Black in the Baroque

RACISM IN THE
SPANISH VILLANCICO DE NEGRO
Tyrone Clinton, Jr.

Tyrone Clinton, Jr.

Founder and Director of The Unsung Collective Inc.
New York City, New York
theunsungcollective@gmail.com

34 CHORAL JOURNAL November 2020 Volume 61 Number 4

 A
s they are known today,
villancicos are synonymous
with Christmas carols that
are typically performed in the Span-
ish and Portuguese languages. They
are often a part of the global choral
Christmastide repertoire; familiar
tunes like “Ríu Ríu Chíu” fill perfor-
mance venues alongside other fes-
tive tunes. The villancico dates to the
fourteenth century, encompassing a
multitude of feast days in the Advent
season within the Catholic liturgical
calendar. By the Baroque Period,
the villancico had developed into one
of the most elaborately performed
musical genres on the Iberian Pen-
insula. Over time, the dissemination
of the villancico style led to villanci-
co subtypes, some of which are still
performed in Spain and its former
colonies in Latin America. Of those
subgenres, the villancico de negro was
uniquely designed to serve as a form
of comedic relief within the church
in Spain and its colonized regions,
and remains so in twenty-first-cen-
tury repertoire. Scholarship on the
villancico continues to grow; howev-
er, content discussing performance
of the villancico de negro in a contem-
porary setting is far more rare. Its
performance raises several critical
concerns.

CHORAL JOURNAL November 2020 Volume 61 Number 4 35

 Black in the Baroque
Philosophy on Race tices into the New World with Native American peoples.9
Given the racially charged background of the villanci- W.E.B. Du Bois introduced a new philosophy of race
co de negro, it is necessary to dissect the manifestation and theory in the late nineteenth century when he traveled
the evolution of race and racial constructs. Most are fa- to Berlin and challenged the theories of German schol-
miliar with the twentieth-century subdivisions of race ars who purported to base their constructs of race on
advocated by anthropologist and Harvard professor Car- science. Du Bois argued that there are “at least two, per-
leton S. Coon. He categorized people by physical char- haps three, great families of human beings—the whites
acteristics into the following (Blumenbach-influenced) and Negroes, possibly the yellow race,” expanding on
subsets based on region and phenotype: White Race/ their differences in his essay, “The Conservation of
Caucasoid, Negroid/Congoid, Mongoloid, Australoid, Race”:10
and Capoid.1 Borrowing heavily from Franz Weidenre-
ich, Coon’s theory supported scientific racism by using “What, then, is race? It is a vast family of hu-
science/empirical data to justify its claims.2 Fortunately, man beings, generally of common blood and
Coon’s theory was consistently challenged and was ulti- language, always of common history, traditions
mately proven to be pseudoscientific. and impulses, who are both voluntarily and in-
The justification of racial bias based on biological fac- voluntarily striving together for the accomplish-
tors existed before the twentieth century, as observed with ment of certain more or less vividly conceived
Louis Agassiz, Georges Cuvier, James Cowles Pritchard, ideals of life.”11
and Charles Pickering. These nineteenth-century an-
thropologists studied skin color, physical appearance, Du Bois viewed race as a social construct, rejecting
and cranial form, concluding there were racial differenc- the reduction of spiritual differences to biological dif-
es in intelligence and that negroes were designed to be ferences. In accordance with his philosophy, there are
inferior and destined to be enslaved.3 Contrary to these undeniable factors that define a given race of a people,
polygenesis theorists was Charles Darwin, who refuted which include a shared history, traditions, impulses, and
the idea of the human species having many ancestors.4 both voluntary and involuntary strivings.12 He refuted
Instead, Darwin was a monogenist, believing physical at- the faulty connection of race to biological factors such
tributes were the result of natural selection and survival.5 as blood, lineage, and physical attributes. Although theo-
These differing opinions are not just found in the recent ries of race based on white supremacist agendas live on,
past; monogenist views preceded Darwin in the eigh- the philosophy of race constructed by W.E.B. Du Bois is
teenth century in the writings of Immanuel Kant, David widely accepted today.
Hume, and the father of racial anthropology, Johann
Friedrich Blumenbach,6 while the seventeenth-century
philosopher Francois Bernier supported pseudoscientific Function of the Villancico
theories on race.7 Liturgically, Spanish churches initially used villancicos
The Iberian Peninsula was one of the first regions in as replacements for responsories in Matins and other
Europe where people articulated anti-Black attitudes. feast day services to offer relief through light-hearted
While capitalizing on the enslavement of Black Africans, themes. Composers began setting texts for large sets of
the Spanish and the Portuguese borrowed Arab-influ- villancicos, averaging eight per set (including a villancico de
enced concepts of slavery. Darker-skinned Africans were negro), concluding with a setting of the Te Deum.13 Some
supposedly physically and mentally better suited for me- chapel masters were required to supply between sixty
nial labor, and were therefore given harsher and more and seventy new villancicos per year.14
laborious tasks than lighter-skinned slaves.9 Through Maintaining its fanciful nature, the seventeenth-
this belief and their structural design of slavery, Iberian century villancico genre grew to incorporate figures of
Christians believed Black Africans were indeed inferior. politics, peasant life, and other ethnic groups.15 Villancicos
The Spanish and the Portuguese continued these prac- with ethnic characters began to accrue titles such as

