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Program Notes La Nochebuena… “the Good Night” in the Spanish-­‐speaking world. Not just any good night, La Nochebuena refers specifically to Christmas Eve, the most important Christmas celebration for Christians from Madrid in Old Spain to Peru in Nueva España. Alternatively known as Noche Buena, La Cena de Nochebuena or Navidad, La Nochebuena encompasses the traditional celebrations around the Christmas season and the Christian story that grounds, infuses and informs those celebrations. For centuries, Western Christianity has followed the Jewish tradition of ordering the day from sundown to sundown in its liturgical practice, based on the creation account in the Old Testament book of Genesis: “And there was evening, and there was morning – the first day.” Thus, Christmas Day commemoration has long been inaugurated on the eve of the day before. Germany celebrates its Heilige Nacht, English-­‐speaking countries sing of the “Silent Night, Holy Night” and the Spanish tradition observes La Nochebuena, each in its own way. The Spanish “Good Night” served as an occasion for great feasting and celebrating that would last well into the early morning. The cornerstone of the evening has traditionally been midnight mass, based on the account of the birth of the Christ child occurring at night. Latin American families today sometimes ring in Nochebuena festivities after late-­‐night Misa de Gallo (“Mass of the Rooster,” arising from an old tale about a rooster that crowed to herald the birth). After evening mass the celebrations begin, with families gathering to enjoy the most sumptuous of the Christmas meals. Nochebuena dinner often features roast pork, or lechón in Spanish, perhaps influenced by 15th century accounts of Spanish colonists in the New World hunting down wild pigs and roasting them whole as the family gathered for Christmas Eve festivities. It would be tempting to continue on this delectable path, discussing the various mouth-­‐watering dishes enjoyed on La Nochebuena in the Renaissance and today, but our concert this evening must focus rather on the liturgical event that launched the night’s celebrations, the midnight mass. The great 8-­‐voice Missa Alma Redemptoris mater (“Mass of the Nourishing Mother of the Redeemer”), composed by Tomás Luis de Victoria, serves as the centerpiece -­‐ the roast pig, as it were, of our musical feast. Side dishes of canciones, villancicos, fabordones and dance accompany the aural menu of this occasion, a custom that has perdured in Spanish liturgical practice for centuries. Though we follow no specific liturgical sequence in this program, the five ordinaries of the mass -­‐ the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei -­‐ provide a functional order that is embellished throughout with extra-­‐liturgical music of the season, both sacred and secular. Spanish Christianity has long placed great emphasis on the character of mother Mary. She stands at the forefront of Spanish piety and adoration, and has received more than her share of attention from composers of the Iberian Peninsula, especially in the medieval and renaissance periods. It seems fitting that our mass of the evening be dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, as her liturgical title goes, and that our concert begin with focus on the Advent events of the annunciation to Mary that preface and culminate in La Nochebuena. Fitting too that tonight’s featured composer be Tomás Luis de Victoria. Piffaro, now in its 32nd season of this its local concert series, has seldom ventured into Victoria territory, preferring his contemporary, Francisco Guerrero, and that composer’s teacher, Christóbal de Morales, often called the Father of Spanish Music in the Renaissance. Nevertheless, Victoria justly deserves his due and thus takes pride of place in this program and more attention in these notes. Born in Avila in 1548 into a large family -­‐ he was the 7th of 11 children! – Victoria received his initial musical education at the Avila cathedral as a choirboy. When his voice broke, he was sent to Rome to continue his studies at the Jesuit College, Germanico, in Rome. There he mastered Latin and excelled in composition and at the organ, eventually taking priestly orders in 1577. His sojourn in Rome, working at various churches and chapels as maestro di capella and teaching the choir boys, lasted until 1583, when he requested of King Philip II that he return to Spain and lead the quiet life of a priest. Permission granted, he was assigned the position of chaplain to the King’s sister, the Dowager Empress Maria, daughter of Charles V and wife of Maximilian II, at her chapel in Madrid. He served in that position happily and profitably until his death in 1611. Victoria wrote exclusively for the church, preferring to set Latin texts for the church’s extensive liturgical practice. His music has long been lauded for its poignancy and mystical fervor, especially in his Officium defunctorum (“Office of the Dead”) written at the death of Empress Maria, and in his music for Holy Week. However, even in his own day his reputation rested on other sentiments. King João IV of Portugal expressed this opinion convincingly: “although there is much in his [Victoria’s] Holy Week volume (1585) that exactly suits the text, nonetheless his disposition being naturally sunny he never stays downcast for long.” In other words, Victoria leaned more to the joyful than to the mournful. This can be heard in the bright timbres and transcendent expressions in his Magnificat octavi toni, the bold and uplifting turns in his motet, Gaude Maria Virgo, and in the exuberance and grand scale of the Missa Alma Redemptoris mater. Even his O magnum mysterium, one of the most contemplative and awe-­‐inspiring of the Christmas texts, displays a lilting triple-­‐meter ‘alleluja’ section, preferring to dance a little than be bound in weighty reflection. King João IV provides us with another crucial bit of information regarding Victoria, which is not always taken into account among modern day scholars. From his writings, we learn that Victoria himself endorsed a liberal use of instruments in the performance of his music, much as Francisco Guerrero did in his position at the cathedral in Seville. In light of this evidence, we rather suspect that Victoria would smile on our performance of his works on this program with but one -­‐ at most two -­‐ voices, the remainder of the parts played on instruments: recorders, shawms, cornetti, sackbuts, dulcians, vihuelas and harps, which we know were prevalent among cathedral wind bands and used in liturgical settings throughout the regions of Spain and Portugal, both Old World and New. Whereas Victoria wrote exclusively on Latin texts for the liturgical needs of the church, Guerrero ranged more broadly. He produced compelling works on Latin texts for mass, motet and hymn (cf. the Ave Maria á 8 and the Christe Redemptor Omnium, a hymn assigned to Christmas Day) while at the same time creating exuberant canciones and villancicos in the Spanish vernacular, also for liturgical use in this season of the church year. His Pastores, si non queries and Vamos al portal were enjoyed both during the mass itself and in the following Nochebuena revelries. Villancicos, or “songs of the people,” drew on the habits of daily life and are marked by vibrant rhythms and earthy texts. The anonymous pieces drawn from the Cancionero de Uppsala (i.e. Dadme albricias, Verbum caro, Gozate Virgen sagrada & Al niño Dios la Virgen), a collection which contains a section of no fewer than twelve pieces grouped under the title “Vilancicos de Navidad,” are the kind of Nochebuena pieces that might have served the same function that our traditional carols and popular hymns do for us today. Works that imply or specifically intend instrumental performance embellish the vocal selections of this program, whether preserved in the published works of the blind organist Antonio de Cabezón (Fabordones del cuarto tono), the harp and guitar manual by the Spanish harpist and composer Lucas Ruiz de Ribayaz (Pabanas) or collections such as the Concertado á 3 by the little known Dom Teotónio da Cruz. Most of these pieces served the liturgical demands of the Roman Church, the productions of the Spanish theater or courtly engagements. The concluding piece of this program, Serenissima una noche, is the only surviving work by the obscure priest Gerónimo Gonçález and serves as a final nod to Victoria’s documented “sunny” disposition. “A most serene night” acknowledges in its first section the stillness of the manger scene (the birth of the Son) while its second section invokes all revelers to continue to dance in the rising Sun, a long “good night” of worship, song, wining, dining and dancing…La Nochebuena!