Abstract

VILAR-PAYA, Luisa. Music, Politics and Ceremony on the Day of the Consecration of the Puebla Cathedral. Hist. mex. [online]. 2021, vol.70, n.4, pp.1869-1915.  Epub May 04, 2021. ISSN 2448-6531.  https://doi.org/10.24201/hm.v70i4.4245.

The link between music and politics during the consecration of the Puebla Cathedral on April 18, 1649, has taken on new relevance given current debates on the role of this art in history when studied from two complementary angles. The first analyzes the careers of the primary protagonists and the roles they played in the plainsong ceremony that inaugurated the consecration rite, while the second examines those extraordinary and symbolic elements utilized in the process of musical composition, in this case of the mass Ego Flos Campi by Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla (1550­1664), the cathedral’s Kapellmeister. Through an emphasis on how sound articulates situations of ceremonial and political performativity - such as the words of a liturgical text - this analysis traces the connections between music, painting, the configuration of the cathedral chapter and political changes under King Philip IV. Fortunately, current musicology no longer argues that the greatest works should overcome the social and economic factors that surround them and artistic creation is considered to be a point of intersection between these and other, complementary parameters. All too often, however, musical composition is described as a result and not an agent. This article takes the perspective that both musical creation and execution can promote specific political content.

Keywords : Political Performativity; Puebla Cathedral; Juan de Palafox; Gutiérrez de Padilla; Cathedral Chapter.

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