THE LIBRARY OF IBERIAN RESOURCES ONLINE
Emperor of Culture
Robert I. Burns. S.J.
Chapter 11
Melodic Survivals?
Kurt Schindler and the Tune of Alfonso X's
Cantiga "Rosa das rosas" in Oral Tradition
Israel J. Katz

[159] In his last will and testament of 21  January 1284,  written in  Seville ,  seventy-four days before his death , Alfonso  X decreed that all the Cantigas  codices be housed in the cathedral of that city, where his body was to be interred and that the  cantigas de loor  should be sung in the cathedral on the feast  days of the Virgin. [1] According to  José M.  Llorens Cisteró ,  the king's wish was honored on feast days, not only in the cathedral, during the procession, but also in religious ceremonies at court and in popular festivities  (en algunas celebraciones religiosas de la corte y manifestaciones populares ).[2] By the middle of the fourteenth century, however, interest in the  Cantigas  had begun to decline until they were totally forgotten  (empezaron a decaer en interés  hasta quedar completamente olvidadas).[3]
 

From  John E. Keller's remarks, while not in full disagreement  Llorens Cisteró , one senses the implication that the practice was from time to time and that "even now  [cantigas  are] sung [at the cathedral of Seville] to musical accompaniment."[4] Thus, any attempt to verify whether or not Alfonso's command was executed per annum, through the centuries, would necessitate a laborious and time-consuming perusal of the cathedral's  Actas capitulares,  particularly the entries for the feast days of the Virgin: February 2, March 25, August 15, September 8, October 12, December 8. [5] Apart from Seville and Toledo where  Alfonso  held his court, information concerning when, where else, and how Alfonso's  Cantigas were performed during his reign has to date yielded very little  descript ive documentation of musicological significance, except for scanty iconographical evidence.
 
One has only to view the physical appearance of any one of the extant [160] Cantigas  codices bearing musical notation-ranging from 315 to 485 mm long and from 217 to 326 mm wide, and containing from 160 to 370 leaves of parchment-to realize how unwieldy each was for the solitary singer as well as the clarity of its notation if additional singers were huddled before it. This immediately calls to mind the larger and cumbersome cantorales, or choir books, such as those resting on facistolia (lecterns or choristers' desks) in the choir loft of the royal monastery of  El Escorial,  around which several singers stood to sing from the same musical notation, inscribed on huge sheets of parchment. Whether such a group gathered around a Cantigas  codex, or whether one singer, knowledgeable in reading its notation, taught selected texts and tunes to those gathered around him, remains an enigma. One can add to this problem such further speculations as those pertaining to performance practices, including dancing, with or without the accompaniment of musical instruments like those depicted in several of its miniatures, [6] as well as the manner of accompaniment.
 
A closer study of the text-tune relationships of both the Marian miracles and the praises sung in her honor may even enable us to differentiate the poetic texts, for which their tunes were created simultaneously, from texts which may have been suited to known melodies of the time taken from either liturgical or secular sources. At the same time, we can take into account their varied formal, modal,  cadential , and intervallic structures,ambitus , syllable count, rhythmic features, mensural schemes, and versification. [7] The melodic origins of the  Cantigas tunes await further investigation.[8] Moreover, considering the fact that the Galician-Portuguese dialect was neither the spoken nor even the written language of most Castilians, it is unlikely that even a handful of sung  cantigas  would have survived in oral tradition.
 
Cantiga 10: "Rosa das rosas"
 
Still, the possible instance of a cantiga tune surviving in oral tradition up to the third decade of the present century appears to have given rise to a few casual notices, even though its sung text is a Castilian translation of the original Galician-Portuguese. I am referring, of course, to  Alfonso  X's cantiga de loor  10 , "Rosa das rosas" (Figure 11-1),  which appears as no. 263 among the musical notations in Kurt Schindler's Folk Music and Poetry of Spain and Portugal, published posthumously by the Hispanic Institute of Columbia University in 1941 [9] (Example 11-1b). Schindler collected the [161] cantiga  in the town of  Ceclavin, in western  Cáceres  near the Portuguese border, during his short visit there in the late summer of 1932. This was the period of Schindler's second field trip to Spain, [10] during which he transported a Fairchild portable recording apparatus for the purpose of gathering his material on aluminum discs. The label on disc no. 150A, containing "Rosa [de  las r]osas , " cites  Amado Vives Amores  as Schindler's informant. Furthermore, in the text portion of his published collection, Schindler identified item 263 as  "la Cantiga  X del  rey  Don  Alfonso el sabio, "  yet he questioned whether it was  "tradicional en Ceclavín." [11]
 
Daniel Devoto,  in his critical review, was the first to take note of its inclusion in Schindler's magnificent collection. He concluded that the text is traditional (folklórico)  and relates to its original antecedent, the  cantiga, despite the difficulty of proving it  (es [de no establecerse una transmisión no tradicional ] folklórico, y cuenta con un antecedente, la cantiga original) . [12] Citing  Devoto's reprinted version, Jacques  Chailley concurred that "the cantiga 'Rosa das rosas'  is preserved in Spanish oral tradition, and in Kurt Schindler's [book] it was collected as a popular song" ( s'est conservé dans la tradition órale  espagnole,  et a été recueilli comme chant  populaire dans Kurt  Schindler). [13] I initially agreed, including in my article not only Schindler's but also four additional modern transcriptions of  "Rosa das rosas"  for comparative purposes. [14] In a recent critical study of Martin Codax's Cantigas de amigo,  Manuel Pedro  Ferreira  included (in the first of three appendixes) a short discussion of  "Rosa das rosas, "  wherein he too expressed a similar view, while, at the same time, suggesting that the  cantiga  may have had its own manuscript tradition. [15] In support of this last position, Ferreira  cited  Luis  Villalba's published arrangement of  "Rosa das rosas"  as the "manuscript" source of the Schindler tune, basing his evidence not on the tune, but on the comparison of the text  underlays of their initial strophes. [16] The text for  Villalba's setting had been  Castilianized by R.  de Valle;  the deviations in Schindler's text are enclosed in brackets:
Rosa, entre rosasFlor de las flores
Virgen de vírgenes T amor de amores.
Rosa en que el Señor puso su querer
Flor la más hermosa que se vió nacer
Virgen que hace dulce todo padecer
Amor que hace nuestros sus santos amores.
 
