Pastorelas and the pastoral tradition in 18th-century Spanish villancicos

Abstract

The villancico de pastorela is not a villancico-type very commonly found in the 18th century: the proportion of villancicos with distinct sections—such as recitados (recitatives) and arias, or seguidillas or tonadillas—is considerably larger. The limited number of pastoral villancicos has possibly resulted in these pieces being overlooked in the general literature on the genre. However, the number of villancicos de pastorela may be more extensive than the different catalogues would suggest: this villancico-type has not always been identified as such by scholars, and has sometimes been included with the villancicos de tonadilla. Furthermore, at present it is difficult for the researcher to locate villancicos de pastorela, because some titles make no mention of the pastorela section since many modern catalogues do not include every section of each villancico, and there may well be other circumstances that increase the neglect of pastorelas. One such would be the current Spanish tendency to study local repertories independently or in isolation: for example, if the two surviving villancicos de pastorela known to have been composed by Antonio Soler are not studied in a comparative way it would be impossible to ascertain their distinctive identifiable traits (if, indeed, there are any). And it would be even more difficult with a ‘corpus’ of only two pieces to speculate as to what a pastorela actually is. The result is that very few scholars discuss the pastorela at all. This chapter attempts to show that the study of the pastorela involves not only making connections and relationships between Spanish repertories, but also with other European genres. I will focus first on the definition of the term pastorela, then on its liturgical function, its gender implications, and, finally, on the relationship of these villancicos to the European pastoral tradition.

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