Christine Labroche wrote:

>Secondly, and more important to me, a request.  Could someone - Bill Hong
>and Mauricio V. Cartagena - tell us more about American (right?) Baroque?
>I found their double report on "La Purpura ...  " quite enticing, and I had
>filed Bill Hong's first challenging post for future reference.

This is a very broad concept.  American Baroque in music embrace mostly
works focused to cathedrals and missions (liturgical repertoire of Masses,
Psalms, Lamentations, Passions, Antiphones, etc.etc.) and secular music for
churchal purposes (the famous villancicos, sung in spanish language mostly,
although you can find hilarious parody about the speaking way of african,
italian, portuguese and french people in them, too).  There are two very
different styles through their history:  the first with a basic influence
of hispanic school of composition (use of a mixture ofpopular rhythms and
dances like xacaras or chaconas in secular music with resources from scenic
music, a big and complex use of polichorality, presence of large basso
continuo with guitars, harps, bassons, percussion).  This influence endured
since the end of spanish conquest until beginnings of XVIII century, with
the irruption of italian style (appearence of violins obbligatti, use of
operatic forms like recitativo secco, arias, inside religious works) in
Spain of the Borbon's dinasty and all their domains in America.  This
irruption generated a subsequent mixture of hispanic and italian styles
very special, with great success in some cases (Manuel de Zumaya in Mexico
and Jose de Orejon y Aparicio in Peru, for example).

"La purpura de la rosa" in spite of their year of composition (1701) is
an exceptional case of hispanic opera, without any use of musical devices
with italian roots, such a recitatives or ariettas.  The most of their
characters are sung by female voices and the interaction music-drama is
very subtle, with a hypnotic use of the strophical sing.  On the contrary
from other countries, the libretto is of first quality -Pedro Calderon de
la Barca (1600 -1681) is one of the foremost dramatists of all times;
Wagner and Liszt admired much his works- and one close reading of the play
is recommended for a best comprension of the opera as a whole.  The music
contains a lot of musical citations from spanish "hits" of the epoch,
including a popular song named "No puede amor hacer mi dicha mayor" from
a spanish composer (Jose Marin) that between his numerous professions, he
was a brigand!.  One vibrant peruvian xacara appears in the climax of the
score.  It's a shame that Torrejon y Velasco didn't leave more operas for
us!.

And later Christine Labroche requested:

>I recently came across an intriguing CD of 18th century Peruvian music -
>"El Diamante".  I gather it is fundamentally atypical Latino-Indian
>Baroque, with timbral and instrumental diversity (kema, charango, and
>baroque violin), based on songs and dances collected at the end of the
>18thC.  by Don Companon y Bajanda, Bishop of Trujillo.  The Ensemble
>Albalonga, dir.  Annibal E.  Cetrangolo, recorded "El Diamante" on Opus
>111, OPS 30-265.  ...

Two points:  one, the instrumental forces used for Albalonga Ensemble are
the most of times, correct for my taste and fine played, but; two, sadly
for the vocals, this CD s****.  It sounds more like as argentinian or
chilenean folk music to me than peruvian.  If you wish to hear something
better (not a definitive recording of course IMHO) about Martinez de
Companon's recopilations, go to the selection included in Alma Musik CD
"Musica Clasica Peruana:  El Barroco" AMCD 600301 (available through their
website http://www.almamusik.com, I guess).  Contains beautiful pieces like
"Las Lanchas para baylar" (The Rafts for dancing), "Tonada del Chimo" and
"Tonada el Diamante" between others.

Waiting this helps

Mauricio Veliz Cartagena
[log in to unmask]