[165] Had  Villalba known of the existence of the earliest Castilian version of the text, recently discovered by John Keller, [17] he might have placed it below the original text of his transcription as he had done with R. de  Valle's translation. Thus, if both Schindler's and  Villalba's text  underlays had agreed closely with the medieval Castilian version, it would have indeed added weight to the speculative opinions registered above for an unbroken chain of oral transmission.
According to Keller, the Castilianized poetic rendition of the original can be considered one of the earliest examples of thirteenth-century Castilian poetry, the first three stanzas of which are almost literal translations from the Galician:
 
 
 
GALICIAN-PORTUGUESE: 
Rosa das rosas e  Fror das frores dona das donnas, Sennor das 
sennores . [18] 
CASTILIAN: [19] 
Rrosa de  l as rrosas e flor de  l as flores  
e due ñ a de las due ñ as, e Se ñ ora de  l as  se ñ oras. 
Rosa de beldad' e de parecer  
e  Fror d'alegria de  prazer , 
Dona en  mui  piadosa  seer , 
Sennor en  toller coitas  e  doores .  
Rosa das rosas ... 
Rrosa de beldat e de parescer  
e flor de alegria e de plazer, 
e due nuestras cuytas e nuestros dolores.  
Rrosa de las rrosas ... 
Atal Sennor dev'  o m e  muit ' amar, 
que de todo mal o pode guardar;  
e pode- ll ' os  peccados perdoar, 
que faz no mundo  per maos  
sabores.  
Rosa das rosas ... 
e que es 
Atal Se ñ ora que  devemos  mucho amar, porque de todo mal nos puede 
guardar, 
e nuestros pecados nos faz perdonar,  
que nos  fazemos  por malos sabores.  
Rrosa de las  rrosas ... 
Devemo-la muit' amar e  servir,  
ca punna de nos guardar de  falir; 
des i dos  erros  nos faz  repentir , 
que nos  fazemos  come pecadores. 
Rosa das rosas ... 
e que 
La  devemos  siempre [amar o servir]  
que p[ ugna ] de nos  guarir [de  falir], 
e de los yerros nos faz  rrepentir ,  
que nos  fazemos  como pecadores.  
Rrosa de las  rrosas ... 
Esta  donna que termo por  Sennor 
e de que  quero seer trobador, 
se  eu per  ren poss ' aver  seu amor, 
dou ao demo os outros amores.  
Rosa das rosas ... 
e que 
Devemos sienpre  trabajar  
por  todavia  su amor ganar, 
ca es valiosa e muy celestial,  
e non valen nada los otros amores.  
Rrosa de las  rrosas ... 
[166] Translations (by Kathleen  Kulp -Hill) are as follows: 
translation of the  galician-portuguese : 
Rose of roses, Flower of flowers, Lady of ladies, Queen of queens.  
Rose of beauty and appearance,  
Flower of joy and pleasure,  
Lady in being merciful,  
Queen in relieving pain and  
suffering. 
Rose of roses... 
TRANSLATION OF THE CASTILIAN 
Rose of roses, and flower of flowers Lady of ladies, Queen of queens.  
Rose of beauty and appearance 
and flower of joy and pleasure,  
Lady most merciful in taking away  
our cares and our sorrows. 

Rose of roses... 
A man should greatly love such a 
Queen,  
who can protect him from all 
harm, 
and pardon him his sins,  
which he basely commits in the 
world. 
Rose of roses... 
and that she is  
A queen such as we should greatly 
love,  
because She can protect us from all 
harm, 
and She causes to be forgiven the sins  
which we commit in our folly. 
Rose of roses... 
We should devoutly love and 
serve Her, 
for She strives to keep us from 
transgression;  
She makes us repent of our 
errors, 
which we commit as sinners. 
Rose of roses... 
and that  
We should also always love and serve 
Her,  
who strives to save us from 
transgression, 
and makes us repent of the errors  
which we commit as sinners. 
Rose of roses... 
This lady I have as my Queen,  
and Her troubadour I would be. 
If I can somehow win Her love, 
I consign to the devil all other  
loves. 
Rose of roses... 
and that 
We should always endeavor  
constantly to win Her love, 
for She is powerful and heavenly  
and other loves are worth  nought . 
Rose of roses... 
 
[166] Following my publication of 1974, I was fortunate to acquire an entire set of program notes for the concerts presented by the Schola Cantorum of New York,  under Schindler'sdirection (1912-1926). [20] They werea ll written by Schindler,  with occasional annotations by other authors. Among the [167] programs , theSchola's concert at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday evening, 21  January 1920,  which exemplified the kind of programming that made this choral society one of the foremost in the nation, was included the first American performance of "Rosa das rosas. " This particular concert was divided in three parts: the first was devoted to Mozart's Requiem Mass., the second comprised "Three Ancient Melodies of the Church, " and the last was Handel's Ode on Saint Cecilia's Day.
Schindler placed  "Rosa das rosas"  as the third of the "Ancient Melodies, " preceded by the Gregorian hymn  "Ave maris stella" (from a ninth-century manuscript of the monastery of St. Gall) and the Introit " Rorate caeli " (for the fourth Sunday of Advent). Although mentioning Alfonso's  Cantigas de  Santa Maria  as its original source, Schindler did not cite his direct source, that is,  Villalba , upon which he based his choral arrangement; nor did he adhere strictly to the original text that was printed on the first page of  Villalba's arrangement. Rather he presented his own edited version (variations shown below in bold characters) of the first and last strophes of the original Galician-Portuguese text (compare the versions just given):
 
