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THE SPANISH FRONTIER BALLAD: HISTORICAL, LITERARY, AND

MUSICAL ASSOCIATIONS By CHARLES JACOBS

THE Spanish frontier ballad, or romance fronterizo, is one ofseveral types of ballads originating in Spain during the MiddleAges and the "Siglo de Oro." Epic in character, romances are notnecessarily lengthy. Perhaps the most arresting quality of this poeticgenre is its seeming objectivity in narration. The frontier ballad, aspecies of romance historico, treats of the Christian reconquest ofparts of the Iberian peninsula held by Moslems. Other historicalballads concern Carolingian figures and events, as well as eventsfrom the medieval history of Castile, including court intrigues andfamous battles, and happenings in other peninsular d0mains.l

1 R o m a n c e versification is characterized by a series, indeterminate in number,of couplets, each line of which generally comprises a pair of octosyllabic hemistichs.Formal organization into strophes consisting of quatrains or sextets is often present,as usually is assonant rhyme. Early romances-like the twelfth-century P o e m a d e m i oCid - often lack regular formal characteristics. Many extant romances apparentlyreached final form in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The literary bibliography of the romance is extensive. An excellent bibliographiclist is given by Manuel Garcia Blanco, in his "El Romancero," in His tor ia Generalde las Iiteraturac hispanicas, I1 (1951), 40-51. The foremost scholar i n the field isRam6n Menkndez Pidal, among whose works the following are of particular importance:El Romancero espai io l (1910), El Romancero: teorias e investigaciones (1928), FlorNue v a de Romanc e s V ie jo s (1928), T h e C id a n d H i s S p a in (1934), and Romanc e r ohispdnico (2 vols., 1953). The following are comprehensive anthologies of romances:Agustin Durhn, ed., Coleccidn de Romances Castellanos anteriores a1 Siglo XVZZZ (5vols., 1828-32); Ferdinand Joseph Wolf and Konrad Hofman, eds., Romanc e s V ie jo sCustellanos (3 vols., 2nd ed., 1888-1900, rev. Marcelino Mentndez y Pelayo; =Antolog ia de Poetus Lir icos Castellanos, VIII-X; Menkndez y Pelayo, ed., T r a t a d o d e


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PA SSEA V A SF, EL R E Y M O R O A QVATRO LAS TRES TAEIDAS Y LA OTRAcantadacnronafc la primcracn iegundo trafic.

--- - -'-g*>p,%+~-$++j*+&;@-- I i -cl rcy mo ro porla u u dad de Gra na da.

qua'do Ic vi nie ron nw uu su e at

Courtesy of the Sibley Library, Rochester, N Y.Pisador's Pasecibase el re): nzoro as it appears in his Libro cEe


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T h e Spanish Frontier Ballad 607Although the romance enjoyed an enormous vogue in sixteenth-

century Spain, music survives for only a small fraction of the extanttexts - i. e., for some seventy romances. Over half these musicalsettings are found in the Cancionero de Palacio, dating from ca.1490-1520.2 Music for twenty romances is provided by the vihuelatablatures published in sixteenth-century SpainS3Melodies for tenromances are given by Francisco Salinas in his De mus ica librisep tem (Salamanca, 1577)."solated romances are also found in theCancionero Musical de la Casa de Medinaceli5 and in Juan Ber-mudo's Declaracio?z de Zn strum e~ ztos Musicales (Osuna, 1555).6Many romance settings are anonymous, although in addition to thevihuelists, such figures as Juan del Encina (1469-ca. 1529), Cristbbalde Morales (ca. 1500-1553), Juan Vrisquez (ca. 1530-?), as well aslesser-known musicians, are represented in the Frontiero ~ r c e s . ~ballads occur in nearly a dozen musical settings.

- ~thi s-republ. in 1944, Enrique Sanchez Reyes, ed., as Edic idn Nacional de las ObrasCo n t f~ l e ia s e Menr 'ndez 2' Pelayo, XXIII - includes a thorough study of the genre);cf. also: Guy Le Strange, ed., Spanish Bal lads (1920); Christopher C . Smith, ed.,Spanish Bal lads (1964); IVilliam J . Elltwistle, European Ba l ladry (1939); Sylvanus G.hlorley, Span i sh Ba l lads (1911); i d e m , "Chronological List of Early Spanish Ballads,"H i s p a n ic R e v i e w , XI11 (1945), 273.87.

