The Book of Negros

Spanish colonies in Central and South America emerged as wellsprings of cultural activity throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. The meeting of indigenous populations with Latin American cathedrals and courtly life resulted in styles bearing the imprint of folk music, even in sacred compositions. The sophisticated musical culture of Guatemala City Cathedral is represented in an archive of hundreds of works, several of which are recorded here.

They are sung pieces, in verse and vernacular language, known in that period as human tones (or just tones) when they were profane, and divine tones when they were religious. Those composed in the first half of the 17th century were mostly polyphonic, which reveals that, in this period, polyphony was still thought to be the highest and most prestigious. The Book of Human Tones, preserved at present at the National Library of Spain under the signature M 1262, constitutes, with its 222 works, a privileged sample of all the aspects.

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