Rosa das rosas, et Flor das flores,
Donna des donnas, Sennordas Sennores.
Rosa das rosas...
    Esta Donna que tengo por Sennor
    et de que quiero seertrobador,
    se ioper resposs' aver su amor,
    dono al demo los otros amores.
 Schindler's own rather free translation was given as:
 
Rose among roses, O sweetest of flowers,
Chosen of women, to thee bring we homage.
[168]
Rose among roses...
 Schindler also added the following brief description :
 Villalba arranged the  cantiga for solo, chorus, and piano accompaniment. The opening refrain, which he designated as tiples,  was to be sung by the sopranos and repeated by the chorus. The sopranos followed, singing the individual strophes to a harmonized piano accompaniment. Schindler, on the other hand, preferred an a cappella setting, having the contralto sing the opening refrain, which was repeated by the chorus, singing in octaves. The contralto then sang the two additional strophes that Schindler gave, with the chorus humming the exact harmonization  Villalba had written for the piano (Example 11-2).

"Rosa das rosas"  was performed again, six years later, at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday evening, 10 March 1926. By some strange coincidence, it was sung at Schindler's final concert with the  Schola Cantorum at Carnegie Hall. [22] He had resigned as its founder and musical director owing to a long dispute with the organization's governing board. In the accompanying program guide, Schindler provided a more elaborate, albeit somewhat inaccurate account of the collection from which the  cantiga  was taken, including comments about its author, whose degree of participation has been widely conjectured:

 
It is strange that Schindler should level such criticism at Ribera,  whose study of the  Cantigas  appeared four years earlier in 1922. It was not until the year after Schindler's comments that Anglés published the first of his articles, dealing with the  Cantigas,  wherein he attacked  Ribera's transcriptions. [27] I would venture a guess that Schindler picked up the criticism of  Pedrell and  Ribera  from either Gregorio María  Sunyol'sarticle of 1924 or  Manuel  F.  Ferná ndez- Núñez's article of 1924-1925. [28] One cannot be sure of Schindler's acquaintance with the two-volume Real  Academia Española 1889 edition of the text of the  Escorial  codex B. I. 2, [29] for which  Ribera's edition of 1922 constituted the third volume, or with the studies of Pierre Aubry (1907), and of Henri  Collet with  Luis  Villalba (1911). [30] What is certain is that Schindler came upon Villalba's arrangement of  cantiga 10 some time in 1917 or earlier.
From the evidence presented above, it appears that Schindler was already familiar with  "Rosa das rosas"  long before he recorded it in Cáceres. The evidence also explains why he questioned whether it was traditional there. It is also clear that Schindler's informant was acquainted with the Castilian text of Villalba's arrangement. Either he had heard it on repeated occasions or may even have sung it as a member of some chorus, though his tonal memory appears to have faltered with the passage of time. While [171] Schindler himself seems to have supported the notion that the  cantiga  survived in oral tradition, I suspect that, had Schindler lived to complete the in-depth musicological study which his collection lacks, he would have attempted to examine the possible transmission of the cantiga through the centuries.
 
Ferreira's suggestion, linking the  cantiga  collected in Cáceres with Villalba's arrangement as having its own manuscript tradition, is plausible. However, I would prefer a linkage that was more historically bound, one which can be applied to any of the miracles and  cantigas de loor  that had undoubtedly circulated in this manner-that is, after having been copied from any of the original codices bearing musical notation. Wherever they were circulated, during the generations that followed, there were bound to occur textual and melodic discrepancies owing to the very nature of oral transmission. Doubtless this process also occurred, but exactly when and where it began its gradual to almost total decline are difficult to ascertain. Such questions hinge on the popularity of particular texts and/or tunes as well as events to which they were linked, the verification of which is virtually impossible. Nonetheless, several scholars have noted that  Cantigas  tune variants eventually made their way into regional dance repertoires, or survived as instrumental music or to an even lesser extent as tune contra facts. [31] Still, with due respect to the conclusions drawn above concerning Schindler's published field notation, Ferreira's alternate suggestion more accurately describes the by no means coincidental relationship between the  cantiga  Schindler collected in  Cáceres and Villalba's arrangement. Inasmuch as a manuscript tradition carries with it the factor of continuity, in our case this factor must be discounted. A more plausible explanation would take into account attempts to resurrect the long-dormant  Cantigas  tradition, which reflected deeply rooted religious sentiments, as a vehicle to arouse nationalistic sentiments as well.
 
The earliest vocal settings of  cantigas  can be found among a collection of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century notebooks at the  Biblioteca Nacional  in Madrid, which contain mainly settings for soprano and  continuo  that were made by an anonymous composer, and the notebook in which they are found was entitled  "Música española" by Francisco Asenjo Barbieri. "Rosa das rosas" is one of the eleven cantigas contained therein. [32] In 1855,  Mariano Soriano Fuertes  published settings for eight of the eleven  cantigas, excluding  "Rosa das rosas," with  continuo  accompaniment. [33] The earliest modern musical composition based on  a cantiga tune  was that of Hilarión Eslava  (c.  1861 ?). [34] From the turn of the century to the early 1930s, there followed arrangements of selected  Cantigas  melodies by  Luis Villalba  (one [172] being that of the  cantiga  under discussion),  Felipe Pedrell,  and  Tomás Bretón, [35] including transcriptions of various  cantigas  made by such renowned musicologists as PierreAubry ,  the  Arabist Julián Ribera, Gregorio María Sunyol, and J.B. Trend.[36] Trend based most of his transcriptions on those of  Aubry , reworking several of them. Thus, by the time Schindler collected  "Rosa das rosas, "  there was a goodly amount of interest in the  Cantigas  repertory, and this undoubtedly prompted Angles to undertake his monumental study. His transcription of the entire corpus was to become the basis for the present and continued resurgence of cantigas performances throughout the world. [37]
 
