The repertory of the Spanish cathedral bands

Abstract

We may begin where I left off in an article published in Early Music in 2003: the place is León Cathedral and the date is August 1548, and the cathedral chapter has prepared an outline of the duties of the loud band (founded four years before) and the other musicians for the entire church year.1 It is a complex and richly specific document, something over 2,500 words long, organized as a kind of calendar that divides the year broadly into greater and lesser feasts (which I called schedules A and B), specifying the various musicians’ roles in each, and adding and subtracting from there to fashion an elaborate matrix of solemnity and musical practice. The key paragraphs are as follows: En las fiestas susodichas, antes que se enpiecen las primeras vispras an de tañer un motete; despues alternar con el organo y cantores en el primero y postrer psalmo; yten tañeran el primer verso y postrero del himno, y lo mismo de la magnificat; y el deo graçias. En la proçesion an de tañer a la salidoa del choro, en los tres angulos de la claustra y delante nuestra señora del dado, asi mismo al entrar la proçesion en el choro. En la misa tañan el primero y postrero chirie; a la ofrenda; y al alçenar; y al deo graçias. En las segundas vispras se tenga la orden que en las primeras salvo el alternar de los psalmos. In the aforementioned feasts, before First Vespers begins, they have to play a motet; afterwards to alternate with the organ and singers in the first and last psalm; item, they play the first and last verse of the hymn, and the same of the Magnificat; and the Deo gratias. In the procession, they have to play at the exit to the choir, in the three corners of the cloister, and in front of Nuestra Señora del Dado [a door between the cathedral and the cloister]; and likewise as the procession enters the choir. In the Mass they play the first and last Kyrie; at the offertory; at the elevation of the Host [called elsewhere a motete]; and at the Deo gratias. In the Second Vespers, the same order is followed as in the first, except the alternation of the psalms.2

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