THE HUEHUETENANGO SONGBOOK
Music from 16th-century Guatemala

Primer Libro
1 Virgen Madre de Dios 1:33
2 Introito: ‘Salve Sancta Parens’ 1:18
3 Kyrie eleison 2:41
4 Pleni sunt [from the‘Misa sine nomine’] 1:47
5 Antiphona ad Magnificat: ‘Gloriose Virginis’ 1:07
6 Magnificat 8 toni 6:47
7 Benedicamus Domino 1:24
Deo Gratias

Segundo Libro
8 Paratum cor meum [Claudin de Sermisy ‘Le content est riche’] 2:01
9 Pater Noster 3:55
10 Hic solus [dolores nostros] 3:23
11 Agnus Dei [Cristóbal de Morales from ‘Missa La Caça’] 1:16
12 O bone Jesu [Juan de Anchieta] 2:33
13 Cananea [Pedro de Escobar: ‘Clamabat autem mulier cananea’] 4:03

Tercer Libro
14 Salamanca [Pierre Moulu (?) ‘Amy souffrez’] 1:27
15 Edmini [Sebastiano Festa ‘Amor che mi tormenti’] 2:26
17 Mulier quit ploras [Juan Vasquez ‘Puse mis amores en Fernandino’] 1:37
18 Romance [‘De Antequera sale el moro’] 3:01
19 Dame acojida en tu hato 2:11

About this album

In three remote mountain villages that were once not even accessible by road, a collection of 18 small-format choir books has been preserved, which have been treasured by the communities for centuries. Today, these valuable books are kept in American university libraries and bear the name of the department from which they originate: The Huehuetenango Manuscripts.

The collection shows how music was integrated into the daily and spiritual life of these indigenous communities and became a symbol of resistance and forced adaptation to Catholicism and other external influences. It contains copies of numerous European pieces, but these European forms passed through the minds, hands and voices of the indigenous people and were transformed into original creations.

The tenor Jonatan Alvarado and the vihuelist Ariel Abramovich leaf through the folios of the Huehuetenango singing manual and have selected mass movements, motets, chansons and villancicos from the more than 350 works written down between 1582 and 1635. This selection provides an insight into the intercontinental exchange of music between Europe and the missions in Mesoamerica on the eve of the Baroque.