Villancicos

The villancico (Spanish: [biʎanˈθiko]; vilancete in Portuguese) was a common poetic and musical form of the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America popular from the late 15th to 18th centuries. With the decline in popularity of the villancicos in the 20th century, the term became reduced to mean merely "Christmas carol". Important composers of villancicos were Juan del Encina, Pedro de Escobar, Francisco Guerrero, Gaspar Fernandes, and Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla.

Derived from medieval dance forms, the 15th century Spanish villancico was a type of popular song sung in the vernacular and frequently associated with rustic themes. The poetic form of the Spanish villancico was that of an estribillo (or refrain) and coplas (stanzas), with or without an introduction. While the exact order and number of repetitions of the estribillo and coplas varied, the most typical form was a loose ABA framework, often in triple meter, aba framework

The villancico developed as a secular polyphonic genre until religious villancicos gained popularity in the second half of the 16th century in Spain and its colonies in Latin America. These devotional villancicos, which were sung during matins of the feasts of the Catholic calendar, became extremely popular in the 17th century and continued in popularity until the decline of the genre in the 18th and 19th centuries. Its texts were sometimes didactic, designed to help the new converts understand and enjoy the new religion.

The service of matins was structured in three nocturnes, each with three readings and responsories. Thus, during each matins service nine villancicos could be performed, or at least eight if the last responsory was substituted by the Te Deum, a hymn of thanksgiving reserved for the high feasts. An enormous number of villancicos were written in the Spanish world for such feasts as the Immaculate Conception, Christmas, Epiphany, Corpus Christi, Ascension, Assumption, and other occasions of the Catholic liturgical year. Others were written for important saints' days such as Santiago (St. James), St. Peter and Paul, St. Cecilia, and St. Rose of Lima. In colonial Mexico, villancicos were performed before mass on special feast days as part of a theatrical spectacle that served as lighthearted, comical entertainment which drew large crowds from all sectors of society and included ornate costuming and stage effects to accompany the musical numbers and spoken dialogue. Some have argued that it was the juxtaposition of these disparate, incongruent elements---the sacred against the profane, the refined against the vulgar, the high against the low---that gave the villancico its mass popularity.

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