Recorder Use in Spanish Churches and Cathedrals in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries

Abstract

Surviving sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century documentation is highly fragmentary with regard to the participatory role of recorders in performing sacred music. While numerous sets of recorders were purchased by ecclesiastic institutions during that period, and while recorders were often portrayed then in religious iconography, most sacred vocal compositions of the sixteenth century did not indicate the use of specific instruments. Given the scarcity of detailed documentation concerning recorders’ participation therein, many questions in this regard persisted into the early twenty-first century among musicians seeking an informed basis for their performance choices. This article presents research findings concerning the sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century role of recorders in performing sacred works in cathedrals and churches across Spain. It synthesizes and analyses archival evidence demonstrating purchase, repair and ownership of recorders, characteristics of some of these instruments, the hiring and activity of musicians playing them, and performance practice details specifically calling for recorders. The article broaches the topic of the repertoire available in Spanish churches and cathedrals which had recorder activity, and, more specifically, music included in collections prepared for wind instrumentalists’ use. The article ties information gleaned from archival sources with some of the issues arising in twenty-first-century performance.