30)
Anónimo (Brasil, ?-?)
¬ Sanctus e and Agnus Dei (Missa «O Gram Senhora») (P-AR Res Ms 32)
Pedro de Cristo (1545-1618)
¬ Si puede el hombre (P-Cug MM 53)