2 Edited first by Francisco Asenjo Barbieri, Cant.-io nero tnu sic al d e 10s siglos X V yXVI (1890). and mo1.e recently by Iliginio Anglrs ?t u l . in ~3 fon un i en i os e la Mus icaEspaiioln (henceforth abbreviated A l A l E ) , 1' (1947), X (19.51), an d XIV (1965).

3C f . Gustate Reese, Mus ic i n t he Renni s sauce (re\. ed., 1959), pp. 619-25; JohnWa rd , "T he Vihucla de Mano and Its Music 1536-15i6" (Ph.D. diss., New YorkUniversity, 19.53); Daniel Llevoto, "Poksie et Musique clans I'Oeuvre des Vihuelistes,"A n n a l es m t ~ s i c o l o g i q z ~ e s ,V (1956), 85-111.

4 Facsim. reprint, 19.58.5 Ed. Miguel Querol Gavalda, in M M E , VIII 11949) an d IX (19.50).6 Facsim. reprint, 1957.7Valuable studies of the musical settings are: Eduardo hlartinez Tor ne r,

"Indicaciones practicas sobre la notaci6n de los romances," Reuista de FilologiaEspaAola , X (1923), 389-94; idem, "Ensayo de clasificacibn de las melodias de 10sromances," Homena je o f rec ido a Menr 'ndez P idn l , I1 (1925), 391-402; Miguel QuerolGaxaldB, "Importance Historique et Nationale du Romance," Musique e t PoPsie auXVZe ,Sid.cle (= Col loques In t e rna t io nnux d u Cen t re Nn t ion n l des RecherchesScienti f iques, V [1953]); Isabel Pope, "Notas sobre la melodia del Conde Clnros," NuevaRevis ta de Filo logia H ispdnica , ~ I I1953), 395-402. C f . also: Gilbert Chase, T h e ~ Z lu si cof Spain (2nd rev. ed., 1959), pp. 44-47; Jo hn Brande T re nd , T h e d lus i c of Span i shHistor? to 1600 (1920); Querol GavaldB, La ~Zll is icnen Ins Obrns de Ceruantes (1948);


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608 The Musical Quarterly

Among the romance melodies especially favored by Spanish six-teenth-century musicians is one that became associated with thefrontier ballad Pasedbase el rey moro. No established version of thismelody exists, but its basic contour may be derived easily fromcomparative settings of the romance by the vihuelists Luis deNarvAez, Diego Pisador, and Miguel de Fuenllana, as well as a key-board setting by Francisco FernAndez Palero.

Th e settings by NarvAez and Pisador of Pasedbase el rey moro arefound in their respective vihuela tablatures, the Delphin de Musica(Valladolid, 1538) and Libro de Mzisica de Vihuela (Salamanca,1552).8 In the Delphin red ciphers printed as part of the vihuelascore represent the vocal line, common practice in vihuela tabla-tures: in Pisador's L ibro , the vocal part is given separately on a staffabove the vihuela score. In transcription the vocal line of the Nar-vdez setting should be integrated into the music of the vihuela. Ina transcription of music for voice and vihuela the polyphony of thevihuela part would be often incomplete if the vocal notes were pre-sumed to be sung exclusively. The Pisador setting, with its separationof the vocal line, seems to provide further supporting evidence forvihuela performance of a vocal line notated in tablature. Tempois not mentioned in the Pisador tablature. NarvAez, however, callsfor tempo allegro moderato in the performance of his setting, byusing 0,which, as he explains in the prefatory remarks to hisDelphin, is assigned this meaning in his colle~tion.~

Pisador's setting, beginning with a short vihuela introductionand incorporating a brief instrumental interlude before the finalhemistich and refrain, is to that extent slightly more ambitiousformally than NarvAez's, the vihuela part of which, however, con-tains more elaborate figuration. Both pieces tend toward regular(parallel) groupings of measures - in Narviez, four at a time.

8 MME, 111 (1945), ed. Emilio Pujol, forms a complete ed. of Narviez's D e l p h i n .For Pisador's setting of this romance, see Ex. 1 , below. A reconstruction of this piecein facsimile is given in Guillermo Morphy, ed., Les Luth is tes espagnols du X V I es i t c le , 1 (1902), xl. Morphy also provides an occasionally inaccurate transcription ofthis romance ( o p . c i t ., 11, 179). Valuable bibliographical information on the instru-mental sources mentioned in this paper is provided in Howard Mayer Brown, In -


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T h e Spanish Frontier BalladEx. I

se- 6 - ba- se el r e y moro

(sic) I I I


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610 T h e h fu sic al Q u a r t e r l y

n i e- ron nueva s

que A l - ha- ma e- ra

hAy! m i Al-ha- I I


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The Spanish Frontier Ballad 611Essentially the same portion of the romance text is set by Narvhezand Pisador; a translated conflation of their texts follows:T h e Moorish king was going abou t the city of Granad a, when news came to himthat Alhama was taken. Alas! my Alhama.

