SACRED MUSIC
                    Volume 117, Number 4, Winter 1990


                     MEXICO CITY III AND VATICAN II

Four hundred years ago in 1585, the bishops of Mexico celebrated the third 
provincial council of Mexico City. The church in Mexico was very young 
then. In 1521, Cortez conquered Mexico, and by 1530 Spanish colonization 
had reached such a pace that the Diocese of Mexico City was erected. The 
young Mexican church grew rapidly and in 1546 the Diocese of Mexico was 
detached from the Province of Seville, Spain, and erected into an 
independent ecclesiastical province with suffragan sees.

These institutional developments mark off the rapid maturation of the 
Church in that mission land. But one could also chart the progress of that 
church by reference to the decrees on sacred music pronounced at the third 
provincial council of Mexico City. These decrees suggest a state of church 
music very highly developed indeed. In 1523, Frey Pedro de Gante arrived in 
Mexico as the first teacher of western music. He established a school in 
which to teach the Axtecs plainchant and polyphony. The progress of Mexican 
music was such that the council's music decrees sixty years later marked 
the commencement of a golden age of church music which astonishes even 
today. Guided by this wise canonical legislation, the Church in Mexico 
enjoyed a century of musical excellence. Moreover, the 1585 legislation of 
Mexico City III council bears interesting comparison with that of the 
Vatican II council.

Music is integral to the solemn liturgy and the Mexican legislation was 
calculated to produce excellence in both. No one was to be admitted to the 
ranks of the clergy unless he possessed the rudiments of plainchant, which 
in Mexico meant Mozarabic, not Gregorian, chant. Clerics, furthermore, were 
not to be promoted to major orders (i.e., ordained subdeacon) unless they 
had become skilled in plainchant. Moreover, the Mexican Church was by law 
dedicated to the cultivation of the treasury of sacred music. Sacred 
polyphony was not only permitted, but it was to be fostered. For Easter, 
particular law required its use. Chapelmasters who taught polyphony were 
forbidden to teach at the same hour that the succentor (the sub-chanter or 
precentor's assistant) was teaching plainchant. At lauds or morning prayer 
the verses of the "Benedictus" were to be sung, as in Spain, alternately in 
polyphony and plainchant. Thus, polyphony and plainchant were regarded not 
only as distinct but as complementary musical forms suited to the temple, 
and legal provisions were made for both. Moreover, to ensure that the 
treasury of sacred music was cultivated, chapelmasters who excelled in 
composition as well as performance were forbidden to restrict their choirs 
merely to their own compositions.

This legislation sounds excellent, but was it put into effect? History 
says it was. The literary evidence sings the praises of the church music of 
baroque Mexico. In 1568, the inspector of the Council of the Indies, the 
board that governed the colonial empire of Spain, reported that even the 
merest hamlet with a resident clergyman had two choirs of fifteen members 
each which in alternate weeks sang Mass and vespers daily. Churches in 
larger centers had quite magnificent musical establishments. When the 
Cathedral of Puebla was consecrated in 1649, there was a fortnight of 
sacred music to mark the event. It was attended by some 1200 clergy from as 
far away as Manila. The music rivaled, as it was intended to do, the 
brilliant music composed by Orazio Benevoli for the consecration of the 
Salzburg cathedral in 1628. During his forty years as chapelmaster of the 
Puebla cathedral, Juan Gurierrez de Padilla saw to it that polyphony was 
performed every Sunday at Mass. In 1589, the library of the Mexico City 
cathedral included the musical works of Palestrina, Victoria, Morales, 
Guerrero and Orlando di Lasso, indicating that the treasury of sacred music 
was indeed cultivated there and not only the new music of the chapelmaster 
was performed.

Looking to the bottom line, the Mexican Church fortified its legislation 
with appropriations. The annual musical budget of the Puebla 
cathedral was 14,000 pesos, enough to support in solid, middle-class 
comfort about thirty families. The music budget of the Mexico City 
cathedral was 5,000 pesos. With such robust support for music, the Church 
in Mexico not surprisingly attracted first-rate musical talent. Several 
observers attest that Mexican church music was on a par with that of 
European cathedrals. A vast quantity of church music was composed in Mexico 
and some of this has recently been rescued from manuscript archives, 
published, and pronounced splendid. But the dedication to church music was 
no mere urban fancy.

Even northwestern frontier mining towns in Sinaloa and Sinora had good 
music. In 1715, the bishop of Durango visited the remote Jesuit mission of 
San Francisco de Satebo on the feast of Saint Ignatius. He was astonished 
and delight to discover that its Indian choristers could render a 
polyphonic pontifical solemn high Mass with aplomb to the accompaniment of 
bassoon, viola, clarinet, harp and organ. Many similar stories could be 
added but enough has been said to show that the music legislation of the 
third provincial council of Mexico City was in fact put into effect. It 
remains but to show its similarities with the legislation of Vatican II.

Like the Mexico City Council, the Vatican Council had high praises for 
sacred music. It declared in its constitution on the liturgy, "Sacrosanctum 
concilium," that music is "necessary or integral" to the solemn liturgy and 
added that liturgy has "a more noble form" when celebrated solemnly with 
song (art. 112-113). It declared that church musicians exercise a genuine 
liturgical role (art. 29). Thus, it ordered that the treasure of sacred 
music be cultivated and preserved with superlative care (art. 114) and that 
choirs be assiduously developed, especially in major churches like 
cathedrals, basilicas, and monastic churches. Gregorian chant was to be 
given pride of place and sacred polyphony was by no means to be disdained 
(art. 116). The clergy, too, were to be trained in music, for seminaries 
and houses of formation were ordered to give "great importance to the 
teaching of church music." Looking to the bottom line, the council 
elsewhere in "Gaudium et spes," (art. 67), spoke of the need to pay a just 
wage to those employed so as to provide a dignified livelihood. That would 
have included adequate compensation for church musicians.

One is struck by the parallels between the music legislation of Mexico 
City III and Vatican II. The 1585 Mexican legislation shepherded in a 
golden age in church music. It expressed in legal language the dedication 
of a Church--the clergy and laity alike--to the cultivation of good sacred 
music. That the Mexican decrees were so strikingly successful gives one 
hope that the similar Vatican II decrees will some day bear fruit.

							DUANE L.C.M. GALLES