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Soundboard, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4 Rafael Mitjana. Padre Basilio, like modern composers for the guitar, wrote on a single stave, the treble stave, and distributed the tails of his notes according to the voices which they represented: that is, those with the highest voice have their tails pointing upwards; the bass voice has tails downwards.8
While his observations regarding the notation of the Soriano Fuertes/ Mitjana excerpt are essentially cor- rect, I again assert that this is a mid-nineteenth century engraving, and that by that time most, if not all, guitar music was being published in such a manner.
More to the point, in recent years many of the claims by the above authors have been proven false:
• There is no evidence whatsoever that Don Miguel was a member of the Cistercian order or that he was the teacher of Moretti.9 In all likelihood they were rivals and had an adversarial
relationship (see below).
• Elementary modern (or mensural) notation for the five- course guitar was initially introduced in 1754 by Pablo Minguet e Yrol10 with additional publications being issued in Paris in the
years 1755–1773 by composers such as Bailleux, Le Grand, and Gougelet. In many of these latter editions, tablature and mensural versions were engraved side by side. Clearly the audience for whom these were intended had yet to make the complete transfer to a more modern form of notation. To my knowledge the earliest ex- ample of mensural notation for the six-string guitar was introduced by Juan Antonio de Vargas y Guzmán in 1776. 11
• The true break from the mid-eighteenth-century five-course guitar rasgueado tradition, as described by Soriano Fuertes, was
also initiated by Juan Antonio Vargas y Guzmán in 1773/1776.
Example No. 2 is an example of a sonata by Vargas y Guzmán
that is attached to the Mexico City copy of his Explicación de la guitarra (Veracruz, 1776).
Clearly, this is a sonata for guitar and basso continuo; note the figured bass part on the lower staff. Furthermore, in another sonata there is a bass passage containing the indication “punteado,” which
suggests that the rest of the work would be played “arco.” This leads
me to conclude that this part was to be played on a bowed bass with another instrument providing harmonic support.12
Many of the other inconsistencies presented by Soriano Fuertes and Mitjana have been addressed and/or remedied to
some extent by Javier Suárez-Pajares, who composed an entry on Padre Basilio in the Diccionario de la música es-
pañola y hispanoamericana that was published in 2000.13
While not directly countering either, Pajares does call
Example No. 1, from Soriano-Fuertes.
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Soundboard, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4into question many of their claims. But, more importantly, he provides valuable insights, supported by a certain degree of documentation, that begin to illuminate the person and musician referred to as “Padre Basilio.” Beyond the well known references to Basilio that were published by Soriano Fuertes and Mitjana, Parajes tells us that:
In the Diario de Madrid (13-X-1790) there is a reference
to him regarding fire. And that according to Carmen García-Matos,14 Padre Basilio was one of a group of anti-
French intellectuals who used pseudonyms. Basilio’s was:
Muchitango Abate.
Although there are no known sources that support this latter claim, in one of the publications of 1795, titled Libro de moda by Rojas Fernández, there is a reference to Abate Muchitango,
secretary of the Academy Currutuca, who presented “new ordinances for contra dances” in order to create “appropriate steps for the entertainment of our more perfect partners.” The text continues with eleven humorous rules about his stead- fastness in the fight against French style that was becoming established at the end of the eighteenth century.
Pajares then continues to describe an interesting interac- tion between a certain P. Basilio and Federico Moretti that had to do with the pending Spanish publication of Moretti’s
Principios de guitarra.15 He recounts that, after Moretti sub-
mitted his work to the board of government censors (the Inquisition), he realized that it was to be assessed by Padre Basilio. Upon being informed of this, Moretti successfully petitioned to have his work assessed by an alternate assessor. The petition was filed on September 11, 1789,16 Council of
Castilla, File # 5562175, in the National Historical Archives. Clearly, there must have been a degree of competition or resentment between the two of them.
He also states that, other than two announcements in 1788 and 1799, there were very few public advertisements of works by Padre Basilio.17 And that, at the time of his writ-
ing, the only piece attributed to Basilio is the one published by Mitjana and Soriano Fuertes. Later in his entry, he goes on describe an interesting announcement from the “guitar legacy” section of the Provincial Archives of Vizcaya (Basque) which contains a manuscript booklet that has attached to it an eighteenth century reference to Padre Basilio:
On Carmen Street, in front of the botilleria, in the paper
warehouse, is a teacher who gives guitar lessons in notation or tablature and sells these pieces in tablature.
This is then followed by a list of music that includes, but is not limited to:
•Principles of the guitar with fourteen strings (seven double courses?) with their positions in seven major and minor tones, written in cipher and music by the method taught by Padre Basilio.
•14 reales: an Allegro on Padre Basilio’s fandango •16 (reales): four of the sonatas, thereof each
•12 (reales): In the booklet of handwritten music: Principios de la guitarra 7 diapasones con sus posturas escritos en cifra y música según el método del P.B. (Principles of the Guitar of Seven Strings … Written in Figures and Music Based on the Method of P.B.)
