Subject: Lyr Add: SAVAE's 'El Milagro de Guadalupe'
From:
GUEST
Date: 15 Oct 05 - 08:47 PM
Songs from SAVAE's (http://www.savae.org/music.html) "El Milagro de Guadalupe".
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[Capo +2?] Guadalupe: Virgen de los Indios (Procession of the Drum) [Classical Nahuatl] 455 Song XLIV, Canto B, from the codex Cantares Mexicanos (compiled in Mexico City, Mexico, c. 1550-1580) Musical reconstruction by Christopher Moroney
"Painted by the flowering ear of corn my heart comes to life." Now the various flowers of our sustenance are scattered about, bursting into bloom in front of the divine presence of our mother, Holy Mary. Your heart is alive in your painting. And we, the lords of this land sing all together from the book of songs. In perfect harmony we dance before you. Oh Bishop, Our Father, you preach over there by the water. In the beauty of the flowers did God create you. He paints you as a song, oh Holy Mary. Oh Bishop, Our Father, you preach over there by the water. The Toltecs are painted, yes, completed are their books. Your whole heart came to be perfect. "Here, with the Toltec art, I'll live." The flowers of the fragrant cocoa come scattering down spreading perfume. Fragrant poymatli drizzles down. And there, I, the singer, will walk. Listen, oh listen to my song of joy! Our flowers are arisen in this place of rain.
[Nican ompehua teponazcuicatl
"Tico, tico, toco, toto, auh ic ontlantiuh cuicatl Tiquiti, titito titi" [Drum pattern, thus it will come back in."]
Am Em (repeat)
Yn tlapapalxochicentli ni yol aya, nepapan tonacan xochitl moyahua ya, oncuepontimoquetzaco yana ya aya, ye teoyaixpan tona'a Santa María ay yo
Zan ca tlacuilolpan nemi a moyollo, amoxpetlatl ypan toncuica ya, tiquimonyaitotia teteuctin aya in obispo ya zan ca totatzin aya oncan titlatoa atl
¡tempan ay yo
Yehuan dios mitzyocox aya xochitla ya mitztlacatili yan cuicatl mitzicuiloa Santa María in obispo ya ect. [repeat: zan ca totatzin aya oncan
titlatoa atl ¡tempan ay yo]
Tolteca ihcuilihuia aha aya ha ontlantoc amoxtli ya moyollo ya on aya moch onahciticac
o o toltecayootl ayc aya ninemiz ye nican ay yo
Tel cacahuaxochitl ahuiac xeliuhtihuitz a ihpotocaya in ahuiyac poyoma'tlin pixahuia oncan nine'
ne' nemi nicuicanitl yye ayao ohui yonca quiya itzmolini ye nocuic celia notlatollaquillo ohua in
toxochiuh ycac y quiapani ayao.
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The sweet-voiced quetzal there, ruling the earth, has intoxicated my soul.
I am like the quetzal bird, I am created in the one and only God; I sing sweet songs among the flowers; I chant songs and rejoice in my heart.
The fuming dewdrops from the flowers in the fields intoxicate my soul.
I grieve to myself that ever this dwelling on earth should end.
I foresaw, being a Mexican, that our rule began to be destroyed, I went forth weeping that it was to bow down and to be destroyed.
Let me not be angry that the grandeur of Mexico is to be destroyed.
The smoking stars gather against it: the one who cares for flowers is about to be destroyed.
He who cared for books wept, he wept for the beginning of the destruction.
[The music, dating from the mid-16th century, reflects the unprecedented evangelization that occurred as a result of the appearance of the Virgin Mary to the Nahua Indian Juan Diego in 1531. Many of the pieces, transcribed from original cathedral manuscripts discovered in the 1960s, were written by native Aztec and Nahua composers, some of which have not been heard for over 400 years. The recording features the legendary "Teponazcuicatl," which tradition says was used as a procession by the Aztecs on December 26, 1531, to convey the Virgin's miraculous image on Juan Diego's cloak from the Mexico City Cathedral to its home at Tepeyac.
