This article contributes unknown information and new hypothesis about the cultivation of the melologue in the Hispanic area, taking as case-study The sensitive black, melodrama written by the popular playwright Luciano Comella and released in Madrid in 1798. To the fact of being one of the scanty melologues of American subject (it deals with the slavery as seen by the new illustrated rationality), it joins its quick arrival to Mexico City, where it was performed in 1805 and José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi wrote a second part in 1825. After a brief introduction to the music-dramatical genre of the melologue, the first section gathers dispersed information about the vicissitudes of The sensitive black in the public theatres of Madrid and the New World. The second part focuses on the musical setting that Ramón Garay, chapel master of Jaen Cathedral, composed for the marquesses of the Cerro de la Cabeza in a productive context till now unexplored for this short lyric-theatrical pieces such as the private sphere of nobility. With the intention of making a contribution to the succinct list of melologues available in modern edition, I offer a musical transcription of Garay’s piece. Thus, the article underlies in the need to study the processes of exchange between both shores and the changing dramaturgical contexts of short theatrical genres with music, in particular of the melologue.
Keywords:
melologue (melodrama), short theatre, instrumental music, slavery, Spain, Hispanic America, marquesses of the Cerro de la Cabeza, Luciano Comella, Ramón Garay
Sánchez López, V. (2019). Contributions to the study of melologue in Spain and Hispanic America: El negro sensible between two shores and several contexts. Revista Musical Chilena, 73(231), 9–38. Retrieved from https://revistaei.uchile.cl/index.php/RMCH/article/view/53451
