The great 16th-Century black composer erased from history (BBC)
By Holly Williams
15th June 2022
The Western classical music canon is notoriously white and male – so you might assume that a black Renaissance composer would be a figure of significant interest, much-performed and studied. In fact, the story of the first known published black composer – Vicente Lusitano – is only now being heard, alongside a revival of interest in his long-neglected choral music.
Lusitano was born around 1520, in Portugal. In a 17th-Century source, he is described as "pardo" – a commonly used term in Portugal at the time meaning mixed race. It is most likely that Lusitano had a black African mother and a white Portuguese father; Portugal had a significant population of people of African descent, due to its involvement in the slave trade.
Comparatively little is known about Lusitano's life – a fact which has certainly not helped his historical legacy – although what we do know is dotted with juicily intriguing details. "There’s a lot of things you could say about how cool he is as a person, and how exceptional he is as a figure," promises composer, conductor and early music specialist Joseph McHardy, a recent Lusitano champion.
What we do know is that Lusitano became a Catholic priest, composer, and music theorist, and in 1551 left Portugal for Rome – a multicultural musical capital of Europe at the time – most likely following a rich patron, the Portuguese ambassador. Lusitano appears to have done very well for himself there, publishing a collection of motets: sacred, polyphonic choral compositions (where voices sing several layers of independent melodies simultaneously). Then, Lusitano became embroiled in a high-profile public debate around the rules of composition and the use and juxtapositions of different tuning systems or keys, with a rival composer, Nicola Vicentino. Consider it a Twitter spat of the Renaissance age – although with an official judging panel of eminent performers from the Sistine Chapel choir, no less.
In the final adjudication of their intellectual duel, Lusitano was unanimously judged the winner: an unlikely victory given that, as a foreign outsider, he was something of an underdog compared to the well-connected Vicentino. But, unwilling to let it go, Vicentino conducted a smear campaign against Lusitano, discrediting him and his ideas. In what would become a famous, printed 1555 treatise, Vicentino fabricated a misleading version of the debate so it looked like he had the better ideas, really – and it was this document that endured and this version that was later repeated in many textbooks.
***
more: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220615-the-lost-16th-century-black-composer-vicente-lusitano
Longish read, but worth it.
