Abstract
Having launched maritime expeditions along West Africa’s coast in the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Portuguese were the first Europeans in the modern age to make frequent, direct contact with Sub-Saharan peoples and cultures. Eventually, through the establishment of diplomatic and commercial relations with major African kingdoms of the region, Portugal secured a monopoly over the West African slave trade. Consequently, thousands of African slaves arrived in Lisbon every year, a large part of which were then re-exported to the Mediterranean world. This caused an exponential rise in the black population not only in Portugal but in Spain throughout the late fifteenth and sixteenth century. Thus, the Portuguese and, indirectly, the Spanish had privileged contact with African cultural manifestations, to which they showed remarkable permeability.
African music exerted strong fascination on Iberian composers, who soon started to imitate their characteristic sounds and rhythms, integrating them in traditional Iberian song forms. This process culminated in the appearance of the villancico de negros — “blacks’ villancico” — a musical genre with a sacred theme and theatrical in nature, with an all-black cast of characters imitating their characteristic sounds, rhythms and music. This uniquely Iberian form was immensely popular throughout the seventeenth and early eighteenth century but has been long neglected by musicologists until recent years. This paper accounts for my ongoing research on this subject, which is mainly dedicated to tracing the presence of elements drawn from traditional black African music
in this repertory and their decisive influence in its development, from its first manifestations in the late sixteen century to its apex in the mid-seventeenth century.
African music exerted strong fascination on Iberian composers, who soon started to imitate their characteristic sounds and rhythms, integrating them in traditional Iberian song forms. This process culminated in the appearance of the villancico de negros — “blacks’ villancico” — a musical genre with a sacred theme and theatrical in nature, with an all-black cast of characters imitating their characteristic sounds, rhythms and music. This uniquely Iberian form was immensely popular throughout the seventeenth and early eighteenth century but has been long neglected by musicologists until recent years. This paper accounts for my ongoing research on this subject, which is mainly dedicated to tracing the presence of elements drawn from traditional black African music
in this repertory and their decisive influence in its development, from its first manifestations in the late sixteen century to its apex in the mid-seventeenth century.
Original language | English |
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Pages | 22-23 |
Number of pages | 2 |
Publication status | Published - 2022 |
Event | La Musique en Afrique et sa diffusion dans le monde à l’époque moderne (1300-1650): 64e Colloque International d’Études Humanistes - Centre d’Études Supérieures de la Renaissance, Tours, France Duration: 27 Jun 2022 → 1 Jul 2022 |
Conference
Conference | La Musique en Afrique et sa diffusion dans le monde à l’époque moderne (1300-1650) |
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Country/Territory | France |
City | Tours |
Period | 27/06/22 → 1/07/22 |
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Dive into the research topics of 'African-Inspired Sounds and Music in Portuguese and Spanish blacks’ villancicos'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Prizes
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Doctoral grant
Raimundo, Nuno de Mendonça Freire Nogueira (Recipient), 2019
Prize: Fellowship awarded competitively