Ignatius of Jerusalem and Stella

Ignatius of Jerusalem and Stella, also known as Ignazio Gerusalemme (Lecce, Naples, June 2, 1707-Mexico City, 1769) was a violinist and composer Neapolitan. He began his musical activity in his native Kingdom of Naples as a violinist, he was also a musician at the Coliseo de Cádiz and in New Spain he became chapel master of the Cathedral of Mexico. His contemporaries knew him as the & # 34; musical miracle & # 34; because his talent and musical abilities equaled the chapel master of Madrid. ^{[citation needed ]}

Biography

Ignatius of Jerusalem and Stella was born in the Neapolitan city of Lecce on June 2, 1707. The researcher Annibale Enrico Cetrangolo affirms that in the archives of the Curia Arcivescovile in Lecce there is the baptismal certificate of Ignatius, Dominicus, Orontius, Joseph Pascali Jerusalem, dated June 3, 1707. According to that document his parents were Matteo, son of Francesco Jerusalem, and Anna Curzio (or Stella), daughter of Vincenzo. His father Matteo was born in Naples in 1667 and moved to Lecce in 1689 in the service of Don Gabriel Augustín Erriquez (or Enríquez), Prince of Squinzano, Campi Salentina and Salice, as "musico di scuola"; in Campi and "maestro di Cappella" in the Church of the Jesuits of Lecce. Matteo, according to the minutes studied, in addition to Ignazio, had 11 other children with Anna Curzio (or Stella) and one more with Giustina Stefanelli (apparently his first wife). The godparents of Matteo's children belonged to the aristocracy of Lecce and Terra d'Otranto: the Lubelli, the Tafuro, the Belli, the Enríquez, the Greco, the Personè. Anna Curzio, the mother of Ignazio Jerusalem (or Gerusalemme), was the daughter of the Neapolitan Vincenzo, who was maestro di cappella in Lecce. It is worth noting the curious ambiguity in the documents regarding the designation of the surname of Vincenzo and his daughter Anna, who appear sometimes as Stella and other times as Curzio.

In 1732 he left Italy and settled in Cádiz to work in the Coliseo (theatre) of that city. In 1742 José Cárdenas, from the Royal Court of Accounts, hired him in Spain along with other musicians and singers destined to fulfill his services in Mexico. He arrived in the capital of New Spain in 1742 to work as a violinist and musical director of the Coliseo de México. Since 1746 he has been composing works for the Cathedral of Mexico and in 1749 he is hired as interim Kapellmeister. The following year he was named its titular teacher, a position he held until his death in 1769. As chapel teacher, Ignatius of Jerusalem was preceded by Domingo Dutra y Andrade (1741-1750) and succeeded by Mateo Tollis della Rock (1769-1782).

Work

Most of Jerusalem's work is preserved in the music archives of the cathedrals of Mexico, Puebla, and Oaxaca, and has hardly been studied, transcribed, or performed. Existing records show that many of his works were performed in religious services in churches and cathedrals throughout the territory of New Spain, from Alta California to Guatemala City.

In 1966 Thomas Stanford microfilmed and cataloged a large part of the music archive of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico City (ACCM), which contains some 100 works from Jerusalem. This collection of microfilms belongs to the collection of the National Library of Anthropology and History and consists of more than 150 rolls of film, which contain a large number of works by the main chapel masters of the Cathedral of Mexico. In September 2005, Fernando V. Zamora and Jesús Alfaro Cruz, then researchers of the MUSICAT project of the Aesthetic Research Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, found a file with the documents in the Book of Canonries of the Cathedral of Mexico. of the opposition exam that Ignacio de Jerusalem presented to occupy the position of chapel master of the Cathedral of Mexico. Said file is found between pages 97 to 133v of the book of canonries in a book that measures 32 centimeters high, 24 centimeters wide and 17 centimeters thick. The reason that this file (which contains the scores that Jerusalem and Stella delivered to the council as part of their opposition exam) is filed in the book of canonries is a subject that lends itself to speculation, since said file contains very dissimilar files. among themselves, among them, the "autos de opposición al posto de maestro de capilla" in which Ignatius of Jerusalem appears as a candidate (1750). Since the book was not numbered, the researcher Fernando Zamora had to do it. The numbering presented below is the result of this effort. The document with the signed records for the opposition exam for Ignacio Jerusalem's chapel mastership consists of the following parts:

1. Cover (folio 98)

2. Calling Edict (folio 99)

3. Report by Luis Fernando de Hoyos Mier and Francisco Ximénez Caso (folios 100-103)

4. Doctor Miguel de Herrera (folio 104)

5. Veredicto de Joseph González (folio 105)

6. Veredicto del bachiller Martín Vázquez de Mendoza (folio 106)

7. Veredicto de Miguel Gallegos (folios 107-107v)

8. Villancico To the miraculous school (folio 108)

9. Music account that was copied (folio 109)

10. Acceptance agreement (folio 110)

11. Antiphone O Emanuel rex (folio 111-111v)

12. Verdict by John Joseph Duran and Leon (folio 112)

13. Hire point (folios 114-116v)

14. Pattern with musical annotation (117v)

15. Antiphone Iste Sanctus (fragment) (folios 118-118v)

16. Escape to 4 voices (folios 119-119v)

17. Bazo del contrapoint (folio 120)

18. Part of the antephone bass O Emmanuel (folios 120v-121v)

19. Part of the contract (folios 122-123)

20. Part of the tenor (folios 124-125)

21. Part of the tiple (folios 126-127)

22. Part of the contract (folio 128v)

23. Part of the tiple Iste Sanctus (folio 131v)

24. Part of the tenor Iste Sanctus (folio 132v)

This document is representative of the musical forms that were cultivated in sacred music in 18th century Mexico, as well as the musical skills that the church of New Spain demanded of its maestros de capilla.

Catalogue of works by Ignatius of Jerusalem and Stella

Works in Latin

Works in Spanish

Lost Works