In the setting a 3 of Pasedbase by Fernindez Palero, from LuisVenegas de Henestrosa's L i bro de C i fra Nu e v a (Alcalh de Henares,1557), the romance melody is treated as a cantus firmus in the middlevoice; around it the other voices of the setting spin free decorativekeyboard figuration.1

The Moorish political dominion and cultural influence in Spainthat terminated in 1492, a decade after the events alluded to inPaseubase el rey moro, followed many centuries of Moslem occupa-tion in almost the entire Iberian peninsula.ll T he course of thisoccupation is well-known, as is the easy interaction between Moslemand Christian, indeed among Moslem, Christian, and Jew in medie-val Iberia. The Omayyad Caliphate at Cordoba, after a period ofintellectual and political brilliance, suffered corruption and dis-integration into petty kingdoms known as taifas. From 1248, thesole taifa that survived the gradual Christian reconquest wasGranada.

Political alliances between Moslem and Christian had been com-mon throughout the Spanish Middle Ages. Th e entry of Charle-magne into Spain in 778 was not in the nature of a crusade againstthe Moor, since he had been invited to invade by the AbbasidMoslem governor of Barcelona in an attempt to dethrone the Omay-yal Abd al-Rahman I of Cordoba. Charlemagne advanced nearlyto Saragossa before being repulsed; he fell back to France, en route

loA complete ed. of the Libro de Ci fra Nueva, ed. Angles, is contained in M M E ,I1 (1944).

11The historical information following above is derived from: Pedro AguadoBleye, Manual de Historia de Espafia, 3 vols. (8th ed., rev. Cayetano Alcizar Molina,1958); Rafael Altamira y Crevea, Historia de Espafia, 5 vols. (3rd ed., 1913); WilliamH. Prescott, History of th e Re ign of Ferd inand and Isabella the Catho lic, 3 vols. (rev.ed., 1858); Ulrich Ralph Burke, A History of Spain, 2 vols. (2nd ed., rev. Martin A. S.Hume, 1900); Amkrico Castro, T h e Structure of Spanish History, trans. Edmund L.


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612 T h e Musical Quarterlyconquering and sacking the Christian (Basque) city of Pamplona. Inone of the passes of the Pyrenees, at Roncesvalles (Roncevaux) inNavarre, a Basque force ambushed and slaughtered the Frankishrear guard, commanded by Charlemagne's nephew Roland.12

Sospirastes, Baldo vino s, a romance in Luis de Milbn's El Maestro(Valencia, 1535),13 treats of Baudouin, or Balduinus (= Baldwin,Roland's step-brother), and well demonstrates in its text the relaxedsocial climate of medieval Spain."You sighed, Baldovinos, [about] the things that I most wanted, or you fear theMoors, or you have a lady-friend in France.""I do not fear the Moors, nor do I have a lady-friend in France; but, you aMoslem and I Christian, we are leading an unsatisfactory life."If you come with me to France, all will be happiness for us; I shall enter joustsand tournaments to serve you every day."And you will see the flower of [the] best chivalry of the world; I will be yourknight [and] you will be my lovely lady-friend."l4These verses, however, are not the complete text of the romance,which may have its origin in the French epic Chanson des Saisnes(i. e., Saxons), ca. 1200, by Jean Bodel, quoted in the N u e v e R o -

mances . . . compuestos por Juan de Ribera (1605), as follows, withBaldwin at Carmona, a town about twenty miles northeast of Seville:By the aqueduct of Carmona, whence the water flows to Seville, there walked Valdovinos and with him his lovely lady-friend. They waded in the water, [he] with his hand in his breastplate, fearing that the Moors would observe them. Th ey came together, mouth to mouth, [and] nobody tried to stop them. Valdovinos, with anguish, had sighed; "Why do you sigh, my lord, my heart and life? Either you are afraid of the Moors, or you have a lady-friend in France." "I am not afraid of the Moors, nor d o I have a lady-friend in France; bu t thou, a Moor, and I, a Christian, are leading a very unsatisfactory life: we eat meat on Fridays, which my law forbids. It has been seven years - seven - since I have heard Mass; if the Emperor knew it, it would cost me my life." "For your love, Valdovinos, I would become a Christian." "I, Madam for yours, [would become] a Moor in the moreria."l5

