THE CLASSICAL GUITAR
IN PERU IN THE 18TH AND 19TH CENTURIES It is
rather ironic that, of the 36 examples of Peruvian
classical guitar music recorded for this CD, the
only known composer – the remainder are
anonymous – lived, composed and died not
in his native Peru, but in the city of Sucre,
then capital of the Republic of Bolivia. The other
13 compositions on this CD are anonymous works,
taken from 18th and 18th century Peruvian copybooks
by three different individuals.
The Mathías José Maestro notebook,
dated in Lima in 1786, contains 17 pages of anonymous
scores for guitar, most likely of European origin,
since Maestro was born in Spain and immigrated
to Lima toward the end of the 18th century. The
Zifra copybook also dates to the final years of
the 18th century and belonged to a Spanish officer
in the Royal Corps of Engineers, stationed in
Lima. The 31 pieces in the Zifra notebook are
also mostly of European origin, anonymous compositions
and arrangements inspired by Spanish guitar music
of the second half of the 18th century.
In contrast, the 23 minuets for classical guitar
recorded on this CD, composed by the chapel master
of the Cathedral of Sucre, PEDRO XIMÉNEZ
DE ABRILL Y TIRADO (Arequipa, Peru 1780 –
Sucre, Bolivia 1857) appear to be entirely Peruvian
in their origin and inspiration. They were published
in 1844 in Paris, most likely under the aegis
of former Bolivian President Andres de Santa Cruz,
then living in exile in Europe. These 23 pieces,
chosen by the artist from among the 100 minuets
published in France by Ricault, Parent & Cie.,
are – with one of two exceptions -- the
only compositions by the incredibly prolific and
versatile Ximénez de Abrill known to have
been published anywhere.
Ximénez de Abrill worked as a musician
and composer in the cathedral in his native Arequipa
early on in his career, and also lived and worked
in Lima prior to moving to Bolivia in 1833. He
was hired as chapel master of the cathedral in
Sucre by the President of the Peru-Bolivian Confederation
(1828-1838) Andrés de Santa Cruz. He also
taught music at two schools for boys and girls
in Sucre.
The balance of Ximénez de Abrill’s
oeuvre has been, since the year 2004, part of
the large collection of Colonial and Republican
era manuscript musical scores preserved in the
Bolivian National Archives and Library in Sucre,
which was officially designated part of the “Memory
of the World” by UNESCO in 2013. These Ximénez
de Abrill scores, along with a smaller collection
in the Cathedral Archives in Sucre, occupy more
than a lineal meter of shelf space.
They include a wide variety of sacred compositions
-- masses, hymns, psalms, salves, litanies and
passions -- plus secular pieces such as symphonies
for small orchestra, duets, trios, quartets and
quintets, plus divertimentos, waltzes, sonatas,
rondos, marches, patriotic songs, pasodobles,
tonadillas, cavatinas, yaravíes and villancicos,
or Christmas songs.
The circumstances of the discovery of the Ximénez
de Abrill manuscript scores, and of the subsequent
purchase of the collection by the Bolivian National
Archives and Library in Sucre in 2004and 2005,
are a tale in and of themselves. Beginning in
December of 2004, the author of this introductory
note, a historian working in Sucre, was offered
four different lots of original Ximénez
de Abrill scores, all of which were purchased
with personal funds and subsequently transferred
to the safe keeping of the National Archives,
which reimbursed him for the exact amount spent
on the four different lots.
In the course of this effort to rescue an important
part of Bolivia’s cultural patrimony, some
of the details of the collection’s provenance
came to light. It appears that the seller of this
amazing lot of scores, a man of Bolivian origin
but resident in Argentina who had previously tried
unsuccessfully to market them in the cities of
La Paz, Cochabamba and Potosí, had inherited
the documents in the year 2000, along with other
papers stored in a large trunk, from four elderly
deceased cousins who had lived in the small city
of Valle Grande, in the Department (state) of
Santa Cruz de la Sierra.
How the scores came to reside in Valle Grande
almost 150 years after the death of the composer
in Sucre in 1857 is a mystery, but it is presumed
that the four former owners of the truck in which
they were found were somehow descended from Ximénez
de Abrill. Although a small number of the scores
are stained and slightly deteriorated by humidity,
they are still legible, and the great majority
of the documents –on handmade rag paper--
are in such pristine condition that they seem
new.
The Ximénez de Abrill Collection in the
Bolivian National Archives has now been organized
and catalogued, and an analytical guide to the
entire body of scores, prepared by the Bolivian
musicologist Carlos Seoane, was published in Sucre
in the year 2012 . The catalog includes a biographical
essay and general introduction to the scope and
value of the collection. In addition, the author
of this note published in 2006 a general description
of the collection and information about its composer.
Very little of Ximénez de Abrill’s
work has been performed in public in our times,
although it is clear that it was performed as
part of the very lively cultural life of the Bolivian
capital in the 19th century. It is, therefore,
highly significant that the classical guitarist
Alexander-Sergei Ramirez, himself of Peruvian
origin on his father’s side, has chosen
the 23 minuets and the other anonymous pieces
on this CD to introduce Pedro Ximénez de
Abrill Tirado to a wider international audience.
It is also to be hoped that this exposure will
stimulate interest in the rest of the chapel master’s
oeuvre, preserved in Sucre for all of humanity.
William Lofstrom, PhD
Sucre, Bolivia
March 2014
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