Possible Textual and Melodic Antecedents
 
Jacques  Chailley pointed out Alfonso's literal paraphrase of "Rose  des  roses et  fleurs des  fleurs " from the sixth verse of Gautier de  Coinci's Chanson á la Vierge, "Quant ces floretes florir voi."38] It is likely that  Alfonso  was inspired by this verse, which he developed into a full-fledged song in praise of the Virgin and which, together with Prologue B,  cantiga de loor 1, and the  Petiçon  (cantiga  401), constitutes the strongest grounds for attributing his authorship to these particular examples.
 
In a recent article I alluded to the ninth-century sequence " Victimae paschali laudes "  (Example 11-3c) as a possible source or inspiration for  "Rosa das rosas"  (Example 11-3a, taken from the Toledo codex, dating from around 1257), whose melodic incipit it closely resembles. [39] For the Example 11-3b (taken from  Escorial  B.1 2), the Argentine musicologist  Josué T. Wilkes (1942) found additional melodic similarities in the antiphons "Magnum  haereditatis mysterium " (Example 11-3f) and "In  patientia vestra " (Example 11-3e),[40] to which I add the antiphon " Juste et pie  vivamus " (Example 11-3d). These can be seen in the  Liber usualis. Even the melodic incipit of the thirteenth-century sequence, " Stabat Mater" (Example 11-3g), attributed to the Franciscan Jacopone da Todi (c. 1228-1306) and which also may have been inspired by the earlier ninth-century sequence, is much closer to the  Escorial  version of  "Rosa das rosas"  which dates from around 1281.
 
With regard to the form of the cantiga,  Anglés placed "Rosa das rosas"  in the category of  virelais and mentioned that it was similar in structure to  cantiga  64, " Quen mui benquiser."  In his analysis of the refrain and stanzas, he counted, according to the rules of versification, an average of ten syllables per line of verse, save the initial one. Yet a careful reading of the second [173] line of refrain bears out the fact that it contains eleven syllables. Moreover,  Anglés used Greek letter to designate the corresponding melody phrase for each verse. [41]
 
Rhyme Scheme Melody
Rosa das rosas e Fror das frores A9 a
Dona das donas, Sennor das sennores A11 ß
Rosa de beldad' e de parecer b10 g
e Fror d'alegria e de prazer b10 g
Dona en mui piadosa seer, b10 d
Sennor en toller coitas e doores a10 ß

42.  Ribera's transcription was printed without a  text underlay .
43.  The Castilian version was made by Ernesto Mario Barreda.
44.  In  Anglés's transcription of To and B.I.2, their differences are reflected in the transposition (To is a 4th higher) and in bars 2, 8, and 19.
45.  E. López  Chavarri duplicated  Villalba's transcription in his  Historia de la música  (Barcelona: Hijos de  Paluzí, 1921), 1:  facing p. 156.
46.  The first two measures of Pedrell's arrangements indicate that he  used Aubry's transcription ; see Higinio Anglés ,  Cataleg dels manuscrits musicals de la Col- lecció Pedrett (Barcelona:  Institut d'Estudis Catalans , 1920), 79.
47.  See Anglés above in n. 46.  Anglés's transcription of the  cantiga  10 from B.I.2 was subsequently utilized by: ( 1 ) Reese, Music in the Middle Ages, 247, who obtained it from  Anglés's unpublished paper,  "La notación  mensural de la módica de la corte española del siglo  XIII  ofrece soluciones nuevas, hasta hoy totalmente desconocidas, para la interpretación est ético-rítmica de las melodías de los trovadores,"  a discourse delivered by proxy to the American Musicological Society of New York, September 1939; (2)  José María  Lamaña , Canciones de la Andalucía medieval y renacentista (siglos XIH-XVI) para canto y piano  (Madrid: Unión Musical Española,  1968),  1,  who transposed it up a major 2nd, with minor alterations ; (3) Venancio  G.  Velasco, Rosa das rosas (cantiga de  Santa  María)  (Madrid:  Unión  Musical  Española,  1973), who employed it in his arrangement for guitar, transposed up a major 3rd and  renotated in a strict 6/4 meter; and (4)  Mariano Pérez Gutiérrez, "Rosa das rosas (armonización modal), Op. 56, (unpublished manuscript dated 1967), who arranged it for mezzo-sopprano and four-part chorus, a  cappella.  It should also be noted that the portion accompanying the text  "Rosa de beldad' e  ... et  de  prazer "  in  Anglés's transcriptions (Example 11-4, d and  i ) duplicates that made earlier by Friedrich Ludwig: see  Guido  Adler ,  Handbuch der Musikgeschichte , 2nd  edn. (Frankfurt am Main: Hess, 1930), 1: 213.






[180] A more  accurate analysis of the musical  structureof the cantiga  requires a subdivision of each verse, as reflected in the musical transcriptions made from the  Cantigas  codices in Example 11-4. The first textual strophe is also problematic, specifically its second and third verses, wherein the division of their lines necessitates six and four syllables per melody phrase. Also notice how the initial melody phrase of the third verse ends on the second syllable of the word  piadosa.
 
