Rafael Antonio Castellanos (c. 1725–1791) was a

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

n classical

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

. His style is that of the late Spanish baroque, pre-classical, and classical periods, with frequent reference to Guatemalan folk music idioms.

Life

From an early age, Castellanos trained as an apprentice under his uncle Manuel José de Quirós, chapelmaster of the cathedral of Santiago de Guatemala. In 1740, the young Rafael signed a composition for voice and

basso continuo Basso continuo parts, almost universal in the Baroque era (1600–1750), provided the harmonic structure of the music by supplying a bassline and a chord progression. The phrase is often shortened to continuo, and the instrumentalists playing th ...

, on the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

text of the Second Lamentation of Jeremiah. This piece reflects his mastery of

baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

writing and an unusual expressive talent. In 1745 he became a journeyman and was admitted as a member of the cathedral orchestra as first

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

, sometimes also playing

harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orche ...

. During the 1750s he produced various of his own compositions for the

matins Matins (also Mattins) is a canonical hour in Christian liturgy, originally sung during the darkness of early morning. The earliest use of the term was in reference to the canonical hour, also called the vigil, which was originally celebrated by ...

services, along with those of his uncle. When Quirós died in 1765, Castellanos was appointed his successor as chapel master, with the duties of conducting cathedral music during matins,

vespers Vespers is a service of evening prayer, one of the canonical hours in Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic Church, Catholic (both Latin liturgical rites, Latin and Eastern Catholic Churches, Eastern), Lutheranism, Lutheran, and Anglican ...

, and

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

, and of composing suitable music for different liturgical occasions. After the earthquake of 1773 life changed dramatically in the City of Santiago de

, which would shortly move to the site of present-day

Guatemala City Guatemala City ( es, Ciudad de Guatemala), known locally as Guatemala or Guate, is the capital and largest city of Guatemala, and the most populous urban area in Central America. The city is located in the south-central part of the country, nest ...

by order of King

Charles III of Spain it, Carlo Sebastiano di Borbone e Farnese , house = Bourbon-Anjou , father = Philip V of Spain , mother = Elisabeth Farnese , birth_date = 20 January 1716 , birth_place = Royal Alcazar of Madrid, Spain , death_d ...

. After 1775 the city would be known as

Antigua Guatemala Antigua Guatemala (), commonly known as Antigua or La Antigua, is a city in the central highlands of Guatemala. The city was the capital of the Captaincy General of Guatemala from 1543 through 1773, with much of its Baroque-influenced architec ...

. Castellanos remained loyal to the

Archbishop In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdi ...

, Pedro Cortés y Larraz, and only left with his musicians, the clergy, and the religious orders when they were forced to do so, arriving at the new site in November 1779. Despite the hardship of his new life, Castellanos kept up his work, composing four or five works every year. Among his pupils, several became able composers, such as Manuel Silvestre Pellegeros and

Pedro Nolasco Estrada Aristondo Pedro is a masculine given name. Pedro is the Spanish, Portuguese, and Galician name for '' Peter''. Its French equivalent is Pierre while its English and Germanic form is Peter. The counterpart patronymic surname of the name Pedro, meaning ...

, his eventual successor as ''

maestro de capilla (, also , ) from German ''Kapelle'' (chapel) and ''Meister'' (master)'','' literally "master of the chapel choir" designates the leader of an ensemble of musicians. Originally used to refer to somebody in charge of music in a chapel, the term ha ...

.''

External links

Works

One hundred seventy-six of his works are extant and have been catalogued. Some of them have been transcribed into modern score for performance and recording. All of his output is vocal, with ''

villancico The ''villancico'' (Spanish, ) or vilancete (Portuguese, ) was a common poetic and musical form of the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America popular from the late 15th to 18th centuries. Important composers of villancicos were Juan del Encina, Pedro ...

s'' and

cantata A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir. The meaning of ...

s for different feasts of the

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

liturgical calendar, as well as sacred works on

texts. Several of his compositions are available on CD, performed by

Cristina Altamira Cristina Altamira (born 2 February 1953 Buenos Aires, Argentina) is a mezzo-soprano specializing in baroque music, baroque and Latin American music. Biography Born into an Argentine family of Spanish descent, Altamira trained in Buenos Aires with ...

and the Millennium Ensemble

References

Dieter Lehnhoff Dieter Lehnhoff Temme (born 27 May 1955) is a German-Guatemalan composer, conductor, and musicologist. Life Dieter Lehnhoff Temme was born in Guatemala City, Guatemala to German settlers in 1955. He has been a pupil of Klaus Ager, Gerhard Wim ...

, "The Villancicos of the Guatemalan Composer Rafael Antonio Castellanos (d. 1791): A Selective Edition and Critical Commentary." Ph.D. dissertation, Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 1990. *

, ''Creación musical en Guatemala''. Guatemala: Editorial Galería Guatemala, 2005

*

, ''Rafael Antonio Castellanos: vida y obra de un músico guatemalteco.'' Guatemala City: Universidad Rafael Landívar, Instituto de Musicología, 1995

* Alfred E. Lemmon, ed. ''Music from Eighteenth-Century Guatemala''. South Woodstock, Vermont: Plumsock Mesoamerican Studies, 1984. * Robert Stevenson (musicologist), Robert Stevenson, "Guatemala Cathedral to 1803." ''Inter-American Music Review'' II/2 (Spring-Summer 1980):27-72. {{DEFAULTSORT:Castellanos, Rafael Antonio 1720s births 1791 deaths Guatemalan Baroque composers Classical-period composers People from Sacatepéquez Department Classical composers of church music 18th-century classical composers 18th-century male musicians 18th-century musicians Male classical composers