The Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music

Volume 26 (2020) No. 1

Juan de Navas. Aves, flores y estrellas: Tonos y arias. Música ficta. Lindoro, 2017. Compact disc. [NL-3037.] Juan de Navas. Alado cisne de nieve: Art Songs. Música ficta. Et’cetera, 2018. Compact disc. [KTC 1609.]

Reviewed by Drew Edward Davies*

1. Two Similar Recordings of Rarities

2. Rhetoric and Form

3. French Surprises

References

1. Two Similar Recordings of Rarities

1.1 Juan Francisco de Navas (1647–1719) worked as a composer and harpist at the court of Charles II following the death of Juan Hidalgo (1614–1685), the most prominent composer in seventeenth-century Spain. Navas wrote music much in the style of his predecessor and cultivated the same genres, including the tono, villancico, and zarzuela.^[1] His songs include secular tonos humanos, many of which derive from his stage works, as well as sacred tonos divinos, some of which are contrafacts. Tonos were scored for up to four voices with continuo, but most of those by Navas are for one or two voices. Structurally, Navas sometimes supplements the traditional formal elements of the tono, namely the estribillo (refrain) and coplas (verses), with short recitatives and arias, and thus some of his tonos divinos and theater songs resemble cantatas in form if not in style.

1.2 Given that Navas remains somewhat less known than Hidalgo or his slightly younger contemporaries Sebastián Durón (1660–1716) and José de Torres y Martínez Bravo (1670–1738), the release of two recordings featuring his works is very exciting to those interested in Spanish Baroque repertory. These two albums are in fact twins recorded by the Colombian early music ensemble Música ficta during a single week-long recording session at the historic church of San Isidro Labrador in Chiquiza, Colombia, in January 2016, yet released separately under the Spanish label Lindoro and Dutch label Et’cetera. Despite a similar flow of pieces on each album and consistent supporting materials, no music appears on both discs. Each title derives from avian imagery in the incipit of one of the tonos recorded: Aves, flores y estrellas (Birds, flowers, and stars) and Alado cisne de nieve (Winged swan of snow).

1.3 These discs aspire to attract a connoisseur public interested in rare musical items, and indeed nine of the fourteen works on Aves, flores y estrellas and five of the twelve on Alado cisne de nieve are first recordings. Furthermore, the booklets list the sources, with RISM sigla and folio numbers, of each work performed and provide details about the exact instruments used. This transparency of the sources is not only satisfying for the musicologist but also quite interesting, as it reveals the circulation of works by Navas throughout the Spanish world. Excerpts from zarzuelas by Navas conserved in Madrid, including Duelos de ingenio y fortuna (1687), Destinos vencen finezas (1699), and Apolo y Dafne (ca. 1705) balance a selection of his tonos for the Blessed Sacrament from archives as widely dispersed as the cathedrals of Barcelona and Valladolid, Spain, and Bogotá, Colombia, plus the Sutro Library in San Francisco, California. This last source, one of several first encountered by John Koegel in the 1990s, is a Spanish manuscript of 124 theater songs, including thirteen by Navas, that was purchased in Mexico City by the San Francisco book collector Adolph Sutro in the 1880s.^[2] Songs by composers such as Navas were likely performed in colonial urban environments such as theaters, wealthy homes, and cathedrals, as appropriate, well into the eighteenth century.

2. Rhetoric and Form

2.1 Based in Bogotá, the Colombian ensemble Música ficta is known for its performances of Hispanic Baroque repertories, and its individual members are veterans of the early music scenes in the US and Europe. They have produced a dossier of at least nine full-length recordings and have toured worldwide multiple times and have developed an important voice in the global early music environment. On both of these discs, Jairo Serrano, a core member of the group, sings with a light and nimble tenor voice, accompanied by Baroque guitar, viola da gamba, theorbo, and recorders. Serrano occasionally employs a fast vibrato on held pitches that may not be to the taste of all listeners. Nonetheless, his Spanish diction is extraordinarily clear and stands out among recordings of this type of repertory. Indeed, students of Spanish song today often struggle with diction, and Serrano’s agile fluency with a light Latin American seseo is exemplary. In terms of accompaniment, the group subtly adapts the ensemble for each work, choosing a slightly smaller continuo group for the religious works while adding more instruments, including a bass drum, in the theater works, especially those with rustic topicality such as Rústicos ciudadanos de las ondas (on Aves, flores y estrellas). The recorders improvise strophes between sung verses and perform short instrumental pieces by other composers as interludes. However, I regret the absence of the harp on these recordings, as the instrument has a distinct color and resonance in the continuo ensemble and would be historically appropriate.

