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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2008
The relationship of mass composition to the study of rhetoric has occupied many writers interested in perceiving the two as analogous in organisation, vocabulary and persuasive goals. Grammar belonged to the choirboy's education but, more importantly, the method of grammar permeated the general teaching method for other subjects as well. Material, such as questions or disputations, was organised into the similar and the dissimilar, so that working from a model and transfer by analogy were the principal means of making connections between statements and ideas. This essay is concerned with the opportunities available in sixteenth-century Spain for the study of grammar and music and how these possibilities affected the leading Spanish composer of the time, Cristóbal de Morales. In this discussion, Juan Bermudo's treatise Declaración de instruments is important. Not only does it name leading humanists and composers, and present its theoretical remarks in the language of rhetoric; Morales, who had been in close contact with Bermudo at the Marchena estate of the Duke of Arcos, recommended the treatise. Thus Bermudo, a young Minorite monk, reveals a good deal about Morales by both direct quotation and analogy, and in effect provides a more rounded intellectual impression of the composer, who otherwise expressed himself only in his musical works and their dedications. It can be deduced from musical quotations that Morales is Bermudo's model composer, and by analogy that Morales, versed in rhetoric and imitation, understood the application of these rules in musical composition. In his thorough appraisal of musical tradition, theory and practice, Bermudo assumes the function of a critic in the modern sense.
1 Bermudo, J., Declaración de instrumentos (Osuna, 1555); facs. ed. Kastner, M. S., Documenta Musicologica, series I/11 (Basle, 1957).Google Scholar
2 Pike, R., Aristocrats and Traders: Sevillian Society in the Sixteenth Century (Ithaca, N.Y., 1972), pp. 6–7.Google Scholar
3 The picaresque novel had its genesis in the conditions of the poor in many Spanish cities of the period. The two non-censored (i.e. printable) examples are Lazarillo de Tormes, set in Salamanca, and Guzmán de Alfarache, written by the Sevillian Mateo Alemán. In these novels the central character, who is also the narrator, is born in extreme poverty, usually illegitimate, and lives by instinct and his wits, surviving encounters with swindling masters and criminals in the most sordid conditions, particularly hunger.
4 Pike, p. 56. Although a curriculum of the time could not be found during research for this paper, it may be assumed that the programme of study was similar to that of Alcalá de Henares, founded in 1508 with humanist aims.
5 Pike, pp. 66–7.
6 Stevenson, R., Spanish Cathedral Music in the Golden Age (Berkeley, 1961), pp. 8–9.Google Scholar
7 ‘Cuius si in maximis, praestantissimisque rebus haud quaquam cognita est industria, certe in his, que liberalium artium disciplinis continentur, cum meae me vitae ratio ab ineunte aetate intentum exercuisset, elaboravi sedulo, ut ne hoc meum studium ab his contemni possit, qui artem Musicam tractarent.’ Anglès, H., ed., Cristóbal de Morales: Opera omnia, Monumentos de la Música Española 11 (Madrid and Barcelona, 1952), pp. 48–9.Google Scholar
8 Stevenson, R., ‘Morales, Cristóbal de’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Sadie, S., 20 vols. (London, 1980), xii, p. 553.Google Scholar
9 Ferdinand and Isabella held court in various places, although Toledo was their principal seat. Isabella reigned over Castille-León from 1474; Ferdinand, over Aragon from 1479. His holdings included the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and, later in his reign, most of Navarre. Isabella died in 1504, Ferdinand in 1516. Their issue became the first ruler to inherit a unified Spain. Unfortunately, this was Juana ‘la Loca’ who was married to Felipe ‘el Hermoso’ of Austria, the son of Maximilian of Austria; the son of Felipe and Juana was Charles I of Spain and v of the Holy Roman Empire. Felipe el Hermoso died in 1506, and Ferdinand was called back as regent. He reigned as Ferdinand v. The ‘Catholic’ in the title ‘Reyes Católicos’ referred to the universality and oneness of the monarchy.
10 Stevenson, R., ‘Peñalosa, Francisco de’, The New Grove Dictionary, xiv, pp. 347–8.Google Scholar
11 Pike, p. 27. The next income below the duke's was 40,000 ducats.
12 Stevenson, , Spanish Cathedral Music, p. 8.Google Scholar
13 Siculo, L. M., De rebus Hispaniae memorabilis (Alcalá de Henares, 1533)Google Scholar, fol. 17v; quoted in Stevenson, , Spanish Cathedral Music, nn. 61 and 174.Google Scholar
14 ‘Para componer canto de organo tuve yo por maestro las obras de Adriano, de Christoval de Morales, y de Gomberth. En España ay excelentes musicos, cuyas obras podeys immitar.’ Declaración, bk 5, chap. 9, fol. cxxixv.