36 CHORAL JOURNAL November 2020 Volume 61 Number 4

 RACISM IN THE SPANISH VILLANCICO DE NEGRO

gitanos, guineos, negrillos, and negros. These specific titles voice; or contrapuntal, with paired voices set in a low tes-
imply that the corresponding villancico portrayed African situra. Most villancicos were performed unaccompanied.
or indigenous characters, thus creating the subgenre Several seventeenth-century villancicos included continuo
the villancico de negro. These choral pieces explored a instruments, with some being composed for small cham-
multitude of topics and issues concerning race, ethnicity, ber ensemble. Examples of such scores can be found in
and gender representation as portrayed by Spaniards, the Cancionero de Palacio, which is currently located in the
the Spanish Church, and Latin Americans from the Biblioteca Nacional de España. Compiled in the 1470s, this
late sixteenth century through the subgenre’s early Iberian songbook originally contained 548 works, with
nineteenth-century decline. an additional eleven added in the following half-cen-
tury.16 The surviving manuscript was transcribed and
published in 1890 with the title “Cancionero musical de los
Music of the villancico de negro siglos XV y XVI” (Musical Songbook of the fifteenth and
The form of the sixteenth-century villancico is relative- sixteenth centuries) by Spanish musicologist Francisco
ly free but is consistent in having two components: the Asenjo Barbieri.17 The songbook has 458 surviving en-
estribillo and the copla. Most villancicos are in three or four tries; Juan Ponce’s Allá se me ponga el Sol (259) is a good
voice parts and are similar in style to other Renaissance example of the homophonic style (Figure 1).
genres: homophonic, with the text written in the upper The example also demonstrates prevalent rhythmic