Poetic Structure Melodic Structure
Rosa das rosas  
     e Fror das frores		 A11(5+5) Ax+w 
Ax+y
Dona das donas.  
     Sennor das sennores.		 A11(5+6) B 
Ax+z
Rosa de beldad' 
     e de parecer		 b10(5+5) C 
B'
e Fror d'alegria 
     e de prazer,		 b10(6+4 C 
B'
Dona en mui pia- 
     dosa seer,		 b10(6+4) E 
F
Sennor en toller 
     coitas e doores		 a10(5+5) B 
Ax+y
 
  The only melodic discrepancy that exists between  "Rosa das rosas"  of the Toledo (To) and  Escorial  (B. I. 2. )  codices can be found in the initial melody phrase, above the syllable " ro " (see Example 11-4). In the former codex, the two-note ligature above that syllable is  podatus (b-flat-c; or f-g, transposed down a perfect 4th), whereas in the latter, it is a three-note ligature,  scandius (e-f-g). It is possible, as  Josué T. Wilkes suggested, that this was the cause of scribal error, "by mere recollection, not totally exact" (por simple recordación, no por curto exacta ) ,  even though two distinct  notational systems were employed, the earlier of which the scribe may not have taken care to verify.[42]
 
To Collet and Villalba's statement that the melodic incipit of "Rosa das rosas"  is a general formula of plain chant in the Dorian mode (" est une formule genérale de  plain-chant ( Ier mode 'gravis' [the Dorian mode])"), Wilkes responded:
    Rather than a general formula that usually comprises but three or four principal tones within the ecclesiastical modality, the tune of the cantiga  would have suggested to the composer any one of the melodies from the Christian liturgy. [43]

    [181] Yet the most crucial element distinguishing Schindler's example and  Ribera's transcription from the others is modality. We have speculated earlier that Schindler's informant may have been acquainted with  Ribera's transcription, thus explaining their common modality (D minor, with a raised 7th), which would seem to be more than coincidental. Be that as it may,  Ribera's transcriptions of the Toledo codex have continued to provoke criticism, and Wilkes has devoted a major part of his article to condemning  Ribera's views on modality. 44

 Of all the literary and scientific works produced under the sponsorship of  Alfonso  X the Wise, the  Cantigas de  Santa Maria  remained his most cherished. The performances of songs from this unique collection, which was compiled, ordered, and lavishly illustrated under his supervision, continue to delight audiences throughout the world. Schindler himself was responsible for such performances; all the same, he was truly excited when he confronted the tune in what he believed to be "oral tradition. " Nonetheless, one can only hope that this and other tunes from the collection are still lurking somewhere on the Iberian peninsula.
Notes for Chapter Eleven
 
[1] .  Alfonso's text reads:  "Otros í mandamos, que todos los libros de los Cantares de loor de Santa Maria sean todos en aquella iglesia de nuestro cuerpo se enterrare, e que los  fagan cantar las fiestas de Sancta  Maria.  E si aquel que lo nuestro heredare con derecho e por nos, quisiere haber estos libros de los Cantares de Sancta Maria,  mandamos que  faga por ende bien et algo a la iglesia  onde los tomare porque los haya con merced e sin pecado."  See Alfonso  X,  Antología  ( ed . A. G.  Solalinde , Madrid:  Espasa - Calpe ,  1942,  Colección Austral,  vol. 169), 236.
 
The books to which  Alfonso  referred comprise the four extant codices of  Cantigas de  Santa Maria  (see above,  ch . 4, n.  i ). Two of them are located at the  Biblioteca de San Lorenzo el  Real at  El Escorial  near  Madrid ( B.I .2 [formerly  j.b .2]  and T.I.1 [formerly T.J.1],  respectively), a third at the  Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid ( B.N .  MS 10.069), and the fourth at the  Biblioteca Nazionale,  Florence (MS  Banco Rari 20).  Alfonso  had the latter version prepared as a gift to his cousin, Louis IX of France  ( Keller,. Alfonso  X,  69). All but the Florentine codex bear musical notations; however, only its staff lines had been inscribed, examples of which can be seen for cantigas1 and 14 in two plates supplied by  Solalinde in his description of this codex. See  Solalinde ,  "El códice florentino de las Cantigas y su relación con los demás manuscritos," RFE  5 (1918): insert between 152-53.
 
The cantigas de loor,  which are the songs sung in praise of the Virgin Mary, begin with  cantiga 1,  after which, commencing with  cantiga  10, they constitute every tenth  cantiga  throughout the remainder of the collection. These have been studied by Joseph T. Snow in his "The  Loor  to the Virgin and Its Appearance in the  Cantigas de  Santa Maria  of  Alfonso  X,  el Sabio"  (Ph.D.  diss ., University of Wisconsin, 1972). In Codex B.I.2, each of the  cantigas de loor  bear the miniatures of the instrumentalists as their initial vignettes.
 
[2] . José M. Llorens Cister El "Códice Rico" de las Cantigas de Alfonso el Sabio, supplementary volume to the facsimile edition of the  Escorial manuscript (see above,  ch . 4, n. 2), 321-96, opinion on 331.
 
[3] . Ibid .
 
[4] . Keller , in  Studies on the Cantigas  (see above,  ch . 1, n. 2), 11.
 
[5] . Robert Stevenson undertook an investigation of the cathedral's actas capitulares catedralicias  for the years 1478 through 1606 by extracting information linking the musical life of the incipient cathedral of Mexico with that of the cathedral of Seville, upon which it was modeled (cf. La Música en la Catedral de Sevilla,  1478-1606:   Documentos para su estudio,  2nd.  edn . [Madrid: Sociedad Española de Musicología,  1985]). In his extractions, no mention is made of musical performances, even for the few entries coinciding with the feast days of the Virgin.
 
[6] . Codex T.I.1 ,  fol. 5, cantiga  8 (panels 1-5, depicting the minstrel  Pedro  Desigrad );  cantiga de loor 100  (panel 6, depicting angels singing, while a consort, comprising instruments of Eastern origin, accompanies them);  cantiga  194 (panel 2),  cantiga de loor  120 (panel  1),  and Codex B.I.2, fol. 29v.
 