15 ‘Quanto el doctissimo Antonio de Lebrixa augmento el arte de la grammatica, el latinissimo Ludovico Vives la lengua latina, casta y natural, el peritissimo y estudiosissimo Erasmo el modo de dezir…’; ibid., 4. 8, fol. lxviv.
16 Riber, L., ed. and trans., Luis Vives: Obras completas, ii (Madrid, 1948), p. 621 [my translation].Google Scholar
17 Ibid., p. 625.
18 Declaratión, 5. 16, fol. cxxviiiv.
19 Ibid., 1. 18, fol. xviiir.
20 Ibid., 5. 6, fol. cxxiiir; 5. 7, fol. cxxiiiv; 5. 9, fol. cxxvr.
21 For a comparison of the range of Bermudo's citations, discussions and examples with those of other European and Spanish theorists, see Stevenson, R., Juan Bermudo (The Hague, 1960).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
22 ‘No tan solamente avemos de hazer buenas cosas: sino que han de ser bien hechas, poniendo cada cosa en su lugar y casa. No tan solamente se miran los nombres: mas tambien los adverbios.’ Declaratión, 1. 4, fol. iiiir.
23 Ibid., 5.6, fol. cxxiiir.
24 ‘Hablando estrechamente, clausula llamo a la que los griegos dizen perihodo, que es fin de sentencia. Ay otras, que en la musica pueden hazer clausulas, y son en medio de sentencia, la qual los griegos dizen collum, y los latinos membrum, o parte principal de la oracion: y los musicos llaman punto de mediacon.’ Note his use of the word oration. Ibid., 5. 7, fols. cxxiii–v.
25 ‘Que differencia ay entre cantante, cantor y musico’, ibid., 1. 5, fols. iiiiv–vv.
26 ‘La ligereza de los dedos en los que tañen, y la facilidad de pronunciar los puntos en los que cantan: del uso y no del arte procede. A estos tales conviene el nombre de cantante, y quedan bien pagados: porque no passaron adelante.’ Ibid., 1. 5, fol. iiiiv.
27 ‘Los cantores saben componer todos los modos, y en ellos hazer grandes primores, y abilidades, y aun de improviso (lo que es de admiracion) … pero no os diran la causa dello.’ Ibid.
28 ‘Todo aquel que canto de organo compusiere, y diere las causas de todo lo que hizo: llamarse ha cantor por excelencia, por aver procedido en su composicion en el mejor modo de saber que ay…. Solo el theorico es dicho musico. Por tener la sciencia de la Musica en su entendimiento: alcança este renombre.’ Ibid.
29 ‘La differencia que ay entre el orador y el rhetorico: essa mesma dezimos aver entre el cantor y el musico. Ninguno merece ser dicho orador, si primero no es rhetorico: assi ninguno merece el nombre de cantor, si primero no fuere musico.’ Ibid.
30 El arte tripharia (1549), which Morales must have seen at Marchena, was expanded into the Declaratión.
31 The artificial and the natural became the subject of discussion and element of style in the works of Cervantes, Lope and, ultimately, Góngora.
32 ‘Tanto es mas perfecto un arte: quanto imita y contrahaze a lo natural.’ Letter by Morales, written in 1550, placed before book 5 of the Declaratión, no folio number.
33 ‘Leed con aviso y cuydado este libro: y hallareys en el todo lo que en composicion podeys dessear. Theorica engastada en practica, y la practica corriesse junctamente con la theorica: hasta ahora en nuestra España no avemos visto. No pueden pues con verdad dezir los musicos practicos ser la theorica contraria a la practica: pues que tan excelen-temente muestra fray Juan Bermudo … venir ambas sciencias a consonancia y proportion.’ Ibid.
34 According to one biographer he had read Ptolemy's De musica in the original Greek. See Stevenson, R., ‘Cristóbal de Morales’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 6 (1953), p. 22.Google Scholar
35 ‘But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel.’
36 Bermudo expresses similar sentiments: ‘The most powerful reason for learning to sing is that we may use music in the service of God to which the holy angels incite us who in the Church Triumphant praise God with song, and the saints of the Church Militant (in imitation of the heavenly that is our mother) ordain that there shall be song.’ (‘La potissima causa porque aviamos de saber cantar: es para emplear la musica en el servicio de Dios: a lo qual nos incitan los sanctos angeles, que en la iglesia triumphante alaban a Dios con canto, y los sanctos en la militante (a imitacion de la celestial que es nuestra madre) ordenaron que vuiesse canto.’ Declaración, 1. 15, fol. xiiiv.)