San Francisco Classical Voice

That foundation could be said to have been laid by Hernando Franco, back in the 16th century. Franco, born in Spain, served briefly in Guatemala and became maestro de capilla of the Mexico City Cathedral in 1575. During his tenure there, musical composition and performance attained a high level of accomplishment. Franco's Salve Regina (Hail, Queen) was the most beautiful piece on the program — and the most beautifully sung — a marvel of five-part Renaissance choral writing. It was combined with a fine contribution from a solo quartet and some striking unison chanting in the chorus.

The compositions by Spaniard Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla demonstrated his mastery of both church music and popular music in the 17th century. His Deus in adiutorium (God, help me), a masterful double-choir work, was a good opening piece for the concert, displaying the impressive Carmel Festival singers and a continuo with distinctly Spanish sounds of plucked instruments. Two catchy villancicos featured soloists from the chorus, setting off coplas (verses) and estribillos (refrains). The first, a xácara (a Spanish dance), was a setting of numerous verses by an accomplished anonymous poet. The complex rhythms made extensive use of hemiolas (6/8 time morphing into 3/4) — a challenge that the three soloists were mostly up to.

Gutiérrez' xácara, a paean to Mary, puts an elaborate spin on the Nativity story. His other villancico, adding even more embroidery with its influence of African rhythms, was a negrilla, which tells the tale of black musicians getting ready to perform for the Holy Baby. The soloists had a lot of fun with words like bú (don't scare the baby) and mú (don't let your dancing get in the way of a bull).

There were several Mexican-born composers presented in the program. One, Juan Garc“a de Zéspedes, a Gutiérrez student who later succeeded him as maestro de capilla in the Pueblo Cathedral, composed the last villancico on the program, Convivando está la noche (Nighttime was an invitation). The program described the piece, called a guaracha, as a dance of African origin, later known in Afro-Cuban music as the guajira. The percussion/plucker continuo kept the seven-beat habanera rhythm going as the singers celebrated. A repeated "ay!" was sometimes sung and other times shouted. That was fun, although one aficionada of this music I spoke with felt that even the peasant touches seemed "restrained." (She thinks villancicos should really rock.)

The program was preceded by a processional, Hanacpachap cussicuinin (The bliss of Heaven), a four-part setting of a Quechuan poem from early 17th century Peru. The poem is addressed to the Mother-goddess Pachamama and, by association, to Mary, with the Christian Trinity also invoked. The chorus sang while processing up the aisle, accompanied by a drumbeat. At the end, a recessional took the singers and the drum back down the aisle, singing a lullaby to the Baby in Náhuatl. Xicochi (Sleep) was written by Gaspar Fernandez of Portugal, who served in Guatemala and Mexico, where he preceded Gutérriez as maestro de capilla of Pueblo in 1606. The printed program ended with a request: "The audience is respectfully asked to refrain from applause." As the last notes died away, the audience respectfully disregarded the request.