CHORAL JOURNAL November 2020 Volume 61 Number 4 37

 Black in the Baroque
characteristics, described succinctly by Deborah Singer: Sardinians from the Turks. In Andrés de Claramonte’s
“There are syncopation, onomatopoeias and different El valiente negro de Flandés, Juan de Mérida is a Black man
rhythmic combinations that, on the one hand, seek to who serves under the Duke of Alba, becoming a leader
generate a lively sound and, on the other hand, project in the Dutch Wars as a general who was seen as part
the idea that Black men and women have a ‘natural in- of the nobility.24, 25 Although born slaves, they adopted
clination’ toward music and dances.”18 Christianity, spoke perfect Castilian Spanish, fought oth-
The seventeenth-century villancico took on styles rep- er European countries on behalf of Castile, and gener-
resented in other European countries, specifically Italy. ally became examples of noble sacrifice and conduct for
Seventeenth-century Italian music observed an empha- viceregal Spain. These Black characters’ lives came to
sis on melody and focused on solo performance, instru- resemble the lives of the Spaniards they served; indeed,
ments and instrumental forms, with a more established they became more white.
concept of tonality. Italian forms also built an emphasis
on chordal and tertian relationships.
Habla de negros in the
Villancico de negro
Development of Black Characters Habla de negros is a transcription by the slaveholding
in Spanish Literature class of the varieties of Spanish spoken by Africans kid-
The text of the villancico de negro, which depicts African napped into slavery. Like literary versions of slave dia-
slaves from the point of view of the slaveholding class, lect in the United States in the nineteenth and twenti-
has a background in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century eth centuries, these linguistic variations are transcribed
Iberian literature. into the language of the ruling class as a series of errors:
The African population in sixteenth-century Seville aphaeresis, phoneme modification by accent, and added
was 7.4 percent, notably higher than any other area of or shortened syllables are recorded on the page as mis-
Europe.19 With the rise of this population, Black charac- spellings, mispronunciations, and gender pronoun errors
ters and their commercialized place in society began ap- in a way that strikes the intended audience as lazy or
pearing in literature (like villancicos) and different forms comical.26 Habla de negros also incorporates manufactured
of theater. Though the earliest examples are found in words to imitate places and instruments born of Afri-
Portugal, Spain soon followed the trend.20 By the 1600s, ca eschewing authentic African music making. Europe-
Golden Era poets and playwrights, such as Lope de Vega an-derived percussion instruments were used to imitate
(1562-1635) and Miguel Cervantes (1547-1616), formed the sounds of African instruments, as the tambourine
negative stereotypes of Blacks in literature that would and the rebec were both referenced by Tomás and An-
become a mold or an archetype for later reference.21 ton as instruments of praise in the same villancico de ne-
Lope de Vega capitalized on Black characters in his gro by Padilla.27 Also, the use of the words “casú” and
plays, establishing them according to formulaic stereo- “cucumbé” have no African-derived significance in this
types: they were typically from Africa, they spoke a dia- context but are used in Gaspar Fernandes’ “Eso rigor e re-
lect known as habla de negros, and they worked in areas of pente,” as the characters dance to the Spanish Sarabanda.28
craftsmanship, textile manufacturing, manual labor, and Lastly, habla de negros encouraged misrepresenting the
farming.22 Evidence of such characters can be viewed in origin of African people. Africans’ homes were often re-
plays such as La madre de la mejor, La limpieza no manchada, ferred to as Guinea (a country) and Timbuktu (a city).
and El Santo negro Rosambuco de la ciudad de Palermo.23 While both of those places exist in Africa, and were ob-
In contrast, there are examples of Blacks portrayed viously known to Europeans in the sixteenth and sev-
as “good” characters who possess more complete per- enteenth centuries, many other African slave ports of
sonalities and character traits than those in the stereo- North and Central Africa were disregarded.29
typical satires. For example, in Lope de Vega’s El Negro
del mejor amo, a Black prince named Antiobo defends the

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 RACISM IN THE SPANISH VILLANCICO DE NEGRO

Stereotypes in the villancico de negro included masters of the dance, childlike

Villancico de negro figures lacking education, and beings that were less than
Analyzing the function and articulation of text as human but capable of overcoming their primitive state
observed in the habla de negros demonstrates the way Af- through Christianity and devotion to the Virgin Mary.
ricans were portrayed in Spanish literature from the fif- In this excerpt from Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla’s “Ah siolo
teenth through the nineteenth centuries. As previously Flasiquiyo,” the first of these stereotypes is apparent, as
mentioned, African characters played specific stereo- the two characters discuss a responsibility and devotion
typed roles in Spanish literature of this era, which in the to dance (Table 1).

Table 1. Excerpt from Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla’s Ah siolo Flasiquiyo. Translation by the author

Habla de negros Spanish English translation

“¡A siolo flasiquiyo!” Ah señor Francisco! Ah, Mr. Francisco!

“¿Qué manda siol Thome?” Que manda, señor Tomás? What’s up, Mr. Tomás?
“¿Tenemo tura trumenta Tenemos todos instrumentos Do we have all the instruments
templarita cum cunsielta?” templadito con concienca? tuned up together?
“Sí siolo ven poté Si, señor venga podré avisar Yes sir, I can
avisa bosa misé vuestra Merced que tell Your Grace
que sa lo molemo ya está el Moreno ya that the dark-skinned one is already
cayendo de pularrisa cayendo de pur risa falling about with laughter and
y muliendo pol baylá” y moriendo para bailar dying to start dancing.”
“llámalo llámalo aplisa llámalos llámalos aprisa “Call them out quickly,
que a veniro lo branco ya que a venirlo blanco ya for the white one has come now
y lo niño aspelandosa y el niño esperando and the resplendent Child is waiting,
y se aleglalá ha-ha ha-ha y se alegrará ha-ha ha-ha and he will rejoice, ha ha ha ha!,
con lo zambamba ha-ha ha- con la zambomba ha-ha ha- with the zambomba (drum), ha ha ha
ha… ha… ha!...
“Sí siñolo Thome Si señor Tomás Yes, Mr. Tomás,
repicamo lo rabe Repicamos el rabe we’ll strum the rebec
ya la panderetiyo Antón y ya a la pandereta Antón and Antón jingling the tambourine,
baylalemo lo neglo bailaremos los negros all we Black people will dance to
al son.” al son. their sounds.

