In Bolivian Jungle, a Love of Baroque
CONCEPCIÓN, Bolivia — The aging musical score wasn’t easy to read. It was a copy of a copy of a Latin Mass by the 18th- century composer Domenico Zipoli that had crossed the Atlantic and most of South America, only to be stuffed into a box for three centuries in a derelict jungle church where humidity had taken its toll.
While much of Zipoli’s work has vanished in his native Europe, it has managed to survive in eastern Bolivia — along with his vast Baroque musical tradition. Here, harpsichords and lutes can be found in the smallest villages. Luthiers have carved violins from local cedar for centuries.
And troves of ancient manuscripts, more recently rediscovered in church archives, have once again revived Zipoli and other composers of the period, whose music is played in schools and on the radio.
“The Baroque is our tradition here,” said Juan Vaca, an archivist in Concepción, leafing through the crumbling pages of the Zipoli Mass with a pair of gloves and a small rod.
This obscure area had a brief moment in the Hollywood spotlight with the release of the 1986 film “The Mission,” starring Robert De Niro.
“It was about building a different society, a kind of utopia with education, self- sustainability — and of course, with music, which was the way the Jesuits evangelized,” said the Reverend Piotr Nawrot, a Roman Catholic priest from Poland who lives in Bolivia and was involved in recovering some of the manuscripts.
Over all, the Catholic Church’s record in the area was mixed; it agreed to force indigenous groups off missions they had built to solve a territorial dispute between Spain and Por-
The score is a legacy of Jesuit mis- tugal. Refusing to leave, some of the
sionaries who left a musical time cap- indigenous people fought a bloody
sule in Bolivia. By the 1700s, parts of war, and many of the churches fell
what are now Paraguay, eastern Bo- into ruin.
livia and southern Brazil were vast But among the lowland Bolivians,
forests of seminomadic native peo- the legacy of Baroque music sur-
ples and the slave traders who hunt- vived — even centuries after indig-
ed them. Surrounding the jungles enous communities lost the tradition
were the Spanish and Portuguese of reading music, learning songs by
Empires. ear.
The Jesuits had twin goals of Urubichá is a farming village
converting indigenous tribes and northwest of Concepción on the end
sheltering them from enslavement. of an unpaved dirt road bordering a
In the process, they formed a state- swamp reached only after crossing
within-a-state ruled by priests and 10 bridges.
chieftains. The town of 8,000 has a music school teaching 500 students, nearly every child there. At lunch, children wander the village square toting instrument cases. They speak Guarayo, the native l anguage. “The Guarayo live with this music in their souls,” said Leidy Campos, 32, who teaches music. “People say they were born with a violin in their hands.”
Ideberto Armoye, a carpentry instructor, stood in a workshop of halfbuilt violas and violins made from local cedar and mahogany. They were the only woods that could withstand the tropical heat, he said.
To prove his point, he pulled out a violin from China.
“Anything happens to this instrument, look at this big crack,” he said.
The music has admirers well beyond here. One is Ashley Solomon, a professor at the Royal College of Music in London who traveled to the city of Santa Cruz this April to conduct at a festival of baroque music.
“They took this music and made it their own — it’s more upbeat, more positive,” he said. “The music lifts the soul, rather than self-flagellates.”
Mr. Solomon recalled years ago giving a concert in San Javier, west of Concepción.
When his group began to play an 18th- century f lute concerto, “Pastoreta Ychepe Flauta,” he was amazed, he said, to hear people who knew the piece humming the music, too.
“We could play Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ in London and no one would be singing along,” Mr. Solomon said. “But in Bolivia people took the music for their own — and got to the core essence of what music is about.”
A musical time capsule, left by Jesuit missionaries.