2.2 The texts of these songs employ erudite vocabulary packed with obscure references, complex syntax, and allusions that are difficult to translate into English or to comprehend in their entirety today, even for native speakers of Spanish. In a typical work written in the refrain form with verses, including the tono and the villancico, the author of the text presents the main poetic concept in the estribillo, which usually but not always opens and concludes the work, and then launches into exegesis with the verses. Although the estribillo invariably gets catchier music, often with a wider vocal range and a more vigorous rhythmic language, I would argue that the heart of the work lies in the terser verses, which develop the poetic concept sequentially. Thus, it is frustrating that Música ficta, like so many early music groups, cuts the middle verses, up to half of them, out of most of the tonos presented on both discs, and does so tacitly.

2.3 For example, in Ay, amor, a tono divino for the Blessed Sacrament recorded on Alado cisne de nieve, Música ficta deletes the second, third, and fourth of the six verses included in the published edition of the piece.^[3] The listener thus misses out on Love (Cupid) and Faith vying for influence. The estribillo sets the scene with amorous oxymorons, such as “in the breast of snow, the sweetest fire,” as the author wonders who is not ever afflicted by love. Then, three verses allegorize Love’s falseness, and finally, three more verses underscore Faith’s placidity. Seeing roses in the “gardens of the dawn” (verse one), Love uses carnations and jasmine to conceal the blood let by the rose’s thorns (verse two) and craft a flowery garland (verse three). Faith, seeing Love’s “ignorance” through the “dryness” of the garland (verse four), creates a pure stream (verse five) that sows sacred desire in the author’s breast (verse six), and thus redirects the question of the estribillo. Obviously, the final two verses make little sense if the previous three are absent.

2.4 I will not claim that period performers never cut verses themselves—I have worked with villancicos that have different numbers of verses in different sources^[4]—but I am bothered by how widespread and unchallenged this practice is in the performance of seventeenth-century Spanish repertories today, even among the finest international ensembles. It is obvious that musical and timing considerations outweigh rhetorical communication in the ensemble’s priorities, and furthermore, it presumes that performers or producers do not expect listeners to take an active role in enjoying this music. I consider the substantial truncation of works antithetical to the aesthetics of the seventeenth century, and it is a particular lost opportunity with Música ficta, as Jairo Serrano’s flawless diction could be pointed toward even more effective storytelling through song. Carlos Serrano’s literal but sometimes unidiomatic English translations in the CD booklets likewise challenge the listener’s ability to comprehend these difficult but rewarding texts.

3. French Surprises

3.1 Albums of seventeenth-century Spanish songs might be an unlikely place to encounter premier recordings of eighteenth-century French instrumental music, but here they are. On Aves, flores y estrellas, Música ficta treats us to the third suite from the Six suites de symphonies pour deux musettes ou vielles by Claude-Auguste Voyenne (ca. 1680–1745), and on Alado cisne de nieve, which opens with a short arrangement of the passacaille from Lully’s Armide as preserved in a Spanish source (where it is titled “La chacona”), we get the second suite from the Pièces à deux flutes traversières sans basse (Madrid, 1734) by Pierre Bucquet (ca. 1680–ca. 1745), both performed on two flûtes de voix. Both Voyenne and Bucquet worked as musicians at the Madrid court after the ascent of Versailles-born Philip V to the throne. The stylish dances that make up Bucquet’s second suite include two allemandes, one titled “Les ondes” (the waves) and the other, “La voltigeuse” (the acrobat). This suite had actually been edited and published as long ago as 1910, and there is also a more recent edition published in Spain.^[5] Works like these show aspects of French cultural presence on the peninsula at the beginning of the Bourbon period.

3.2 Despite concerns about the deletion of verses from tonos, these twin discs contain an astonishing assortment of rare music from the 1680s through the 1730s. The sound quality is similar on both, the musical personnel are the same, and even the length of the discs differs by less than two minutes, and thus it is not easy to choose one disc over the other. Daniel Zuluaga’s essay in Aves, flores y estrellas is somewhat more scholarly than its counterpart in Alado cisne de nieve, and I have a slight preference for the repertory chosen on that disc as well. These serve as a fine introduction to the court repertory in the final decades of the Spanish Habsburgs, a model example of Spanish diction, and a surprise excursion into French dances as known at the onset of the Bourbon period in Madrid.