SAVAE writes:
The Cantares Mexicanos and musical reconstruction of "Teponazcuicatl"
Among the Nahuatl speaking tribes of the Aztec empire, traditions and history were often preserved in songs. "Teponazcuicatl" (literally, "Log-drum song") is sometimes known by the Spanish name "Pregón del atabal," or "Procession of the drum." The words to "Teponazcuicatl" survive in written form as part of the 16th century codex Cantares Mexicanos, a collection of pre- and post-Conquest Aztec songs. Ninety-one of these songs were compiled between 1550 and 1580 by a group of indigenous Mexican musicians and historians under the supervision of Bernardino de Sahagún, the famed Spanish Franciscan linguist, ethnographer, and historian.
Song number forty-four of the collection, "Teponazcuicatl," is divided into two sections: Canto A and Canto B. Canto A recounts some of the history related to the legendary Mexican god-king, Topiltzin Quetzalcóatl, lamenting his departure from the earth and hoping for his messianic return. The spirits of the Toltec ancestors are called forth and asked to transform Mexico into a paradise on earth. In Canto B, the Toltec spirits appear in response to this request. This second section contains references to corn, a painted image, flowers, a bishop (obispoya) issuing proclamations near the water, and a divine mother who is identified by the name Santa Maria.
Canto B clearly shows a Christian influence that is not evident in Canto A (although a parallel can be drawn between Quetzalcóatl and Jesus Christ). It has been conjectured that Canto B originally existed in some earlier form and was reworked by the Aztecs to celebrate the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to the Nahua Indian Juan Diego in December of 1531. Some have suggested that the painted image in the song refers to the miraculous image of Mary which was painted on Juan Diego's cloak, or tilma, by the flowers which she had wrapped inside of it; that the bishop of the song refers to Bishop Zumarrága, to whom Juan Diego presented his cloak as proof of the Virgin's appearance; and that the water refers to Lake Texcoco, which at that time surrounded Tenochtitlan/Mexico City and formed the shoreline adjacent to the hillside of Tepeyac, where the apparitions occurred.
If a pre-Conquest version of Canto B did indeed exist, because of its references to corn, the divine mother of the song would most likely have been Xilónen (the goddess of the Xilotes, the tender ears of corn). Xilónen was another name, or aspect, of the goddess Cihuacóatl, who was often paired with Quetzalcóatl as a representation of the dual principal which is the source of life and all things. According to Sahagún, Cihuacóatl was also called Tonantzin, a name which means "Our Mother." The site where Tonantzin was worshipped was Tepeyac Hill, the same location where the Virgin Mary appeared to Juan Diego. Tradition says that on December 26, 1531, a triumphant procession accompanied by Canto B of "Teponazcuicatl" conveyed the sacred image on Juan Diego's tilma from the Mexico City Cathedral along a causeway crossing Lake Texcoco to its newly built shrine at Tepeyac.
The major stumbling block to performing "Teponazcuicatl" for modern audiences has been that no written music exists for it (or any other song in the Cantares Mexicanos) and no rhythmic structure or rhyming scheme is evident in the Nahuatl verses. However, a drum pattern in the form of onomatopoeic Nahuatl syllables (Tico Toco Toco Tiquitiquiti Quiti Quito) starts Canto B followed by the instruction: "Just thus it will come back in." By assigning pitches from the pentatonic scale of the Aztec huilacapitzli (clay ocarinas) to these syllables as well as adapting the syllabic pattern to the drums, a driving melodic and rhythmic figure emerges. Not only do the Nahuatl words match the melody beautifully, but each verse neatly fits into a set of four melodic repetitions. One of the most fascinating results of this reconstruction is the appearance of an unmistakable rhyming pattern that occurs at the end of nearly all the melodic repetitions.
