O vilancico no reinado de D. João V: Entre a persistência do costume e a mudança de paradigmas litúrgico-musicais

Abstract

The religious villancico is unquestionably one of the most representative musical genres in the early period of the reign of King João V, not only for its wide projection within the liturgical practises followed by the Royal Chapel of Lisbon, but also because of the formal and stylistic transformations brought by the genre in face of the influence of Italian music. The circumstances and motivations for the abandonment of the villancico in 1716, following an almost uninterrupted practice of seventy-six years, its vernacular essence that was irreconcilable with the ongoing transformations of the liturgical ritual and of the institution itself, the affinities with similar repertories of other Portuguese and Spanish musical centres and the specific role of the villancico chapbooks as a strategy to reinforce the Royal power among the civil society are some of the topics that justify a closer examination of the court villancico repertory, mainly because they raise important implications that involve the genre in a complex web of cultic, artistic and institutional realities. This article aims to provide a systematic perspective on the musical and functional singularities of the villancico during the considered period and to position the genre in the course of the changes that ultimately originated a renewed ritual and a different social environment, under the rule of the Magnanimous King.