[7] . Ismael Fernández de la Cuesta  studied both the intervals and  ambitus of the  Cantigas  melodies in his  "La interpretación melódica de las Cantigas de Santa María,"  in Studies on the  Cantigas,  155-88.  Gerardo  V.  Huseby, in "The  'Cantigas de Santa  Maria' and the  Medieval  Theory of Modes" (Ph.D.  diss ., Stanford University, 1982), studied their modes. The controversies concerning their rhythm were taken up by J. M.  Llorens Cisteró ,  in  "El ritmo  musical  de las Cantigas de  Santa Maria:  estado de la cuestión," Studies on the  Cantigas,  203-21.  Huseby added a further contribution, "Musical Analysis and Poetic Structure in the  Cantigas de  Santa Maria,'"  in Florilegium Hispanicum : Medieval and Golden Age Studies Presented to Dorothy  Clotelle Clarke, ed. John S. Geary, et al. (Madison, Wisc.: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1983), 81-101. For a classic study regarding their versification, see Dorothy  Clotelle Clarke, "Versification in  Alfonso el  Sabio's Cantigas,"  Hispanic Review  23 (1955): 83-98.
 
[8]. See my article , "Higinio  Angles and the Melodic Origins of the Cantigas de  Santa María " in  Alfonso X the Learned King--An International Symposium, Harvard University, 17 November 1984,  ed. Francisco  Márquez Villanueva  (Cambridge, Mass.: Studies in Romance Languages Series, Harvard University, 1989), 46-75.
 
[9] . Folk Music and Poetry of Spain and Portugal,  with an introduction on Kurt Schindler and his Spanish work (in  English and Spanish ) by Federico de  Onís (New York: Hispanic Institute, 1941).  Onís ,  then chairman of the Spanish department at Columbia University, supervised the final editing of  Schindller's field notations. Concerning its publication, see my article 'The Posthumous Publication of Kurt  Schindller's Folk Music and Poetry of Spain and Portugal (New York, 1941)," in Libraries, History, Diplomacy, and the Performing Arts; Essays in Honor  of Carleton Sprague Smith, ed. Israel J. Katz (Stuyvesant, N.Y.:  Pendragon , forthcoming).
 
[10] . The second field trip took place  between July 1932  and December 1933,  under the auspices of Columbia University .  The first trip ,  which took place  between the fall of 1928  and fall of 1931,  was unsponsored .
 
[11] .Schindler,  Folk Music and Poetry , 18.
 
[12] . Devoto, "Sobre la música tradicional española,"EFE  5 (1943): 344-66,  esp.  352,  n. 1.  Reprinted in  Devoto, Las hojas  (1940-1949) (Buenos Aires:  Aldabahor , 1950): 24-48,  esp.  36,  n.  18.
 
[13] .Les  Chansons  a la  Vierge de  Gautier de  Coinci (1177/78-1236),  ed. Jacques Chailley (Paris: Huegel ,  1959), 45,  n. 1.
 
[14] . Katz, "The Traditional Folk Music of Spain: Explorations and Perspectives,"  Yearbook of the International folk Music Council 6 (1974): 64-85, esp. 78. The other transcriptions were made by  (i) Fierre  Aubry, " Iter Hispanicum . Notices et  extraits de manuscripts de  musique ancienne conserves  dans les  bibliothéques d'Espagne. III.  Les Cantigas de  Santa Maria  de don Alfonso el Sabio,"  Sammel-bänder der intemationalen Musik-Gesellschaft (1907): 32-51,  esp.  43; (2)  Julián Ribera Tarragó, La música de las Cantigas: estudio sobre su origen y naturaleza, with photographic reproductions of the text and in modern transcription, volume three of the Las Cantigas de Santa María, Real Academia Española edn. (Madrid: Revista de Archivos, 1922), 127-28; (3) John Brande Tend, The Music of Spanish History to 1600 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1926), 206 (after Aubry); and (4) Higinio Anglés, taken from Gustave Reese, Music in the Middle Ages (New York: W.W. Norton, 1940), 247.
 
[15] . Manuel Pedro Ferreira, The Sound of Martin  Codax : On the Musical Dimension of the Galician-Portuguese Lyric (XII-XIV Century) (Lisbon: Unisys,  Imprensa Nacional --Casa da  Moeda , 1986), bilingual edition, 190. Facing Schindler's transcription (which he transposed down a major 2nd), Ferreira provided his own of  cantiga 10, from the Toledo codex, which he presumed to be the oldest of the extant codices.
 
[16] . Luis  P.  Villalba Muñoz, Cantigas a la Inmaculada Virgen  Maria:  cantiga  X  de el  rey D . Alfonso el Sabio  (Madrid: Ildefonso  Alier ,  190?).
 
[17] . Keller , " An Unknown Castilian Lyric Poem :  The Alfonsine Translation of Cantiga  X  of the Cantigas de  Santa Maria," Hispanic Review  43 (1975): 43-47.  Keller discovered the poem among the Castilian  prosifications of the first twenty-six  cantigas,  which, according to recent investigations, could have been made during the reign of  Sancho  IV (1284- 1295), by  Sancho  himself, or by Alfonso's nephew,  Juan Manuel  (1282-1348/49), or perhaps much later. For a discussion of the  prosifications, see Anthony  C á rdenas,  "A Study of Alfonso's Role in Selected  Cantigas  and the Castilian  Prosifications of  Escorial Codex  T.I.1," in  Studies on the  Cantigas, 248-68.
 
