Cancioneiro de Belém

A page from the Cancioneiro

The Cancioneiro Musical de Belém (English: Belém Musical Songbook) or simply Cancioneiro de Belém (Santa Maria de Belém, Lisbon, National Archaeology Museum, Ms 3391) is a Renaissance Portuguese manuscript from the beginning of the 17th century.

General description

This little manuscript with just 18 songs was found in the archives of the National Archaeology Museum, in Belém (Lisbon), by the end of the 1960s by professors Arthur Lee-Francis Askins and Jack Sage, specialists in Iberian lyric of the 16th century. It was later studied by Manuel Morais, who published in 1988 a critical edition of the cancioneiro, together with a musical transcription to modern notation of all eighteen songs.

Currently with 77 folios sized 191 x 130 mm, the songs proper are found between folios 58v and 74. In recent times (possibly in the 19th century) the manuscript received a brown leather cover, to which side a title was added: Manuscriptos / Varios.

Inside the songbook, an inscription reads Porto, dia de S. Miguel, 603. (Porto, St. Michael's day, 1603). In spite of that, the music therein is considerably older, being dated as belonging to the years between 1560-1580. This songbook contains the only Portuguese manuscript madrigals known to date, besides vilancetes, cantigas and two rare examples of sacred villancicos, one for Christmas (Pues a Dios humano vemos) and the other for the feast of Corpus Christi (O manjar bivo, dulçe i provechoso).

A few songs are also found in other manuscript sources, as for instance the Cancioneiro de Elvas, and in printed Spanish editions of the 16th century, but the majority of the works are unica, that is, found exclusively in this manuscript.

Among the poets that have been identified are Dom Manuel de Portugal (1516-1606) and the poet-composer Jorge de Montemor (c.1520-1561), as well as the Castilians Garcilaso de la Vega (1503-1536) and the little-known poet Cetina "the Nun".

List of works

Nº	Title	Composer	Text	Concordance	Recordings
1.	Pues a Dios humano vemos	Anonymous			SEG
2.	Ay de mim sin ventura	Anonymous	Cetina "the Nun"		SEG
3.	Baxad, Señora los ojos	Anonymous			SEG
4.	[Oh] Dulçe suspiro mio	Anonymous			SEG
5.	Venid a suspirar al verde prado	Anonymous		CME	STU, SEG, UFF, BAL
6.	Desperança vos vestistes	Anonymous			SEG
7.	Dame [a]cogida en tu hato	Anonymous			SEG
8.	Oy[u]elos graçiosos	Anonymous		CME	SEG
9.	Mira que negro amor y que nonada	Anonymous		CME	SEG
10.	Aquella voluntad que se ha rendido	Anonymous	D. Manuel of Portugal	CME	SEG, UFF
11.	Sabete Gil que me muero	Anonymous			SEG
12.	En la peña, yunto la peña	Anonymous			SEG
13.	Qu[i]en te hizo Yuan pastor	Anonymous			SEG
14.	Tierras mias ado nasci	Anonymous			SEG
15.	O manjar bivo, dulçe i provechoso	Anonymous			SEG
16.	De mi ventura quexoso	Anonymous			SEG
17.	O mas dura que marmor a mis quexas	Anonymous	Garcilaso de La Vega		SEG
18.	Flerida en cuja mano	Jorge de Montemor	Jorge de Montemor		SEG

Concordance with other manuscripts:

• [CME] - Cancioneiro Musical de Elvas (P-Em 11793)

Discography

References

• MORAIS, Manuel (1988). Cancioneiro Musical de Belém: Portuguese Mannerist Music, Introductory Study and Transcription. Imprensa Nacional - Casa da Moeda. p. 144. ISBN 978-972-27-0033-7. 

v t e Portuguese and Galician-Portuguese cancioneiros Mediæval: Cancioneiro da Ajuda Cancioneiro da Vaticana Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional Renaissance: Cancioneiro de Lisboa Cancioneiro de Elvas Cancioneiro de Belém Cancioneiro de Paris