12 Catalonia was liberated from the Moors, nevertheless, by Charlemagne and hisson Louis the Pious between 785 and 801.

13 See the present writer's edition of El Maestro (Pennsylvania State UniversityPress, 1971). Militn's generally homophonic or mildly polyphonic setting of theromance intersperses lengthy runs on the vihuela between hemistichs of the text.He provides two couplets, which are set musically as follows: Couplet I, aa; Couplet11, bb ; a codetta follows the setting of each couplet.


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613h e Spanish Frontier BalladIn the version of this ballad given in the undated romancer0 ofAntwerp (ca. 1548), the last line is omitted: Baldwin's Moorish ladystill offers to convert, but Baldwin does not.

Between 1248 and 1492 the kingdom of Granada was an ana-chronism, existing thanks only to the slow political growth andunification of the peninsula's Christian states. Gradually, the latterdismembered Granada. In 1344 the Moors lost Algeciras and neigh-boring Gibraltar. T he year 1410 witnessed the fall, after a five-months' siege, of the important crossroads town Antequera, thirtymiles north of Mdlaga and sixty west of Granada.

T he fall of Antequera forms the subject of romances set in adecidedly chordal style by Morales (and intabulated in Fuenllana'sOrphtn ica Lyra [Seville, 15541) and by Pisador. T h e text ofMorales's De Anteqzlera sale el moro reads as follows:T h e M oor is leaving Antequera, Anteque ra he lef t ; he was carrying letters inhis hands, messages.T h e complete romance reads:T h e M oor left Antequera three hours before dawn , wi th let ters , in which h elp was requested, in his hand; they were writ ten in blood, but not because of a lack of ink . The Moor who car r i ed them was 120 years old ; his beard was white, his pate shone; he carried everything, which he valued highly, in his turb an. T h e M oorish lady who m ade i t [for him ] was his mistress, veiled w ith tassels of fine silk; he m ou nte d a mare, [since] he di d n ot w an t a steed. On ly a l i tt le page kept him compa ny, no t for lack of squires, of whom there were enough in his household. Seven knights, of pro ved chivalry, acco mp anied him ; morever, the m are was nimble, she stood out amo ng ma ny. Ov er the fields of Arc hidona , he cried ou t, "O h, g ood king, if you kn ew my sad message, you would tear ou t your hair an d y our downy beardl" T h e king, seeing him come, went o ut to receive him with three hu nd re d cavaliers, the flower of the M oorish qu arte r. "Welcom e, Mo or, you a re very welcome." "Allah keep you, king, an d all your company." "Tel l me, what news do you bring me from A ntequera, A ntequera, my town?" "I shall tell you, good king , if you g uar ant ee m y life." "Yo ur life is secure, if y ou ar e guilty of n o treason."


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614 T h e Musical Quarterlyitself in a crushing grip, that the Infante Don Ferdinand16 has it surrounded;[that he] is besieging it forcefully without cease, night and day. [As] food, yourMoors eat cow hides, cooked. Good king, if you do not help, very quickly it[Antequera] will be lost."T h e king, when he heard this, swooned from grief; expressing grea t sorrow, heshed many tears; he tore his garments, from his great pain; no one consoled him,because he would not permit it.But afterward, coming to himself, he cried out, "Sound my instruments,li trum-pets of fine silver, [so that] as many knights as there are in my kingdom gather,[so that] they go with my two brothers to Archidona, Archidona my town, in aidof Antequera, key to my dominion."And thus, with this command, the great Moorish quarter assembled: eightythousand foot soldiers made u p the aid tha t came, with five thousand on horse-back, the best he [the king] had.So in the She-Ass's Mouth [Pass],ls this regal assemblage saw him, the infante,who was already prepared, confident in the great victory that God would givehim, [to] his well-ordained people, over them [the hfoslems].T ha t day, when the battle occurred, was [the holiday] of St. John, so belovedamong us,19 [on] which for one hundred and twenty [Christian] dead, there werefifteen thousand Xloslems [slain].After that battle, the town was attacked with Lombard [guns] and other arms, andwith a great war-engine [bastida], with which the towers, from which it wasdefended, were won.Afterward, the Moors gave over the castle [i. e., fortress], upon condition that theInfan te would place them, free [and] with their estates, in the town of Archidona;which was all done.And thus was Antequera won, in praise of Holy Mary.20Morales may have written De Antequera as a personal tribute tothe fifth count of Urueiia, his benefactor, whose father had playeda distinguished role in the wars against Granada, particularly inconnection with the reconquest of MAlaga.21

161. e., the Regent D. Fernando of Castile, later King Ferdinand I , "The Honest,"of Aragon (reigned 1412-1416).