CHORAL JOURNAL November 2020 Volume 61 Number 4 39

 Black in the Baroque
Note the obligation to bring joy through dancing “darkness” as mentioned by one of the two characters.
and the playing of instruments. Also note the juxtapo- The villancico also mentions being “left in the textile
sition of white and dark in this text: the “white one” is mills,” a place notorious for terrible working conditions
the character of importance, while the “dark-skinned for Africans in Mexico.31
one” is ready to serve the white person through move-
ment, as it makes everyone happy, including the “Black
people.” The responsibility highlighted is servitude African Origin in the
through dance and to make haste, as it is disrespectful Villancico de negro
to keep the white man waiting. Another feature of the subgenre is the use of Af-
It is not surprising that these villancicos, consistent rican-influenced words to further implement an idea
with the subgenre as a whole, affirm the idea of African of Africanness. As previously mentioned, often in the
people as inferior to Europeans. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, villancico de negro a reference to the African character’s
however, provides a far more rare example of a villanci- homeland is made, as in this example, Gaspar Fer-
co that highlights the actual servitude, work conditions, nandes’ Eso rigor e’ repente, referencing Timbuktu, Guin-
and laborious experiences endured by most Africans ea, and Sáo Tomé, as well as instruments and dances
in Spain and New Spain. In the following villancico, Sor meant to represent Africa (Table 3 on page 41).
Juana depicts emotions experienced by African charac- Notice the use of whiteness against blackness. The
ters that depart from the stereotypical happiness-in-ser- Black Guineans dance on Christmas Eve in celebration
vitude found in villancicos de negro and mentions a real of the baby boy (Jesus), who is white. The characters
workplace for slaves: textile mills (Table 2). mention, “Tonight we will be white,” signifying that be-
It was quite unusual for seventeenth-century (specifi- ing closer to Christ is akin to being closer to whiteness.
cally 1676) New Spain literature to depict the harsh re- This is consistent with the characters in the literature
ality of Black slaves as well as exploring “sadness” and of Lope de Vega and Miguel Cervantes. The use of the

Table 2. Excerpt from Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz villancico

Habla de negros Spanish English translation

Iguale yolale Iguale lloraré I will weep

Flacico, de pena Flacico, de pena Flacico, with sadness
Que nos deja ascula Que nos deja oscura As all us Blacks
A turo las Neglas A todas las negras Are left in the dark
… ... …
Déjame yolá Déjame llorar, Let me weep,
Flacico, pol Ella, Flacico, como ella Flacico, as She
Que se va, y nosotlo Que se va nosotros Is leaving, while we
La Oblaje nos déjà. Las obrajes nos déjà.. Are left in the textile mills30

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 RACISM IN THE SPANISH VILLANCICO DE NEGRO

words “zumba,” “casú,” and “cucumbé” have no true enslaved Africans. Notice how the composer Gaspar
significance. The characters move to a European-de- Fernandes juxtaposed two African regions against one
rived Sarabande (a stately dance form in triple meter), another, stating that the Africans from Angola are more
while saying “zumba, casú, and cucumbé” once danc- “ugly” than those from Guinea.
ing has commenced.32 Another common reference to an African birthplace
In addition to the pseudo-African texts, this villancico is Timbuktu, as observed in Padilla’s Ah siolo Flasiquiyo.
uses not one, but two proposed regional birthplaces of Here, Flasiquiyo (Francisco) and Tomás play instru-

Table 3. Excerpt from Gaspar Fernandes’ Eso rigor e’ repente. Translation by the author

Habla de negros Spanish English translation

Eso rigor e’ repente: Eso digo de repente: I say that suddenly:

juro a qui se niyo siquito, juro que ese niño chico, I swear that little boy,
aunque nace poco aunque nace un poco although he is born a little white,
branquito turu blanco, is our brother.
somo noso parente. de nosotros es hermano. We do not fear the great
No tememo branco grande… No tememos al gran blanco… white…
-Toca negriyo tamboriiyo Toca negrito el tamborcito Play the tambourine Black one
Canta, parente: Canta, hermano: Sing, brother:
“Sarabanda tenge que tenge, “Zarabanda baila que baila, “Zarabanda dances the dance,
sumbacasú cucumbé”. Zumba casú cucumbé”. Zumba casú cucumbé”.
Ese noche branco seremo, Esta noche blancos seremos, Tonight we will be white,
O Jesu que risa tenemo. Oh, Jesús, que risa tenemos… Oh, Jesus, what a laugh we have…
Vamo negro de Guinea… Vamos negros de Guinea Let's go Black ones from Guinea
No vamo negro de Angola, no vayan negros de Angola, do not go Black ones of Angola,

que sa turu negla fea. que son todos negros feos. They are all ugly Blacks.

