When   Thursday, November 5, 2009   Time   4:00 PM - 5:00 PM  
Where   Music Admin. Bldg. 21 711 Elgin Rd.   map it
Audience   - Faculty/Staff - Student - Public
Contact   Rachel Maine  
Group   School of Music

Full title of this colloquium: The Politics of Musical Style nad the Style of Musical Politics in Mid-18th Century Mexico City

Presenter: Dianne Lehmann-Goldman, Northwestern University

The year 1750 is a watershed moment in the history of Novohispanic music. In that year, Italian composer Ignacio de Jerusalem was hired as chapelmaster at Mexico City Cathedral, thus inaugurating the galant epoch in Mexico. The change in style was felt as soon as Jerusalem started composing for the services. Six years later, a new composer arrived: when Matheo Tollis de la Rocca applied for a job at the Mexico City Cathedral, he was admitted – as Jerusalem’s assistant. The composers’ music was similar in style; the main difference was their nationality and political backing. Most scholars make the mistake of assuming Tollis was Italian. In fact, he was Spanish and had backing from the recently-installed virreina, María de Ahumada y Vera, thus insuring Tollis a place in the capital’s musical establishment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the tense relationship between these two composers through the lens of stylistic identity. This use of this lens is tricky when dealing with the mid-18th century because of the homogenization and internationalization of the galant style. Robert Stevenson negatively employed this lens in his Music in Mexico: “Jerusalem …carried into the cathedral the vapid inanities of Italian opera at its worst.” However, one cannot say that Mexico was invaded by “second-rate” Italians who brought the operatic style into the cathedral, and only reversed with the hiring of Spaniard Antonio Juanas. No: this galant style had been subsumed into Spanish musical culture by the mid-18th century and brought to Mexico City by both an Italian and a Spaniard. Indeed, it can be argued that the Neapolitan style transcended Spanish/Italian identity.