The Sweet Penance of Music

Book excerpt: A monumental study of musical practices in 18th century Santiago de Chile, and the only English-language monograph about Chilean colonial music, A Sweet Penance of Music offers a comprehensive view of musicians within the city and their links with other Latin American urban centers in the wider colonial system. Author Alejandro Vera, recent winner of the International Casa de las Américas Musicology Prize for the Spanish edition of his monograph, provides a fascinating account of the quotidian cultural and social significance of music in varying physical spheres - from cathedrals, convents, and monasteries, to private houses and public spaces. He brings to life a city long neglected in the shadow of other colonial centers of economic power, asserting the importance of duality in the period and its music - particularly centering one nun harpist's conception of music as "sweet penance." Drawing from historical documents and musical scores of the period, A Sweet Penance of Music breaks new ground, laying the foundation for a revisionist approach to the study of music in the colonial Americas.