Queremo que niño vea Queremos que el niño vea We want the child to see

negro pulizo y galano, negros pulidos y hermosos, polished and beautiful Blacks,

que como sa noso hermano, que, como es nuestro hermano, that, as he is our brother,

tenemo ya fantasia. tenemos un gran deseo. we have a great desire.

CHORAL JOURNAL November 2020 Volume 61 Number 4 41

 Black in the Baroque
ments as they welcome baby Jesus. They sing the word neglo de Guinea”), reinforcing the Euro-centric per-
“Tumbucutú” to remind them of home (Figure 2). spective of Africa as a monolithic land and not the eth-
In the second copla, the characters reference Guinea nically and culturally diverse continent that it really is
as the place where “All Blacks are/come from” (“Turu (Figure 3 on page 43).

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 RACISM IN THE SPANISH VILLANCICO DE NEGRO

Africans and African descendants were present on Black Character Roles

the Iberian Peninsula before sixteenth-century colonial- In addition to the habla de negros, villancicos de negro
ism began, brought there during the Moorish/North feature African people as emotionally limited charac-
African slave rule/slave trade in the Middle Ages.33 ters with specific, narrow roles in society. As previously
The Black African slave trade on the Iberian Peninsula observed, African characters are restricted to masters
was primarily dominated by Portuguese traders, who of dance, childlike figures with very limited education,
developed networks in regions of North Africa and the and laborers at the bottom of society who find solace
sub-Saharan regions that correspond to the modern through Christianity. These character roles can be seen
nation-states of Niger, Senegal, and Sudan.34 By the in many other forms of music literature (as observed
fifteenth century, Portugal expanded slave trade net- in opera, art songs, and minstrelsy), extending well be-
works farther south into West Africa, including areas yond the Spanish-speaking world, and reflecting the
that are roughly equivalent to the modern nation-states ubiquity of enslaved Black people.
of Mali, Guinea, and Nigeria. Again, the regions and In the United States, the portrayal of Black people
places stated in the songs were used to define an idea of through the twentieth century in vocal repertoire, the-
Africanness from a European perspective and, as men- atre, film, and other forms of media upheld analogous
tioned, Timbuktu and Guinea are often referenced as roles to that of the villancico de negro. Minstrelsy, which
home for all African villancico characters, indeed, as the began in the United States in the early 1800s (not long
origin of all African people. This falsely posits the idea after the decline of the villancico), included white peo-
that Africa is an ethnically and culturally homogenous ple in blackface acting as caricatures of Black people:
land, regardless of region. dim-witted and uneducated, almost always happy, and
very superstitious.35 Minstrelsy was typified by the fic-
tional character Jim Crow: a racist trope, based on a
physically disabled African slave who resided in the
South that was commercialized in 1832 by performer

CHORAL JOURNAL November 2020 Volume 61 Number 4 43

 Black in the Baroque
Thomas Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice.36 By the late nine- and minstrelsy was usually performed in taverns and
teenth century, state and local laws in the southern Unit- theatres, the two genres have more in common than not.
ed States that sanctioned racial segregation came to be Emotionally, both genres exhibited adults behaving like
known as Jim Crow laws.37 During minstrelsy’s heyday, children, with the characters presented as buffoonish.
Blacks were encouraged to take part in minstrel shows, Both promoted the idea that Black people are immature
and the genre is thought to have given Blacks a platform and lack the ability to develop emotions and language.
for legitimate entertainment performance in the early And, although the villancico de negro was not performed
twentieth century. in blackface, the theatrical elements and caricatures it
Knowing the villancico de negro has a history of liturgi- shares with blackface minstrelsy encourage racism (Pho-
cal use and was intended to be joyous, one would think, tos 1 and 2).
perhaps, that the subgenre would connect to other con- Today, minstrelsy remains a part of the choral rep-
temporary sacred choral genres. Instead, it is more rem- ertoire. Aaron Copland’s “Ching-A-Ring Chaw,” ar-
iniscent of the secular genre of minstrelsy. While the ranged for both solo voice and chorus and published in
villancico de negro was most often performed in churches, 1952 as a part of his Old American Songs, is a prime
example.38 This song can be heard on many contem-
porary recordings and in a plethora of concert venues
performed by college and professional choirs throughout
the United States. In fact, performance of this music is a
practice valorized by many educational institutions with-
in the United States, which choose to see the art first and
its historically racist context as secondary.39

Photo 1. The Adoration of the King, Spain 1612 Photo 2. The character Jim Crow introduced by
by Juan Batista Maíno Thomas Dartmouth Rice in the 1830s.