These are then followed by a list of scale and harmonic ex- ercises.
Pajares concludes by stating: “Apart from the construct of chords, scales and fingering, the method of Padre Basilio remains unknown and contains no remarkable special fea- tures. It also seems likely that Padre Basilio’s own system of notation was in tablature, more than anything else.” What is clear from Pajares’ entry is that Padre Basilio: (a) was still using tablature notation; (b) likely played both a guitar of six and seven courses; and (c) that he was known to have played a fandango. The latter two of these two points conforming to our prior knowledge of the famed guitar-playing friar.
But the lack of music composed by Padre Basilio presently available to modern performers and scholars does not necessar- ily reflect the true output of this enigmatic figure. This could be the consequence of the fact that eighteenth-century music for the guitar evolved from the improvisatory traditions of the seventeenth century, much of which was based on pre-existing dance and harmonic formulas.18 A cursory look at the music
of Gaspar Sanz, Francisco Guerau, and the bailes of Santiago
de Murcia confirms this. Therefore, might it not be likely that some of the kinds “compositions” offered by Padre Basilio were merely extensions of his improvisations and that he might have only notated fragments of these? This might certainly be the case with the short example published by Soriano Fuertes. Furthermore, the laws of the Inquisition severely restricted publishing, and music publishing in particular, in Spain dur- ing the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.19 It is no wonder
that there were only three complete books of tablature for the Baroque guitar published in Spain. It was not until the seminal year of 1799 that this began to change. Within a year, there appeared important publications by Abreu, Ferandiere, and Moretti. Not so coincidentally, it is also the year that Francisco Goya published his famed Caprichos.
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But returning to the “myth” of Padre Basilio, there are two extremely important points presented by Soriano Fuertes and Mitjana that one cannot ignore:
• Basilio obviously had a great reputation, as can be as- certained by contemporary ac- counts, not the least of which is Boccherini’s reference to him in his original Fandango Quintet,
G. 341.
• He was most certainly the teacher of Dionisio Aguado, and for pedagogical reasons alone this is extremely significant, as I feel that
Aguado, through his highly detailed methods, establishes what will become the modern school of Spanish guitar per- formance practice.
In light of the above, and given the reputation of this mythological figure, it has been my belief that there must be more to Basilio’s compositional output than the small example initially published by Soriano Fuertes. There are many still un-catalogued manuscript collections in libraries, as well in private hands, throughout Spain, and over the past few years I have had the opportunity to examine a number of these in detail. As a result, I have uncovered a number of hitherto unknown works attributed to Padre Basilio and a certain Del Padre Don Miguel who I believe are the same person. The Music
Examples Nos. 3-4, above, are two pieces attributed to Padre
Basilio that come from a private collection of an individual who wishes to remain anonymous—two simple minuets composed in primitive modern notation, the first bearing the attribution “Padre Basilio,” and the second simply “Basilio.” Could these be by our famed Padre? Essentially both are unremarkable works that are similar to the Soriano Fuertes example and show none of the inspiration that I was hoping to find. As a result they will likely become additional footnotes in the Basilio legacy. Again, if they are by Padre Basilio, I am not convinced that they represent his true compositional ability. Fortunately I have also uncovered a number of additional works attributed to a certain Del Padre Don Miguel, one of which I would like to present for your consideration. It is a monothematic work titled Sonata de Alamirre that was
composed in binary form and, with the exception that it uses six-course guitar tablature, is not dissimilar to those found attached to the Vargas y Guzmán manuscript. It also contains certain Scarlatti-esque characteristics. I found this work (see the facsimile on pages 32-33) a few years ago bound within a late eighteenth century manuscript collection housed at the Biblioteca nacional in Madrid.19
Upon first glance, it was apparent that this would be a difficult manuscript to interpret. In my attempt to under- stand and perform this work (and others in the manuscript), I found it necessary to accept that it does not conform to conventional classical patterns and appears to document a bridge between eighteenth-century Spanish improvisatory traditions and compositional documentation. There are very few rhythm signs; at times, the bar lines do not conform to any set meter; and it contains certain undefined symbols that are unique to this tablature. What identifiable melodic motifs exist, shift and repeat in a manner that is not regular and, upon first listening, can be unsettling to our modern ears.21
Furthermore, as with many early editions and manuscripts, there are obvious mistakes throughout.
It is as if we are looking at a work that came from an improvisation that had yet to be refined for publication. This is not to suggest that the latter could not possibly serve as a model for improvisation, only that it would have likely been presented in a more refined manner—the very issue that I believe Dionisio Aguado referred to in his criticism of his teacher.
While it is certainly possible to perform this work directly from the tablature, it was my intention to create a legible per-
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Soundboard, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4forming edition for modern guitarists. Given the somewhat abstract nature of this manuscript, it was necessary to devise a method that would allow me to understand and notate the work in modern notation. The two-stage procedure that I followed is:
First, I identified musical idiosyncrasies: There is not a single notated strum in the work; there are few full-voiced chords; and the intended instrument is a six-double-course