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1511
Romances y Relaciones
Narrative ballads brought from the Old World in the hearts and minds of the conquistadores and Spanish colonists through oral tradition. First set of ballads were recorded by Hernando del Castillo in a book titled, Cancionero General in 1511. An example of this type of song is Delgadina, which tells the tale of a father who loved his daughter like a wife and when she would not comply he locked her in a tower and she starved to death. -
La Musica Religiosa y Ceremonial
The life of New Mexicans has always been governed by the Catholic Church calendar. The music of the ceremonies and religious festivals are part of the collective memory and are still kept alive and taught to every new generation from the very early days of colonization. -
La Musica de los Bailes
Los Bailes were a mainstay of social events in colonial and territorial New Mexico. The music was played on violin and guitar but this same music of waltzes, polkas and quadrilles were played in the courts of Spain using archaic instruments. -
Alabados
Los Alabados are spiritual songs with the flavor of Medieval Spain, in that they contain intonations of Muslim melodies. These songs were brought to New Mexico from the earliest times and are embedded into the religious activities but remained in the memory of the people because of their isolation from other forms of worship. This form is kept alive by the activities of los Penitentes of Northern New Mexico. -
El Teatro y los Matachines
Music and theater are used in New Mexico Hispanic culture to convey religious devotions and cautionary tales. For example, Los Matachines is music played for a processional dance that honors great feasts like Christmas or the patron saint's day. Teatro, like "La Pastorela," a pastoral play, includes folk music that mesh with the journey of the shepherds to Bethlehem, overcoming the obstacles that the Devil places to prevent them from arriving there. -
Inditas
This musical form expresses the mixture of Indian and Spanish, or mestizaje. They are basically Spanish narrative ballads with Indian medlodies. -
Corridos
Like the Romance, the Corrido is also a narrative ballad, but portrays a shift in the the collective memory from the deeds of the Spanish aristocracy to the consciousness of the harsh environment and isolation of life in New Mexico. -
Canciones
This is a more free form of music that represent the love, mourning, happiness and boasting of specific localities of the people who wrote them in the late nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. -
Nuevo Corridos
This music is a continuation of the narrative ballad using sophisticated instruments and new subjects. For example, feats of war heroes in WWII, the Vietnam war and even events like the raid on the Tierra Amarillo Courthouse, 1967, a protest for Spanish Land Grant rights. https://youtu.be/67_CQ9gmM8s -
Musica Popular
89.1 KANW in Albuquerque began broadcasting Spanish music by New Mexico artists in 1973 and continues to this day. It is music that keeps the culture alive with those songs that remain the herencia of the people in the Rio Grande valley of New Mexico.