44 CHORAL JOURNAL November 2020 Volume 61 Number 4

 RACISM IN THE SPANISH VILLANCICO DE NEGRO
Challenges of Performance performed. Notes allow audiences to become familiar
There are clear challenges and justifiable reservations with performers, access anecdotal information about
when performing the villancicos de negro in a contempo- historical data, and preview salient features of the music.
rary environment in which the concepts of race, class, The absence of such information can leave audiences
and gender have advanced beyond what they were in blind to the context in which the works were created,
the Baroque Period. Yet, villancicos de negro have been per- as well as the composer’s or performer’s intent. While
formed in the United States and, on a much larger scale, notes can supply an audience with the tools necessary
are currently performed in Spanish-speaking countries to help them understand historical material, their effec-
during Advent season. tiveness is called into question in regard to villancicos de
There is a continuing tradition of singing villancicos negro, where notes would need to explain or even justify
during the Christmas season in Spain and Latin Amer- Black characters and caricatures, in the same way that
ica, where the genre is not necessarily seen as offensive, notes have attempted to explain blackface in minstrel-
but instead is viewed as an old and venerated tradition. sy. A “Historically Informed Performance” (HIP) of the
In the Spanish-speaking world, attitudes regarding race genre would call for white people to perform the char-
have developed differently from those of the United acters of the villancico de negro. Casting a Black person is
States. The words negro(a), negrito(a), moreno(a), morenito(a) equally as problematic.
are modern Spanish terms used to refer to the darker Though, blackface was not a part of the performance
pigmentation of someone’s skin, though often without a of villancicos de negro, it has been employed for centuries
pejorative tone. For instance, calling someone “the dark/ in vocal music of the Western canon that calls for dark-
Black one” in Spanish-speaking countries is often used er pigmented characters.45 In both Verdi’s and Rossini’s
as a term of endearment and not necessarily negative, operas based on Shakespeare’s Otello, the title character
nor an indication of race40 While the terms may have is traditionally placed in blackface (Photo 3). As recently
other connotations, their use in music, literature, and ev- as 2012, The Metropolitan Opera Verdi’s Otello featured
eryday speech make them familiar, not the equivalent a tenor in blackface; in 2015 it discontinued this prac-
of calling someone “the Black/dark one” in the United tice.46 While this is a step forward for The Met, other
States, where the terms nigger, nig’ra, negroid, mulatto, sambo,
and darky, are clearly slurs or pejoratives.41 These words
reflect a brutal history that is connected exclusively to
Black people and Black culture in a manner that is root-
ed in white supremacy.
It is important to note that some of the most celebrat-
ed pieces of vocal music in the Western Canon exoticize
non-Western cultures through the composer’s perspec-
tive. For example, Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, Turandot,
and Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado all exoticize Asian
cultures. Over time, artists of the Western world have
developed methods to perform caricaturizing literature
of previous time periods. Modernization has become
a tool to reinvent plotlines, staging, and landscapes to
become stories of the present, as seen in the Metropoli-
tan Opera’s 2020 production of Handel’s Agrippina, and
Opera Philadelphia’s 2015 production of Verdi’s La Tra-
viata.42, 43, 44
Program notes can help educate an audience and give Photo 3. Tenor Placido Domingo performing the title role in black-
pertinent contextual information of the literature being face in the Metropolitan Opera’s 1994 production of Otello.