17Aiiafiles, usually translated "Moorish pipes"; they are also mentioned inPasedbase el rey moro.

18 According to Le Strange, p. 199, between Granada and Archidona. Archidonais about a dozen miles east of Antequera.

19Substitution of "querida" (beloved) for "herida" (wounded) in the originaltext.

20 This translation follows the text given in Smith, p. 118. The second part of theballad (from "[that] they go with my two brothers"), according to Menkndez Pidal,is somewhat later than the initial, part. Cf. Smith, p. 121.

21 Cf. Robert Stevenson, "Crist6bal de Morales (ca. 1500-53): A Fourth CentenaryBiography," Jour nal of the Am erican Musicological society , VI (1953), 3, where the


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615h e Spanish Frontier BalladIn Pisador's L a Mafiana de S a n t J u a n too, the messenger delivers

news of the fall of Antequera to the king, Abu 'Abd Allah YusufI11 (reigned 1408-1423).The assignation of the event to St. John'sDay may be wholly imaginary, as indeed may be the circumstancesrecounted in both these romances, since St. John's Day was a Chris-tianization of the day celebrated by Moslems as the festivity of Mid-summer.22 T h e army defending Antequera was defeated on May16, and the city surrendered finally to the victorious Christians onSeptember 28.23

Pisador's text sets the scene:The morning of St. John's Day, as day was dawning, there were elaborate fes- tivities among the Moors, on the plain [vega] of Granada. [They wore] rich cloaks dressed in silk and worked in gold. T he complete version of the romance reads:T h e morning of St. John's Day, as day was dawning, there were elaborate fes-tivities among the hIoors, on the plain [vega] of Granada. Tur ni ng their horses this way and that, and jousting with lances, on which [were] rich banners embroidered by their lady-friends, [they were] wearing rich gowns, worked in gold and scarlet. T h e Moor who had loves gave sign of it, while he who had n o loves did no t skirmish there. T h e Moorish ladies watched them from the towers of the Alhambra; the king also watched them from within the Alcazaba.24 Crying out, a Moor, with bloody face, came: "With your permission, king, I shall tell you bad news; the Infante Don Ferdinand has won Antequera. "Many Moors are dead; I am [among those] who fare better; I carry seven lance wounds, all [of which] went through my body. Those who escaped with me remained in Archidona." Wi th such news, the king paled; he ordered his trumpeters to assemble to sound the alarm. He ordered tha t his own [people] assemble, to form a great cavalcade, and a t the portals of AlcalL, called [..llcalL] the Rega1,zj the Christians and the Moors entered into battle. T h e Christians were numerous, but in disarray. Th e Moors, accustomed to war,

22 At present, St. John's Day falls on June 24. 23Cf. Smith, p. 123. Menendez Pidal, in his Cata logo de l rom ancer0 jud io-espa f io l

(1948), p. 142, quotes the text of a Sephardic version of this ballad in oral traditionin Tangier, with the opening line "Mafianita era, mafiana." For Pisador's setting, seeMorphy, 11, 178.


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616 T h e Musical Quarterlygave them a bruising attack: slaying them, taking them [prisoner], ambush ing them. W i t h victory the Moors ret urn ed to Granada, shouting, "Th e victory is already regained!" T h e attack on Alcalh la Real and the ambush of its garrison actu-ally took place in 1424, fourteen years after the fall of Antequera.*@A simple, homophonic romance setting by Lope MartinesZ7 n theCancionero de Palacio, Cavalleros de Alcalci (phrases of whose textare similar to several in the romance Caballeros de M o ~ l i n ) , ~ ~ayrefer to the same ambush:Knights of Alca li, you came to take prisoner[s], a nd you failed, [thanks to] alittle Moor,29 between Estepona and Marbella.30Whether this romance indeed refers to the ambush, there is nodoubt about the taunting quality of its text, which the many dis-sonant "escaped notes" of the musical setting perhaps express.31