[18] . Compare Keller's textual transcription with that of  José Filgueira Valverde,  Alfonso X el Sabio. Cantigas de  Santa  María  (Madrid: Editorial  Castalia, 1985), 352. For modern Castilianized versions, see Angel del Río, Antología general de la  literatura española  (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960),  1: 50-51, and  Filgueira Valverde, Alfonso: Cantigas,  29. See also the instructive comments on the text by  Augusto J.  Magne , " Afonso X,  o Sabio.  Excerptos anotados," Revista  da lingua  portuguesa  8/44 (1926): 55-110, esp. 68-69.
 
[19] . The text is taken from Walter  Mettmann , Alfonso X,  el Sabio. Cantigas de  Santa Maria (cantigas 1  a 100)  (Madrid: Editorial  Castalia, 1986), 84-85.  Mettmann , "Die  altportugiesische Marienlyrik vor 1300," in  Grundriss der romanischen Literaturen des  Mittelalters ,  ed. H. H.  Jauss (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1968), 18, cites  Sennor and  Sennor das Sennores among the most traditional names and Marian epithets and refers to the phrases of the first textual strophe  "Rosa das rosas,  etc." as Hebrew superlatives.
 
[20] . This was given to me as a gift by Hugh Ross, Schindler's successor at the Schola Cantorum.
 
[21] . For other free as well as literal English translations, see (1) Robert  Eisenstein, Program notes for the  Folger Consort's program "A Medieval Tapestry" presented at Corpus Christi church (New York, Sunday, 27 November 1983), 5; (2) Kathleen  Kulp -Hill,  Cantigas  (see above,  ch . 4, n. 13), 109; (?) Lorraine Noel Finney, in Reese, Music in the Middle Ages, 248; (4)  Medieval Lyrics of Europe, ed. Willard R.  Trask (New York: World Publishing Co., 1969), 130; and (5)  Américo  Castro, The Structure of Spanish History, trans. Edmund L. King (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954), 362.
 
[22]   Officially, his final concert with the  Schola Cantorum took place ten days later at the high school auditorium in Summit, New Jersey.
 
[23] . This certainly is not true. During Alfonso's reign (1252-1284), there was no fixed capital. Seville, however, was the most favored city of the court.
 
[24] . He is referring here to  Las Cantigas de  Santa Maria  de Alfonso el Sabio,  ed . Leopoldo Augusto de Cueto, Marqués de Valmar,  2  vols. (Madrid: Real Academia Espa ñ ola,  1889).
 
[25] . Schindler was ignorant of the existence of the four extant  Cantigas  codices. At the Hispanic Society, the former work can be seen in a photographic copy under the call name  Cantigas de  Santa Maria MS T.J.1 (Escorial  thirteenth century). It is the only  Cantigas codex for which photocopies exist. The latter, the Vatican compilation, to which Schindler alluded, may be that of the  Cancioneiro de Vaticana  (Vatican MS 4803), which does not contain any of the  Cantigas de  Santa Maria ,  but rather fifteen of Alfonso's  cantigas profanas (nos.  61-79), some of which are  cantigas de  mal- dezir or mal- decir , i.e.,  "cántigas en las que se maldice de algo, sino cantigas escritas con palabras  obsenas , género que cultivaban la mayoría de los trovadores gallego-portugueses, incluso el piadoso D. Alfonso  X  el Sabio" (Eugenio López  Aydillo , Las mejores poesías gallegas  [Madrid: Imprenta Artística Española,  1914], 173,  n.  9). There are no photographic reproductions of this work at the Hispanic Society. See also Francisco  Márquez Villanueva, "Las lecturas  del  deán deCadiz en una cantiga de mal  dizer ,'"  in Studies on the Cantigas,  329-54.
 
[26] . Schindler created an eight-part setting a cappella, with soprano and baritone as narrators, to open the first Spanish concert of the New York  Schola Cantorum at Carnegie Hall, Tuesday evening, 15 January 1918. The arrangement was based on  Pujol's transcription, which was printed in  Lluis Millet's article, "The Religious Folk-Song of Spain," printed in the Actas of the Third National Congress of Sacred Music, held in Barcelona in November 1912. Schindler's arrangement, according to the program notes (p. 3) of 10 March 1926 was also "sung in Madrid by a chorus of four hundred voices under the direction of Padre  Nemesio  Otaño on the Tercentenary of the death of Saint  Ignacio de Loyola."  Had this been the occasion, the year should have been 1856, for  Ignacio  died in 1556.  Pujol's transcription of the tune can also be found in Trend, Music of Spanish History, 205.
 
[27] . See Anglés,  "Les  ' Cantigues ' del  rey  N'Anfós el  Savi," Vida cristiana (Barcelona) 14 (1926-1927)  nos.109-16:1-64.
 
[28] . Sunyol , " antigues de Montserrat del rei Anfós, dit 'el Savi'," Analecta montserratensia 5 (1924): 361-417.   Fernández Núñez, "Las canciones populares y la tonalidad medieval, aclaraciones a la obra Las Cantigas de  Santa Maria escrita por D. Julián Ribera," La Ciudad de Dios 138 (1924): 273-83, 343-52; 139 (1924): 33-38, 97-110, 353-60; 140 (1925): 102-13; 141 (1925): 426-35; 142 (1925): 422-34; and 143 (1925): 134-45, 209 -21 reprinted as a booklet  (El Escorial: Monasterio de Escorial,  1924-1925). The article of  Fernández Núñez,  which contains a more vehement attack, is poorly documented.
 
[29] . See Cueto,  above in n. 24.
 
[30] . For Aubry see above , n. 14.  Collet and Villalba, "Contribution a  l'étude des  Cantigas d'Alphonse le Savant d'après les códices de l'Escurial ,"  Bulletin hispanique 13 (1911): 270-90.
 
[31] . Discussed in  Katz , "Anglés and Melodic Origins," 61-63.
 