CHORAL JOURNAL November 2020 Volume 61 Number 4 45

 Black in the Baroque
notable opera companies around the world have yet to music of the villancico de negro, supposedly reflecting
establish the same practice. Black culture, is European by design, imitating sounds
Despite cultural differences between the United of Africa through the lens of slaveholders.
States and Spain and its colonized regions, access to Villacincos de negro promote racism in a way that is re-
explanatory and contextualizing program notes, and flective of other racist art forms in the Global North, as
evolving casting decisions, providing the villancico de observed in minstrelsy, American art songs, and opera;
negro performance platforms presents challenges that performance of the genre ignores and repudiates the
cannot be adequately addressed through these avenues. brutal past of white supremacy. Despite Savall’s ratio-
nalization, the time has come to recognize the protract-
ed damaging effects of such art. This musical history
Conclusion exists on paper for historical reference; it has no place
There are a number of highly regarded early-music in song.
specialists who perform villancicos de negro in concert to-
day, including Teresa Paz with Ars Longa Cuba, Eloy
Cruz and Tembembe Ensamble Continuo in Mexico, NOTES
and, perhaps the most prominent, Jordi Savall with
1
Hespèrion XX/XXI in Spain. Each offers a well-craft- Carleton S. Coon, The Races of Europe (The MacMillan
ed justification for offering these works in concert set- Company, 1939).
2
tings, as Savall does here: https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/
encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/
“That the advantage of being aware of the scientific-racism-history
3
past enables us to be more responsible and John David Smith and Randall M. Miller, Dictionary of Afro-
therefore morally obliges us to take a stand American Slavery (United Kingdom: Praeger, 1997), 31.
4
against these inhuman practices. The music Adrian Desmond, James Moore, and Janet Browne,
in this programme represents the true living “Darwin, Charles Robert (1809–1882), naturalist,
history of that long and painful past…We also geologist, and originator of the theor y of
want to draw attention to the fact that, at the natural selection,” Oxford Dictionary of National
beginning of the third millennium, this trag- Biography. (Sep. 2004), Accessed 28 July 2020,
edy is still ongoing for more than 30 million https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/
human beings…We need to speak out in indig- ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-
nation and say that humanity is not doing what 9780198614128-e-7176.
5
it should to put an end to slavery and other Ibid.
related forms of exploitation.”47 6
Michael James and Adam Burgos, “Race” in The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2020 Edition),
For centuries, the villancico de negro’s comedic content https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/
has mocked Black people largely through the use of race/.
7
caricatures, habla de negros, and a false representation Ibid.
8
of African culture. The caricatures dehumanize Black George M. Frederickson, Racism: A Short History (Princeton
people as a group who are content being enslaved, University Press, 2002), 29.
9
portrayed through habla de negros as dull-witted Black Michael James, “Race.”
10
characters whose falsely stereotyped faults are comical. Robert Gooding-Williams, “W.E.B. Du Bois,” The Stanford
In addition to these textual issues, the music of the vil- Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2020), https://plato.
lancico de negro takes on forms of other European genres stanford.edu/archives/spr2020/entries/dubois/.
11
of the time (madrigal, chanson, cantata), further en- W.E.B. Du Bois, The Conservation of Races (Czechia: Good
dorsing a false idea of African music and culture. The Press, 2020).

