Vicente Lusitano

Vicente Lusitano () was a Portuguese composer and music theorist of the late Renaissance. Some of his works on musical theory and a small number of compositions survive. Lusitano was for a time a Catholic priest and taught in several Italian cities, but later converted to Protestantism.

He is believed to have been of mixed race. Since the 1980s, he has been described as the first published black composer.

Life and career

Lusitano, a Portuguese-language term for "Portuguese", appears to be a descriptive nickname rather than a family name. Little is known of his life. He was born in Olivença, likely around 1520. Lusitano is described as ''pardo'', a Portuguese term indicating he was of mixed European and non-European heritage. It has been suggested that his mother may have been of African descent. According to a manuscript by the seventeenth-century Portuguese critic Joao Franco Barreto, Lusitano came from Olivença, became a Catholic priest, and was employed as a teacher at Padua, Viterbo and Rome. His books and manuscripts of his musical compositions survive and are dated. Lusitano was in Rome by 1551. From the dedication of one of his first works, it has been suggested that Lusitano was a tutor to the Portuguese Lencastre family, who also arrived in Rome in 1551 as ambassador to the Papal court. By 1561 he had married, converted to Calvinist Protestantism, and traveled to Germany. There is no record of him after 1561.

In the sixteenth century, composers were usually employed by the Church, but there is no evidence that he held such a salaried post.

When he last appears in the historical record he was living in the Duchy of Württemberg.

Music

Lusitano has been credited with a number of choral works, including Latin motets (published as ''Liber primus epigramatum que vulgo motetta dicuntur'', 5, 6, 8vv, Rome, 1551) and a madrigal. In several works he references Josquin des Prez, who had died 30 years earlier. For example, he reworked des Prez' motet ''Inviolata, integra'' for more voices.

His works, composed in (or about) the contrapuntal Renaissance style of his time and place, include:
*''Liber primus epigramatum'', containing 23 motets published in 1551
* ''Introdvttione facilissima, et novissima, di Canto Fermo, Figvrato, Contrapon to semplice, et in concerto. Con Regole Generali per far fvghe differenti sopra il Canto Fermo, a ii, iii & iiii. voci, & compositioni, proportioni, generi. S. Diatonico, Cromotico, Enarmonico'' (Rome: Antonio Blado, 1553; Venice: Francesco Marcolini, 1558; Venice: Francesco Rampazetto, 1561).
* A manuscript on the art of singing. All three editions dedicated to Marc' Antonio Colonna, Duke of Marsi.
* '' Beati omnes qui timent Dominum'', one motet in a book from the Stuttgart ducal court published in 1562

Lusitano's music has been revived in recent years, for example by the Australian Chamber Choir in 2019 the Marian Consort in 2021 and Chineke! Voices in 2022. His motet ''Heu me Domine'' and 1562 madrigal ''All’hor ch’ignuda'' have been recorded.

Until these performances, Lusitano was better remembered for his work as a theorist. In a 1551 debate in Rome, he espoused traditional views on the role of the three genera in music ( diatonic, chromatic and enharmonic) over more radical ones put forward by Nicola Vicentino. Lusitano was deemed to have won the debate and Vicentino was fined. In 1555 Vicentino published an account of the debate that was recognised as misleading. This went on to influence later composers and may be a factor in omission of Lusitano from subsequent works on early European composers.

Lusitano's ''Introduttione facilissima, et novissima, di canto fermo, figurato, contraponto semplice, et inconcerto'' (Rome, 1553, and again at Venice, 1561),Introduttione
Bibliothèque nationale de France contains an introduction to music, his views on the three genera, and uniquely, a systematic section on creating improvised counterpoint by setting new parts above or below a cantus firmus). Musicologist Philippe Canguilhem stated that "the significance of Lusitano’s writings is that they show how central improvised counterpoint was to everyday musical life during the Renaissance".Brannon, Samuel J. Review of Chanter sur le livre à la Renaissance: Les traités de contrepoint de Vicente Lusitano ed. by Philippe Canguilhem. Notes, vol. 71 no. 4, 2015, p. 716-719. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/not.2015.0074.

Reception

Up until the late 19th century, Lusitano was overlooked in histories of music: sometimes omitted altogether, more often covered minimally. Since the summer of 2020, when the Black Lives Matter movement re-ignited discussions about race in the United States, there has been a flurry of interest in Lusitano and his work.

The music historian Joseph McHardy was the first to make Lusitano's scores accessible in modern editions on the Internet, which allowed dozens of choirs to perform and record his music for the first time in modern times.

Notes

References

;Additional sources
* Bonnie Blackburn: "Vicente Lusitano", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed January 6, 2006)
(subscription access)

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lusitano, Vicente
People from Olivenza
Portuguese classical composers
Renaissance composers
Music theorists
16th-century Portuguese people
Portuguese male classical composers
Portuguese people of African descent
1520 births
1561 deaths