In 1464 Granada's King Mohammed Ismail I11 (reigned 1454-1466) was permitted to hold his kingdom only at the will of Castileand an annual tribute of gold. His son and successor, Muley Abu-elHassan (or Abu'l Hasan Ali), refused, in 1481, to pay the t ributeto Ferdinand the Catholic in gold and sent steel instead. Upon theaccession of Ferdinand and Isabella, married in 1469, to their re.spective thrones in Aragon (1479) and Castile (1474), the recon-quest - what was left of it - became a bitter crusade for totalexclusion of the Moor. In 1482 Alhama was to fall to the Christian

26 Cf. Le Strange, loc . c i t .27 Cf. Stevenson, Spanish Music , p. 293.28Different readings of this appear in Le Strange, p. 133, and Smith, p. 124.

Cf. also Menkndez y Pelayo, A n t o l o g i a , IX, 202, note.29 Little Moorish band? The ambush was carried out-according to the romance

Cabal leros de Mocl in - by a small group of Moors from Moclin and Colomera, twotowns near Alcalii still under Moslem rule.

30 I t is difficult to see the relevance of Estepona and Marbella, both small fishingvillages lying west of Milaga on the Mediterranean coast, to Alcali la Real and theambush. Perhaps the Cancionero romance, despite correspondences to Cabal leros deMocl in , refers only to a single foray by Christian knights of Alcali to the southerncoast.

T h e music of the Cancionero setting is printed in M M E , V, 125; cf. also M M E ,


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The Spanish Frontier Balladforces. Thenceforth Ferdinand, with the assistance of professionalgastadores (foragers), began a systematic devastation of the lush plainof Granada, for centuries famed for its farms and orchards. Politic-ally, too, Granada was coming apart. Muley Abu-el Hassan's son,Boabdil, attempted to take the throne and threw the kingdom intocivil war.

The fall of the ravine-side city of Ronda to Ferdinand the Cath-olic in 1485 is celebrated in another simple, homophonic romancesetting, Pascua dYE spir i tu Santo , by Francisco de la Torre (fl. ca.1483) 32 in the Cancionero de Palacio:On the feast of the Holy Ghost, Sunday,33 [the] first day, at five in the afternoon, he mounted [his horse], as he was in the habit of doing. At five in the afternoon, that good King Don Ferdinand mounted [his horse], as he was in the habit of doing, with his great cavalry. He went to look at Ronda, [at] how it was fighting alone. After a little while, a messenger came, [saying] that the Moors of Ronda were surrendering with conditions.34 There, replied the king. . . .3"

Por 10s campos de 10s moros, another unpretentious romancesetting by Torre in the Cancionero de Palacio, forms a minor paeanto Ferdinand:Through the lands of the Moors, King Don Ferdinand rode, leading his battles;Oh, how fine he looked136

MAlaga was surrendered to the Christians, without conditions,in 1487, and its entire population was sent or sold into slavery. Twoyears later the northeasterly city of Baza, near JaCn, fell. Some cir-cumstances of its siege may have inspired an anonymous romancesetting, Sobre B a ~ a staba el Rey, in the Cancionero de Palacio, thetext of which reads:

32 Cf. Stevenson, Span i sh M us ic, p. 194.33 I . e. , Whitsunday (Pentecost).34 Such as those mentioned in De An tequera sa l e e l moro .35 Text incomplete. For the music, see M M E , V, 163. Cf. also M M E , XIV, 312,

and MenPndez y Pelayo, Anto log ia , IX, 201. There are striking resemblances betweenFederico Garcia Lorca's Llanto por Zgnacio Sanchez Mejiar and this romance. The useof dissonance in the musical setting is noteworthy. Cf. the simultaneous cross relation- E-flat against E-natural- in meas. 3; also, the clash of a major seventh between


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618 The Musical QuarterlyMonday, af ter dining, the king arrive d outs ide Baza; h e looked a t the r ich s toresthat were in i ts precincts.He looked a t the great orchards and he looked a t the envi rons ; he looked a t thestron g wall th at the city had ; h e looked at the massive towers, so num erou s theycannot be counted .A Moor, behind the merlon of a bat t lement , began to speak:"Go away, King Don Fer dina nd, you do n' t want to spend the winter here; youwonlt ,be able to stand the cold of this place."We have bread [enough] for ten years, [and] a thousand cows for salt ing; thereare twenty thousand Moors here, al l armed, eight hundred on horseback forskirmishing.W e have seven comm anders as good as Roland , an d they have sworn to dierather than surrender."This ballad may have been composed by a member of the court ofIsabella and Ferdinand; it apparently was sung when the queenarrived at the Christian encampment near Baza on November 5 ,1489. Despite the ballad text, the siege of Baza was not lengthy.37

