Alabados

**Hyeronimus** · 24/09/2012

ALABADOS

Juan B. Rael Collection at the Library of Congress:

Beyond the plays, bailes, weddings, and songs, Rael's primary interest in the summer of 1940 was the religious music of the Nuevo Mexicanos. Fully half of the collection is dedicated to the alabado hymns of the Hermandad de Nuestro Padre Jesús Nazareno, the Penitente Brotherhood, who for over two centuries have kept the repertory in their living memories and in hand-copied cuadernos or ledger notebooks passed down from generation to generation. Several, like Con mansedumbre y ternura (With Docility and Tenderness) and Por el rastro de la sangre (Along the Trail of Blood), are religious romance ballads dating from seventeenth-century Castille. Musically, some are closely related to even older Gregorian chant, and their modal melodies are indicators of their antiquity. The poetic structures of the alabados indicate that some are of erudite origins and were undoubtedly introduced by Franciscan priests, while the eight-syllable quatrain structure of the majority is an indication of humble, more recent origins locally and in northern Mexico.

In performance, the alabados are a kind of triple meditation, whose power lies in their poetry, their music, and the specific services and devotions with which they are used. For instance, Soy esclavo de Jesús (I Am a Slave of Jesus) is replete with references to the estandarte or holy standard or banner carried in procession. This alabado is therefore sung in processions. Nos dio su cuerpo el Señor (The Lord Gave Us His Body) is set at the scene of the Last Supper and is sung during Communion, on Holy Thursday, and whenever the Hermanos and their families gather to eat together. La Pasión (The Passion) is sung during Viernes Santo, Good Friday services. Considera, alma perdida (Consider, Lost Soul) is sung during the Estaciones de la Cruz, the Stations of the Cross prayer service. In many communities, the Fourth Station is dramatized with a procession of women carrying the statue of the Virgin and singing Madre de Dolores (Mother of Sorrows) who meet a procession of men carrying the statue of Christ, the Man of Sorrows, and singing Por el rastro de la sangre (Along the Trail of Blood) or another alabado describing what they are enacting.

The Penitentes and their families are devoted to the Passion of Jesus, and the alabados bring forth an outpouring of sentiment and remorse, for personal shortcomings and offenses are seen as the cause of the Crucifixion. Of the sixty-nine alabados Rael recorded, nineteen narrate different facets of La Pasión and another seventeen center on the suffering of the Virgin at the sacrifice of her son. Another fourteen are hymns of praise for the Virgin in her various aspects and vocations as Dolores, Our Lady of Sorrows; Soledad, Our Lady of Solitude; Guadalupe; Carmel; and Nuestra Señora del Socorro, Our Lady of Succor. Hymns praising the Virgin and saints like San Pedro and San Antonio are sometimes called alabanzas, which like alabado translates into 'hymns of praise'. In the alabados, Jesus appears as Jesú s Nazareno, the Nazarene or Man of Sorrows at the moment of his trial, his scourging, and the way to Calvary; Cristo, the Crucified Christ; El Señor de Mapimí, the Lord of Mapimi, a regional devotion based in Sonora; and El Santo Niño de Atocha, the Holy Child of Atocha or Jesus as a pilgrim boy, another regional devotion based in Zacatecas. Seven alabados are classified as rogativas or entreaties focused on diverse issues like the souls of purgatory, divine mercy, the last judgment, and confession. Several more evoke specific aspects of the liturgy like Communion or Extreme Unction, or musicalize prayers like the Ave María or the Apostles' Creed. Many alabados refer to the devotional practices of the Brothers as they emulate La Pasión.

Like medieval plainsong, the alabados are sung without measure and proceed only as the words and themes progress. They are sung antiphonally, with lead singers alternating verses with group responses, a feature with distinct pedagogical value for missionary priests teaching the stories of the Church. Alabados are sung a cappella, although the pito, a vertically-held flute, is used to play, not melodies, but arabesques that evoke the tears of Mary and the cries of the souls in purgatory. The matraca or cog rattle is also twirled during processions, especially after the bells are silenced after Holy Thursday of Semana Santa (Holy Week).

Alabados are sung in unison to symbolize the unity and devotional convergence of the Brotherhood. Older alabados use modal scales and newer ones use tonal scales. The singing style is highly melismatic, with sometimes four or five notes sung to key syllables in a quavering voice reminiscent of Arabic and Jewish music. To be fully appreciated, the alabados must be heard in their performance contexts, the processions of the Hermanos and the services in moradas, the small chapels scattered in the mountains and canyons of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. Juan B. Rael's musical record of them informed his research and initiated inquiry into their origins and evolution. As he often said, they are the musical soul of the Nuevo Mexicanos, and the key to a deeper understanding of a distinct regional culture.