[32] . The call number for the notebook is M. 3881/8. "Rosa das rosas"  can be found on folio 3r. It is unfortunate that I was unable to photocopy the melody. See the commentary of Angles and  José Subirá, Catálogo musical de la Biblioteca nacional de Madrid, 1: Manuscritos (Barcelona: Instituto Español de Musicología,  1946), 281-83. See also Anglés,  La música,  2: 16-17, n.  2.
 
[33] . Soriano Fuertes, Historia de la música española desde la venida de los fenicios hasta el año 1850 (Madrid: Martín y Salazar, 1855), 1:109ff. and the apéndice musical.  He claimed to have taken them from the so-called  Cancionero de  Marialva , which belonged to D. Francisco  Contino, Conde de  Marialva , and which to date has not been located. See  Anglés/Subiá , Catálogo  musical,  1:  281-83, and Anglés,  La música,  2:  16-17, n. 2.
 
[34] . Hilarión Eslava, Cantiga 14 del  rey don Alfonso el Sabio, parafraseada con coros y orquesta  (Madrid: Fétis ,  [1861?]). Joseph Snow,  The Poetry of  Alfonso X,  El Sabio:  A Critical Bibliography (London: Grant and Cutler, 1977), no. 31, who did not see this composition, cites (Antonio) Palau (y Dulcet), Manual [del  librero hispano-americano,  2nd  edn . (Barcelona: A. Palau, 1948)], 1 : 206, where it is listed as item 7136. Snow (no. 71) also suggested that  Felipe  Pedrell's Seis cantigas, transcriptas y harmonizadas con acompañadp de órgano o harmonio. Textos orginales y versiones en castellano (Barcelona: Vidal Llimona y Boceta, 1905-101?) "probably appeared first, singly, in the review  Salterio Sacro Hispano,  ca .  1882 -83."
 
[35] . See Villalba  above in n. 16.  Pedrell , Cancionero  musical popular  español  (Madrid: J.  Fernández  Arias, 1914),  1: nos.  145-48; 3 ( Vails , Spain:  Eduard Castells , 1920):  nos.  1-4. For information concerning Breton's settings, see  Julián Ribera Tarrago,  "Valor de la música de las Cantigas,"  in  Discursos leídos ante S. M. el Rey y la real familia  (23  de noviembre de  1021 ) . . .  para conmemorar el  VII  centenario del nacimiento del rey don Alfonso el Sabio  (Madrid: Tipografía de la Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos,  1921), 7-20. Breton's arrangements, based on  Ribera's transcriptions, were interspersed among the various discourses presented during the evening. These arrangements were not published.
 
[36] . See Aubry and Ribera  above in n. 14; see  Sunyol above in n. 28, and Trend, Music of Spanish History,  mus.  exs .  9-14.
 
[37] . Anglés , La música de las Cantigas de Santa  Maria del  rey Alfonso el Sabio,  facsimile with transcriptions and study, 3 vols. (Barcelona: Diputación  Provincial, 1943 - 1964). Volume two (1943) contains the musical transcriptions.
 
[38] . However,  it was Elias F.  Dexter who undertook the first serious study of Alfonso's sources for his  Cantigas,  among which was  Les  Miracles de la Sainte  Vierge of Gautier de  Coincy (1177/1178-1236). See Dexter's "Sources of the  'Cantigas'  of  Alfonso el Sabio"  (Ph.D.  diss ., University of Wisconsin, 1926). See also Walter  Mettmann ,  "Os  Miracles de  Gautier de  Coinci como  fonte das Cantigas de  Santa Maria,"  Homenagen Luciana Stegagno Picchio (in press). Peter  Dronke observes that "only in the twelfth century [such] expressions ... as ' flos florum ',  'rosa  rosarum ' became a common currency in hymns." See  Dronke, Medieval Latin and the Rise of European Love-Lyric (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), 186.
 
[39] . Katz , " Anglés and Melodic Origins ," 53-54.
 
[40] . Wilkes , "La XI cantiga de Alfonso el Sabio y su armonización por Julián Ribera," Revista del profesorado [Buenos Aires] ( June 1942): 109-24,  esp.  118  and 120, respectively.  Wilkes confused the numbering of  "Rosa das rosas,"  referring to it as  cantiga  10 when discussing the  Escorial  codices and as 11 for the Madrid ([sic] Toledo). Wilkes was following  Ribera's enumeration. He also discussed the  notational differences between the  Escorial  and Toledo codices and elaborated on the relationship of the Cantigas tunes to the Gregorian modes. Wilkes was both a composer and a musicologist. In the latter capacity, he was known for his study on medieval modes and Gregorian chant. It is surprising that  Gerardo  V.  Huseby , in his exhaustive study 'The  Cantigas de  Santa Maria   and the Medieval Theory of Modes," does not make reference to Wilkes's work. See also Wilkes,  "Cantiga  10 ," in  Joya de canciones españolas,  prologue  and selection by  Ernesto Mario Barreda (Buenos Aires: Asociación Patriótica Española, 1942), 17-19.
 
[41] .  Anglés, La música,  19 (transcription). The text follows  Mettmann's arrangement; see his  Cantigas (1  a 100),  84-85. Angles differentiated the rhyme schemes between the refrain and strophe by employing upper and lower case letters, respectively. The superscript numbers designate the syllable count in their respective lines of verse. In my analysis of the tune, given under the heading Melodic structure, the upper case letters correspond to the melody phrase, while the superscript letters designate subdivisions in the phrase. Their coordination with the melody can be seen in Example 11  C 4.
 
 
 
[42] .  Wilkes, "La XI  cantiga,"  118.
[43] .  Ibid . "Más que una 'fórmula general' que por lo común no comprende sino tres o cuatro sonidos capitales dentro de la tonalidad eclesiástica, el tema de la Cantiga se diría sugerido al compositor por alguna de las melodí s de la liturgia cristiana."
 
[44].  See  Wilkes , "La  XI  cantiga ,"  118.