In its complete form, Canto B of "Teponazcuicatl" contains ten verses. To keep the performance from being unduly long, this reconstruction utilizes only five of those verses. See Cantares Mexicanos, Songs of the Aztecs Translated from the Nahuatl, with an Introduction and Commentary by John Bierhorst (Stanford University Press, 1985) for a complete version.]
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Asi Andando
Gm Dm F C Gm Dm F C (Gm) [keep last few notes the same to end on G]
Asi andando El parto se me va'a sercando andando asi quedando virgen pario.
Asi andando El parto se me va'a sercando andando asi quedando virgen pario.
Gm Dm F C Gm
Sin dolor pari con mucha alegria
Y'en naçareth al Señor que de los çielos venia
Fue mi vientre concebido este dia
El mundo lesta esperando em Bethlen.
[Tomás Pascual (Max Quin) (fl. c. 1595-1635) San Juan Ixcoy, District of Huehuetenango, Guatemala
In 1963, Daniel P. Jensen, a newly ordained Maryknoll priest assigned to the parish of San Miguel Acatán in the rugged, mountainous Cuchumantanes highlands of northwestern Guatemala, discovered a group of late sixteenth and early seventeenth century music manuscripts. While exploring amid the eaves of the village church roof, which was undergoing reconstruction, he came upon a box containing a number of bound volumes. All were still encased in their original deerskin bindings, and some even had the hair remaining on the hide. The bulk of the manuscripts consisted of copies of plainsong and liturgical polyphony from Spain and Europe, which to this date remain the oldest preserved examples brought to the New World. The earliest dated of these polyphonic codices were two volumes both copied and signed in 1582 by Francisco de León, who referred to himself as maestro of the village of Santa Eulalia. Two other codices bear the signature of another local chapel master, Tomás Pascual, a native Mayan who may have been a pupil of de León.
Pascual was active as maestro in San Juan Ixcoy between 1595 and 1635. On one of his manuscript folios he inserted a paragraph in Nahuatl, the lingua franca of the Aztec empire which was still in use during the Conquest century. He described the manuscript as "a collection of original coplas and villancicos completed January 20, 1600, for use at San Juan Ixcoy, where he was maestro de capilla." The majority of the pieces in this manuscript are villancicos which fill approximately two-thirds of the volume. The remaining third consists of Latin biblical texts in either fabordón (F. fauxbourdon) or contrapuntal settings, three pieces with Nahuatl texts, an instrumental dance piece, and several unidentified musical fragments.
According to Thomas Gage, an English Dominican friar who traveled in Guatemala during Pascual's lifetime, the maestro de capilla in native Guatemalan villages was called the fiscal. The fiscal was the priest's officer over the singers, trumpets, and ceremonial musicians. He was able to read and write, executed justice, and taught Christian doctrine to the children of the village. He directed the musicians at Mass, attended important visitors with music, and had more influence in the town than the mayors, jurats, and other officers of justice. He was also exempt from the service of the Spaniards. This kind of authority was inherited throughout the Mayan area from the pre-Conquest holpop, who was the principal musician of the village and a greatly venerated and respected man.
During the time Daniel Jensen spent at San Miguel Acatán, the local people continued to play their indigenous musical instruments at special church services and still remembered who Tomás Pascual was, referring to him by his Mayan name, Max Quin (pronounced mahsh keen).
Transcriptions by Christopher Moroney. Notes compiled and written by Christopher Moroney ]
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Jesu Christo Nuestro Dios
(f d, f d d,
Dm A Dm F
Jesu Christo nuestro dios, por nos tar contento y vita Jesus Christ our god, for our contentment and life
C Dm (A(7) Dm)
dasenos hoy en comita. Today to us in brotherhood
El ques pan te serafinas, divino y angelicar ali.
Se ta yal hombre morticino caritad, muy caritad.
Jesu. . .
Es divino sangramento, y comita suprinate,
y siento onpre mi prata con ello ser otra vita.
Jesu. . .
Jesu. . .
[Tomás Pascual a.k.a. Max Quin (fl. c. 1595 - 1635)]
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