Paul-Gustav Feller-Simmons is a musicologist and doctoral degree candidate at the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University. A musicologist is someone who studies the history of music, but also the role music plays within a culture.
A discovery
As part of his research, he encountered something unusual, perhaps even extraordinary. He recognized that some music he was reading was more than 400 years old. In all that time, no one had played, sung or heard the music. After painstaking research, he transcribed the music so that today’s musicians can play it again for a modern audience.
The Newberry Consort will perform this music Saturday at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, 939 Hinman Ave., at 7:30 p.m. (A consort is “a group of instrumentalists and singers who perform music, especially old music.”) At 6:30 p.m., there will be a special preperformance panel discussion led by Feller-Simmons.
A collaboration more than Indiana Jones
He insisted the work is collaborative. “The Indiana Jones scholar is kind of outdated, and all my work with the repertoire that the Newberry consort is performing comes from collaboration. There are two bodies of music that I’m contributing. One comes as a result of a collaboration with Cesar Favila from UCLA, who wrote a book on convent music in Puebla de los Ángeles. His doctoral research dissertation was about the conventual repertoire known as the Sánchez Garza Collection,” Feller-Simmons said.
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A la risa del Alba. Tiple 3 – This contains the signature of a nun, María Theresa, who likely sang the treble voice of the villancico, a Spanish poetic and musical form commonly associated with Christmas carols. Credit: The Lilly Library, Indiana University Bloomington ![]()
Ay, como flecha – This is the treble voice part for the villancico “Ay, como flecha la niña.” Credit: The Lilly Library, Indiana University Bloomington
“The other repertoire was the result of me living in Bloomington [Ind.] for a while, where my wife is doing her Ph.D. I came to know that there were these Guatemalan manuscripts that came from the highlands in Guatemala, and that has not been, you know, heard or performed in over 400 years,” said Feller-Simmons. “The Guatemalan repertoire is known as the Huehuetenango Collection.“
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This is the title page of the earliest Guatemalan manuscript, dated 1562 and signed by Francisco de León in Santa Olaya. Credit: The Lilly Library, Indiana University Bloomington ![]()
Guatemala MS 7. Dios es ya nacido – This shows two voice parts of the villancico “Dios es ya nacido.” Credit: The Lilly Library, Indiana University Bloomington
From Guatemala to Bloomington
Guatemalan manuscripts in Bloomington, Indiana begs the question: How did they get there?
During the last century, Catholic missionaries reached the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes region of western Guatemala, an overwhelmingly Indigenous part of the country. There they met community leaders who were guarding sacred objects. Those objects included a trove of ancient manuscripts for choral and instrumental performances.
“They [the missionaries] called on a music historian from UCLA named Robert Stevenson, one of the forerunners in research and colonial music. My understanding is that the veneration of the Guatemalan manuscripts themselves as sacred objects didn’t fit the religion as much as they [the missionaries] wanted,” said Feller-Simmons.
“At some point the manuscripts were relocated from Guatemala to Bloomington. No one really knows what happened to them. They may have been stolen or borrowed, or something else entirely,” said Feller-Simmons.
The missionaries identified and obtained the manuscripts. Later a bookseller sold them to Indiana University. The manuscripts may have been purchased from the Indigenous community. It’s not clear how much agency the community had in the decision. Many were lost, according to Feller-Simmons.
Within the past five years, the original community learned of the manuscripts’ existence in the United States. In a follow-up email, Feller-Simmons wrote, “The only information I have is that the current community leaders were surprised to learn about the existence of the manuscripts.”
Working with very old manuscripts
Feller-Simmons’ specialty is archival work with ancient sources. He pointed out that authorship is not clear-cut with an ancient manuscript. In his experience, not only is the object very fragile, but the writing is faint, the words used are in their own style of Spanish, more of a colloquial Spanish.
When he saw these manuscripts in Bloomington, his first thought was how brittle they are. He noted that the library staff is doing everything possible to preserve them, but they are still very fragile. They are located at The Lilly Library at Indiana University Bloomington.
“The Guatemalan manuscripts are the result of several hands of people who call themselves maestros or the masters, and who were probably the most learned members of their community, the only people who probably knew how to read this music. They often signed books. So we know, for example, of Maestro Tomás Pascual. And even today, there’s a family from the area, an Indigenous family, who are the Pascuals. They say that they’re descendants of this maestro. He signed the book. He copied the book, and I believe that he wrote a lot of his music. Some of the music that he wrote was derived from music written by someone else. He changed the lyrics. He changed some of the rhythms, here and there, but the point is that using notions of modern authorship might not be the point in this. It’s a living tradition. That’s what matters,” said Feller-Simmons.
Like assembling a puzzle
Feller-Simmons translated and transcribed the manuscript fragments. He found it was illegible or missing in places.
He wrote, “I made judgment calls when fragments were missing. In these instances, I referred to other manuscripts containing the same musical pieces or relied on historical music theory and performance practices informed by my study of period treatises. Additionally, I work on these manuscripts with my colleague and co-author, Kirstin Haag, from Stanford University.”
What triggered his interest in this topic?
“Honestly, I love puzzles. I love looking at such complex materials that require the knowledge of several languages, the knowledge of several different scripts, knowing music theory that really very few people know today. Everything is so complicated that once you put everything together and you are able to extract meaningful information from these culture artifacts, these historical materials, it is just extremely satisfying,” said Feller-Simmons.
Latin American Christmas by the Newberry Consort will take place in Evanston on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, 939 Hinman Ave..
Ticket prices range from $10 to $65 and are free for children 16 and under.
Two other performances will take place in Chicago. On Friday, Dec. 13, 7:30 p.m., hear the music at St. Mary of the Lake Catholic Church in Buena Park at 4220 N. Sheridan Rd. On Sunday at 4 p.m. hear the music at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Pilsen (1852 W. 19th St.). Ticket prices are the same for all three locations. Each one includes the pre-concert discussion panel led by musicologist Paul G. Feller-Simmons an hour before the performance.
To purchase tickets or see the schedule, visit www.newberryconsort.org.
Early music brought back to life by musicologist and Newberry Consort is from Evanston RoundTable, Evanston's most trusted source for unbiased, in-depth journalism.