On November 25, 1491, Granada itself capitulated and onJanuary 2, 1492, the Catholic Monarchs entered the city as sover-e i g n ~ . ~ ~o commemorate the event, a T e Deum was sung at St.Paul's Cathedral in London, by order of Henry VII .Two romance settings by Juan del Encina in the Cancionero dePalacio also commemorate the passing of the Iberian Moslem civil-ization, but in tragic accents. The text of U n a safiosa porfia:A cruel, luckless misfortune is happening; I never had joy, b ut now my ills are multiplying. Fo rtu ne was disposed to take away my prosperous d om ain, for the brav e lion of Spain came m enacing me. His drea dful arti l lery, dem olishing my walls; he is taking my towns a nd my castles [an d] my cities. T h e lan d a nd sea moan, as he, dom inat ing, comes, rais ing his ban ners a nd stand ards an d flags. His very great cavalry, alas, gli t ters, i ts army and laborers disturbing the air. T h e M oorish qu ar ter is vanishing; h e is laying waste to my fields, he is defea ting and slaying my companies and commanders. Mo hamm ed's m osques are reconsecrated as churches; Moorish ladies, tearfully crying out, are taken captive. T h e nam e is shouted to the heavens: "Long l ive K ing Ferdin and ; long live the very gre at lioness, [Que en Isabella], [may H e r Most] H igh Majesty prosper."

37The music is printed in M M E , V, 162. Cf. M M E , XIV, 312; Smith, P. 138.


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Th e Spar~isl~rontier Ballad.4 generous Virgin has given them courage. A famous cavalier39 dressed in arich cloak comes flying before [them], with a red cross and a glittering sword,leading all the people.40T h e much briefer iQu'es de t i , desconsolado? is pungent in itsconcision:Wh at abou t thee, unhap py o ne? Wha t ab out thee, king of G ranada ?Wh at a bou t thy lands and thy hloors? Whe re is thy home?41

T h e romance Paseabase el rey moro forms an epitaph to sevencenturies of Moslem presence in Iberia. I t was evidently so popularin Granada in the years that followed the reconquest of the cityand so moving to those who heard it that D. ffiigo Lopez de Men-doza, second count of Tendilla,42who had negotiated the surrenderof the city and was afterwards its governor, forbade its singing, forfear of riots. Th e first complete pr in ting of this romance occurredin Gin& PPrez de Hita's Guerras Ciuiles de Granada (1595),43wherePPrez de Hita claims it is a translation of an Arabic original.

T h e most beautiful musical setting of Paseubase is without doubtFuenllana's, for voice and four-string guitar, rather than six-course~ i h u e l a . ~ ~uenllana utilizes essentially the same fragment of theromance text set by Narviiez and Pisador. Narviiez alludes to thisfragmentation when he states, in his Delphin de Mzis ica , folio 66'

39 Santiago "Matamoros" (St. James, "the Moor-slayer"), patron saint of Spain.4oThe again entirely homophonic music - the only romance f ron te r i zo setting

a 4 in the Cancionero - is printed in I M M E , V, 151; cf. also M M E , XIV, 307.41 The music is printed in M M E , V, 102; cf. also M M E , XIV, 282. Encina's vi-llancico Leuanta , Pascual , on the other hand, chronicles the excitement of a fifteenth-

century Christian, apparently a shepherd or shepherd's wife, making ready to visit just-liberated Granada: "Get up, Pascual, get up; let us find our way to Granada, said tobe taken. Get up quickly, immediately; take your dog and your game bag, your sheep-skin vest and jacket, your shepherds' pipes and staff. Let us go see the kindly received[Ferdinand?] of tha t celebrated city, said to be taken."; the music is printed in M M E ,V, 213; cf. also M M E , XIV, 337. I am indebted to Dr . Isabel Pope for reminding meof the relevance of this villancico to the topic herein discussed.

42 A brother of the famous Cardinal Mendoza.43 Also known under the title Historia de 10s V and os de 10s Zegries. There were

numerous editions of this book, from 1595 through suceeding centuries. T h e definitiveedition seems to be that of Paula Blanchard-Demonge (Madrid, 1913). Th ere is anEnglish edition by Thomas Rodd [Sr.] (London, 1801).


