Programs — Música Ficta

Program No. 1

Cuando Muere el Sol

Musical poetry in the works of Sebastián Durón

The fact that Sebastián Durón died in exile and obscurity, criticized after his death as the Spanish composer "who opened the doors to Italianate influences", is but one example of the controversy that can arise whenever new elements are introduced into traditional musical forms. The fact that Durón's music transcended the borders of Spain and is also found in the American archives of Bogotá, Sucre (Bolivia), Cuzco, Guatemala and Mexico, attests to the international reach it had in its time. Cuando muere el sol is an exquisite and melancholic tono divino of which copies exist in Latin American archives, including the archive of the Cathedral of Bogotá. Combining wonderful poetic imagery, a refined compositional technique, and the best of the Spanish popular music tradition, the tonos humanos, the theatre music and the sacred pieces of Durón see today, after three centuries, a new light... when the sun dies.

Program No. 2

Esa Noche Yo Bailá

Feast and devotion in 17th-century Peru

Prayers that rise to the sky while dancing: prayers in a context that, nowadays, would be unimaginable. The syncretism of pagan ceremonies into the Catholic ritual resulted from the attempt to bridge the gap, at least musically, between violently clashing cultures. The villancico, as a religious musical genre full of secular elements in 17th-century viceroyal Latin America, is the focus of this concert program. All its expressive variations are explored, allowing us to feel the proximity of the street to the church, the sound of percussion knocking at the doors of "paradise".