SIXTEENTH CENTURY REPORTS BY EYEWITNESSES
During the late summer of 1520 (August 26 to September 3).Albrecht Durer - the supreme German painter and engraver of the epoch - visited Brussels. At that moment,the first display of aboriginal Mexican art to reach the other side of the Atlantic had on Charles V's order been sent north from Spain to his headquarters in the Low Countries.Fortunately for art history,Durer saw this Mexican exhibit and recorded his delight and wonder in a memorandum book,a copy of which is in the Staatlichen Bibliothek at Bamberg.Edited in 1884 and frequently thereafter in the original German (as well as in translations), his remarks still bear repetition. Durer's father was a goldsmith and he begins with exclamations over "a sun all of gold a whole fathom broad and a moon all of silver the same size."He stands in awe of"wonderful objects of human use, much better than prodigies,"which range from armor and raiment to litters.Summarising his feelings at an art exhibit valued at 100,000 florins,he writes (Schriften.Tagebucher.Briefe,ed.Max Steck[Stuttgart:W.Kohlhammer,1961],p.48):"Und ich hab aber all mien Lebtag nichts
geschen ,das mien Herz also erfruet hat als diese Dinge.Den ich hab dabei geschen wunderbare kunstvolle Dinge und hab mich verwundert der subtilen ingenia der Menschen in fremden Landen."William Martin Conway translates this to read:"All the days of my life I have seen nothing that rejoiced my heart so much as these things,as I saw amongst them wonderful works of art,and I marvelled at the subtle 'Ingenia' of men in foriegn lands."Durer concludes:"Indeed I cannot express all that I thought there."What he did express challenges us to find a similar testimony from someone so competent musically as was Christóbal de Morales,maestro in either nearby Avila or Plasencia when Charles V spent a whole morning marveling at the dance and music of a company collected by Cortés for the emperor's pleasure at Valladolid.
Rhetorica Christiana(Perusia:Pietro Giacomo Petrucci,1579)was the first book published in Europe by a native-born Mexican - Diego Valadés(1533-ca.1582).In a memorable passage (beginning at page 169 thus:"Illa verò tripudia sunt imprimis memorabilia,nam cum tantus esset populi confluxus omnes tamen ad cosdem numeros et sonos pariter cantablant et saltablant nec obstabat varia soni mutatatio"),Valadés wrote:
"Their dances are very worthy of mention,since despite such a multitude they sing in the most perfect unison and move in perfect synchronism,whatever the shifts of measure and melody..The invincible emperor Charles V could not believe the report of so great a number of dancers and their rythymic perfection,until he witnessed their performance at Valladolid,where he and a number of his principal courtiers were enthralled by their demonstration an entire morning."
Esteban J.Palomera suggests in 'Fray Diego Valadés o.f.m.(México: Editorial Jus,S.A.,1960),p.218n.4,that this Aztec ballet troupe found so delightful by Charles V and his courtiers in 1527 was the same troupe dispatched to Rome for Clement VII's amazement.Whether this conjecture is accepted or not,the ethnomusicologist cannot but hope for a report from a musician to equal Durer's report of Mexican art.For his pains,the searcher soon discovers that no musician of Morales' caliber recorded his reactions to Aztec dance and song.Instead of the competent testimony of someone as exalted as Durer,the music investigator must content himself with the opinions of nonprofessionals writing in nontechnical language.Nonetheless,the testimony from the most alert and observant of these witnesses does sufficiently jibe to justify making several generalizations.
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