46 CHORAL JOURNAL November 2020 Volume 61 Number 4

 RACISM IN THE SPANISH VILLANCICO DE NEGRO

12
Robert Gooding-Williams, “W.E.B. Du Bois.” de Córdoba for the first several years of his life. Sessa
13
Isabel Pope, Paul R. Laird, “Villancico,” in Grove Music adopted Christianity and learned to read literature
Online: Oxford Music Online, accessed November from the books of Córdoba’s son, eventually becoming
27, 2017, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.turing. the son’s tutor. The honorary last name “Latino”
library.northwestern.edu/subscriber/article/grove/ acknowledged his exceptional scholarship in Latin. He
music/29375. graduated with honors in 1557 from the University of
14
Paul Laird, “The Dissemination of the Spanish Baroque Granada, where he then assumed a professorship.
26
Villancico,” Revista De Musicología 16, no. 5 (1993): 2. Drew Davies, 7.
27
15
Tess Knighton, Alvaro Torrente, ed., Devotional Music in the Juan Gutierrez de Padilla, Aurelio Tello rev., “Tres
Iberian World, 1450-1800: The Villancico and Related Genres Cuadernos de Navidad: 1653, 1655, 1657,” http://
(New York: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2007), 407. www3.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Tres_Cuadernos_de_
16
Francisco A. Barbieri, “Summary,” in Cancionero Musical Navidad:_1653,_1655,_1657_(Juan_Gutierrez_de_
de Palacio: Biblioteca Digital Hispánica, Biblioteca Padilla).
28
Nacional de España, accessed Nov. 20, 2018, http:// The word “cucumbé” has no relevance to the South
bdh.bne.es/bnesearch/Search.do. American “cumbe” dance in this context.
29
17
Francisco A. Barbieri, “Summary.” The pseudo idea of habla de negros is in no way congruent
18
Deborah Singer, “Inclusion Politics/Subalternization to the texts of African American spirituals. Habla de
Practices: The Construction of Ethnicity in Villancicos negros was composed by white people in Spain to mock
de Negros of the Cathedral of Santiago de Guatamala Black slaves. The texts of spirituals are born of rich oral
(16th-18th Centuries),” Revista de Historia, 80 (2019), traditions of enslaved Black people in the United States,
https://www.revistas.una.ac.cr/index.php/historia/ and designed to preserve Black culture and religion.
30
article/view/13113/18215. Tess Knighton, et al., ed., Devotional Music in the Iberian
19
K. Meira Goldberg, Walter Aaron Clark, and Antoni Pizà, World, 404.
31
Transatlantic Malagueñas and Zapateados in Music, Song Ibid., 404.
32
and Dance: Spaniards, Natives, Africans, Roma (Cambridge Drew Davies, 7.
33
Scholars Publishing, 2019), 9. Geoff Baker, “Latin American Baroque,” 444.
34
20
Isabel Pope, Paul R. Laird, “Villancico.” Carl Skutsch, Encyclopedia of the World’s Minorities (United
21
At the time Lope de Vega and Cervantes were born, Spain Kingdom: Routledge, 2013), 32.
35
had a large population of Moriscos, forcibly converted John Kenrick, “A History of the Musical: Minstrel Shows,”
from Islam following the fall of Granada. Starting in the Musicals 101, Musicals101.com/minstrel.htm.
36
sixteenth century, many of these were exiled to Africa, Bruce Bartlett, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried
their (partial) ancestral homeland of eight centuries Past (New York: Palgrave Macmillan Publishings, 2008),
earlier. 24.
37
22
Frida Weber de Kurlat, “El Tipo del Negro en el Teatro Bruce Bartlett, Wrong on Race, 24.
38
de Lope de Vega: tradición y creación,” Nueva Revista de Boosey & Hawkes, “Ching-A-Ring-Chaw SATB & Piano,”
Filología Hispánica, 19, no. 2 (1970): 343-46. Boosey & Hawkes. 2020, https://www.boosey.com/
23
Frida Weber de Kurlat, “El Tipo del Negro,” 343-46. shop/prod/Copland-Aaron-Ching-A-Ring-Chaw-
24
Andrew Sobiesuo, “Images of Blacks and Africa in SATB-piano/644578.
39
Spanish Literature,” Journal of Dagaare Studies 2, Harris Crenshaw, et.al., Seeing Race Again: Countering
(2002), http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/ Colorblindness Across The Disciplines (University of
download?doi=10.1.1.520.5856&rep=rep1& type=pdf. California Press, 2019), 160.
40
25
These fictional characters are all inspired by the real life of John Betancur, Cedric Herring. Reinventing Race, Reinventing
Juan Latino (1518-1596), a Black professor in sixteenth- Racism (BRILL, 2012), 55.
41
century Granada, Spain. Juan Latino was born Juan de Kobi K. Kambon, African/Black psychology, 184.
42
Sessa and served as a slave to Spanish warrior Gonzalo The Metropolitan Opera, Agrippina, Accessed May 5,

CHORAL JOURNAL November 2020 Volume 61 Number 4 47

 Black in the Baroque
45
2020, https://www.metopera.org/user-information/ Eric Lott, Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American
new-production-videos/2019-20-season-new-production- Working Class (Oxford University Press, 2013), 116.
46
videos/. Aria Umezawa, “Met’s Otello casting begs the question:
43
Grace Mairano, “Classic Opera Reborn with Modern Is Whitewash Better than Blackface?” The Globe and
Viewpoints,” The Temple News, September 29, 2015, Mail. August 7, 2015, https://www.theglobeandmail.
https://temple-news.com/classic-opera-reborn-with- com/opinion/mets-otello-casting-begs-the-question-is-
modern-viewpoints/. whitewash-better-than-blackface/article25879634/.
44 47
The Metropolitan Opera’s 2020 production of Handel’s Jordi Savall, trans. by Jacqueline Minett, “Les Routes De
Agrippina directed by David McVicar places the ancient L’Esclavage,” https://www.alia-vox.com/en/catalogue/
Roman story in an eighteenth-century setting. Opera les-rutes-de-lesclavatge/.
Philadelphia’s 2015 production of La Traviata directed by
Paul Curran.

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