Cancioneiro musical de Belém - Title page

The Cancioneiro Musical de Belém (English: Belém Musical Songbook) or simply Cancioneiro de Belém (

Santa Maria de Belém Santa Claus, also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, or simply Santa, is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring children gifts during the late evening and overnight ...

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

, National Archaeology Museum, Ms 3391) is a

Portuguese Renaissance The Portuguese Renaissance refers to the cultural and artistic movement in Portugal during the 15th and 16th centuries. Though the movement coincided with the Spanish and Italian Renaissances, the Portuguese Renaissance was largely separate from o ...

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printing, printed or repr ...

from the beginning of the 17th century.

General description

This little manuscript with just 18 songs was found in the archives of the National Archaeology Museum, in Belém (Lisbon), by the end of the 1960s by professors Arthur Lee-Francis Askins and Jack Sage, specialists in Iberian lyric of the 16th century. It was later studied by Manuel Morais, who published in 1988 a critical edition of the cancioneiro, together with a musical transcription to modern notation of all eighteen songs. Currently with 77 folios sized 191 x 130 mm, the songs proper are found between folios 58v and 74. In recent times (possibly in the 19th century) the manuscript received a brown leather cover, to which side a title was added: ''Manuscriptos / Varios''. Inside the songbook, an inscription reads ''Porto, dia de S. Miguel, 603''. (

Porto Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...

, St. Michael's Day,i.e., 29 September 1603). In spite of that, the music therein is considerably older, being dated as belonging to the period between 1560-1580. This songbook contains the only Portuguese manuscript

madrigal A madrigal is a form of secular vocal music most typical of the Renaissance (15th–16th c.) and early Baroque (1600–1750) periods, although revisited by some later European composers. The polyphonic madrigal is unaccompanied, and the number o ...

s known to date, besides vilancetes,

cantiga A ''cantiga'' (''cantica'', ''cantar'') is a medieval monophonic song, characteristic of the Galician-Portuguese lyric. Over 400 extant ''cantigas'' come from the ''Cantigas de Santa Maria'', narrative songs about miracles or hymns in praise of th ...

s and two rare examples of sacred

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, one for Christmas (''Pues a Dios humano vemos'') and the other for the feast of Corpus Christi (''O manjar bivo, dulçe i provechoso''). A few songs are also found in other manuscript sources, as for instance the

Cancioneiro de Elvas The ''Cancioneiro de Elvas'' (in English: ''Elvas Songbook'') is one of the four Renaissance songbooks of Portuguese music from the 16th century - along with the Lisbon Songbook, the Belém Songbook, and the Paris songbook. It is one important s ...

, and in printed Spanish editions of the 16th century, but the majority of the works are ''unica'', that is, found exclusively in this manuscript. Among the poets that have been identified are Dom Manuel de Portugal (1516-1606) and the poet-composer

Jorge de Montemor ( es, Jorge de Montemayor) (1520? – 26 February 1561) was a Portuguese novelist and poet, who wrote almost exclusively in Spanish. His most famous work is a pastoral prose romance, the ''Diana'' (1559). Biography He was born at Montemor- ...

(c.1520-1561), as well as the Castilians Garcilaso de la Vega (1503-1536) and the little-known poet Cetina "the Nun".

List of works

Pues a Dios humano vemos (Cancioneiro de Belém)

Concordance with other manuscripts: * ME'' - Cancioneiro Musical de Elvas (P-Em 11793) * ML'' -

Cancioneiro de Lisboa :''This article refers to a Renaissance songbook. For the Portuguese medieval songbook, see Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional'' ''Cancioneiro musical da Biblioteca Nacional'' or simply ''Cancioneiro de Lisboa'' is the name given to the manuscript ...

(Cancioneiro Musical da Biblioteca Nacional) (Lisboa, Biblioteca Nacional C.I.C. 60) (P-Lm Res C.I.C. 60) * AZ'' - ''Libro de música de cifras para vihuela, intitulado El Parnaso'' (1576),

Esteban Daza Esteban Daza (or Estevan Daça) (c. 1537 in Valladolid – between 1591 and 1596 in Valladolid) was a Spanish composer and vihuelist of the Renaissance. He was one of the last major vihuelists of the 16th century, as the instrument's popularit ...

* DA'' - ''Odarum (Quas vulgo madrigales appellamus)'' (1561), Pere Alberc i Vila

Discography

*1964 - TU'' Frühe spanische Musik im "Goldenen Zeitalter".

Studio der frühen Musik A studio is an artist or worker's workroom. This can be for the purpose of acting, architecture, painting, pottery (ceramics), sculpture, origami, woodworking, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, industrial design, ...

. Telefunken "Das Alte Werk" AWT 8039 (EP). *1988 - EG'' Portuguese Mannerist Music - Cancioneiro Musical de Belém. Segréis de Lisboa. Movieplay. *1998 - FF'' Música no tempo das Caravelas. Música Antiga da UFF. *2005 - AL'' Love and Devotion - Iberian Music from the 13th to the 16th centuries. Il Dolce Ballo. Independent.

References

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cancioneiro de Belem 17th-century books 17th-century illuminated manuscripts 17th century in music 17th century in Portugal Chansonniers (books) Music illuminated manuscripts Portuguese music history Renaissance music Renaissance music manuscript sources Spanish poetry