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The Musical Quarterly(= 70r), "since the text of this romance is very well known, I amonly providing here the first four hemistichs [p i e s ] of the romance.because this . . . romance is to be sung in groupings of four hemi-stichs [ d e qua tro e n qzcatro pies]." Actually, disregarding the re-frain, the second line of text has been omitted in all the vihuelists'settings.45Perhaps this implies that each phrase of music was to berepeated with the appropriate text. With minor adjustments, thisseems musically feasible for Narviez's setting; in Fuenllana's, how-ever, free repetitions of phrases of text are found, divorced structur-ally from their original literary function. In any event, a completeperformance of the text of Paseabase, disregarding internal repeti-tions of phrases of the music for omitted hemistichs, would involveeleven repetitions of the entire musical setting, since there are elevencouplets in the ballad. (D e Anteq uera sa le e l m oro , on the otherhand, consists of two dozen couplets, some of irregular length, andtherefore would call for twice as many repetitions of the music fora "complete" performance.) Perhaps Narviez's comment only re-presents a suggestion that parts of the ballad text other than thatgiven by him may be sung to the music provided in his tablature.The complete text of Paseabase el rey moro:T h e Moorish king was going abo ut the c ity of Gr anad a, from the porta l of Elvira to that of Vivarambla. Alas! my Alhama. Letter s came to him that Alham a was taken ; the letters he threw into the fire and the messenger he killed. Alas! my Alhama. H e dismounted his mule an d m oun ted his horse; through the Zacatin he rode, up t o t he A lha mbra . Alas! my Alhama. W he n he arrived a t the Alhambra, he o rdered that his t rumpets b e sounded, his silver instruments. Alas! my Alhama. An d tha t his arsenals quickly so und the alarm , so tha t his Moors, [whether] in Granada or on the pla in, should hear i t . Alas! my Alhama.

45 Regarding the refrain, atypical of the romance type, cf. Le Strange, p. 201. Thebipart ite (ab) melody given by Salinas (D e musica, p. 312) for the romance Ea Jzidiosseems to imply that further couplets of the romance would be sung to the same music,in the chantlike fashion of the medieval Eai, if, in fact, Salinas has provided the enti remelody in his treatise. Musically, many romance settings by the vihuelists and othersmay be interpreted as bipartite. Such irregularities in textual treatment, however, asthose by the vihuelists noted above, discourage establishment in every case of a directformal relationship between a possibly established medieval performance traditionand a freer treatment of the romance type by fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Spanish


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The Spanish Frontier Ballad 621T h e Moors who heard the sound, which called [out] to gory Mars, assembled singly and by pairs [for a] great battle. Alas! my Alhama. Then spoke a n old Moor, in this way did he speak: "For what d o you call us, king, for what is this call?" Alas! my Alhama. "You must know, friends, a new misfortune: tha t the brave Christians have taken from us Alhama." Alas! my Alhama. Then spoke a wise man with a long grey beard: "Well do you employ yourself, good king; good king, well do you employ yourself. Alas! my Alhama. "You killed the Bencerrajes, who were the flower of Granada; you favored the turncoats of renowed C6rdoba.46 Alas! my Alhama. "For that, you merit, king, a severe punishment : tha t you should lose your kingdom and life; and thus is Granada lost." Alas! my Alhama.47

46 Muley Abu-el Hassan had had members of the Abencerrage family murderedand banished, favoring instead the Zegrfes, Christian converts to Islam from C6rdoba.Cf. Le Strange, p. 202, who gives exact information on the sites mentioned in theballad.

47Prosper Mkrimee and Lord Byron are among those who translated this ballad.Byron's translation is printed in Entwistle, p. 164. The king in the ballad is, of course,Muley Abu-el Hassan, on the point of being assailed for the throne by his son,Boabdil. I am indebted to Professor Israel J. Katz for bringing to my attention a


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You have printed the following article:

The Spanish Frontier Ballad: Historical, Literary, and Musical Associations

Charles Jacobs

The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 4. (Oct., 1972), pp. 605-621.

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[Footnotes]

1 Chronological List of Early Spanish Ballads

S. Griswold Morley

Hispanic Review, Vol. 13, No. 4. (Oct., 1945), pp. 273-287.

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21 Cristbal de Morales (ca. 1500-53): A Fourth-Centenary Biography

Robert Stevenson

Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 6, No. 1. (Spring, 1953), pp. 3-42.

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