Toward an Understanding of Antonio Eximeno Author(s): Alice M. Pollin Source: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol.

10, No. 2 (Summer, 1957), pp. 8696 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/830261 . Accessed: 24/05/2013 18:45
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of Antonio Eximeno Towardan Understanding

BYALICEM. POLLIN
of the distinguished music theorist, aesthetician, and litterateur, Antonio Eximeno,1 is absent from many modem histories of music, criticism, and literature, as well as other reference works. In his own time, however, Eximeno had achieved widespread fame among European scholars, first in the field of mathematics and astronomy,2 where his competence was undisputed, and later in music theory and history where almost everything he wrote was most violently disputed.3 Today, the infrequent references to him are almost unanimous in citing him as the author of a statement he never made, while failing even to mention him as the author of a work on music that is notable for being cast in the form of a novel. This is Don Lazarillo Vizcardi, a didactic novel in which heroes, victims, and villains concern themselves almost exclusively with the science, history, performance, and pedagogy of music. The statement that appears almost ubiquitously at the mention of Eximeno's name (after 1886) concerns "national song on the basis of which each nation should establish its system." This dictum is really a truncated version of an opinion expressed in i886 by Marcelino Menendez y Pelayo, in the chapter of his work on aesthetics devoted to the musical theorists of the i8th century. In the course of his exegesis of the Del origen de la mu'sica of Eximeno, whom he ranks with Arteaga and Requeno as leading the musical-aesthetic revolution of the Enlightenment in Spain, Menendez y Pelayo casually observes that "he [Eximeno] was the first to speak of
pearing in the Preface, pp. viii-xii, followed by Eximeno's reply, Dubbio . . . sopra it Saggio fondamentale ... (Rome, 1775). (The Dell'origine and the Dubbio will be referred to usually in this paper in the authorized Spanish versions by Guti&rrez [Madrid, 1796-971 and will be designated as Del origen and Duda reIn the Efemeridi letterarie di spectively.) Roma, Vol. III, No. 12 (1774), pp. 89f., 97f., ro5f., I13f., Eximeno is accused of ignorance and error in the theories set forth in the Del origen. His answers are in the "Risposte al guidizo delle Efemeridi letterarie .. "

THE Spanish

NAME

1 Antonio Eximeno y Pujades, b. Valencia, 1729, d. Rome, 18o8. Joined the Jesuit Order, 1745. Named Professor of Rhetoric and Poetry at the University of Valencia and at the Seminario de Nobles de San Pablo. In 1764 he was sent to the Military College at Segovia--first as Professor of Mathematics, and then as Director. In 1767, under the order of expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain, he left for Rome, where he remained until 1798 and where he wrote most of his important works. In the Arcadian circles which he frequented in Rome, Eximeno assumed the name of Aristoxenus Megareus, the only mathematician excepted from his general interdiction against the application of science to music. In 1798 he was permitted to visit Valencia but returned to Rome in 180o2 For latest biographical data, see N. Otafio, "El P. Antonio Eximeno," Misica sacro-hispana (June, 1914), pp. o102-10. 2 Justo Pastor Fuister, Biblioteca valenciana (Valencia, 1827-30), Vol. II, pp. 319-26, in what is still one of the most complete accounts of the life and the then known works of Eximeno, refers (p. 321) to his achievements in mathematics and to the publishing in 1761, by scholars in Vienna, of Eximeno's "Observaciones sobre el paso de Venus por el disco solar." 3 Eximeno's first important work on music was Dell'origine e delle regole della musica . .(Rome, . 1774). Within a few months, Padre Martini's work was launched, i.e., Esemplare ossia saggio fondamentale . . . (Bologna, 1774), with a polite criticism of Eximeno ap-

86

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TOWARDAN UNDERSTANDINGOF ANTONIOEXIMENO

87

popular taste in music and to insinuate that on the basis of national nation should construct its song, each 4 system." More than a decade ago, Adolfo Salazar observed that someone ought to read Eximeno's Del origen anew and find out precisely where this oftquoted statement actually appears.5 Two years later Gilbert Chase pointed out that the source of the "national song" item was not Eximeno at all, and not even Felipe Pedrell, to whom it is sometimes attributed because he had reiterated it and adopted it as his own fervent musical credo, but rather Menendez y Pelayo.6 Subsequent writers of dictionary and encyclopedia articles have failed to take note of this important correction, to which, however, one exception and one addition might be made. If the "national song" statement is to be henceforth accurately quoted, the name of Francisco Asenjo Barbieri should be added to that of his friend and colleague, Menendez y Pelayo, for together they are responsible for the abundance of ideas and documents set before us in the chapters of the Historia de las ideas esteti4 Marcelino Menendez y Pelayo, Historia de las ideas esteticas en Espafia (Madrid, I886), Vol. III, Bk. II, p. 544, reprinted in his Obras completas (Madrid, 1947), Vol. III, p. 633. 5 Adolfo Salazar, La muisica en la sociedad writer wishes to indicate that a friend and student of F. Pedrell has also tried to correct the erroneous attribution of the "national song principle" in a well-documented work which became accessible to her in Madrid only after the completion of this study and which has had no corrective effect on any subsequent reference to Eximeno's thought. In his El P. Antonio Eximeno. Discurso leido ante la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando serts that Pedrell answered his query as to where he had seen the canto nacional item with, "I have read it in Eximeno, and that's enough !" 6 Gilbert Chase, "Pedrell, Eximeno y el nacionalismo musical," Revista musical chilena
II, No. 13 (July-August, 1946), pp. 10-13. (June
21,

europea (Mexico,

I944),

Vol. II, p. 298. The

1943), p. 18, P. Nemesio

Otafio as-

cas that deal with music. In a long and prominent footnote to his chapter on the i7th-century musical theorists that is repeated, in substance, in a similar footnote to the section on the theorists of the next century, Menendez y Pelayo states very clearly that because of his lack of knowledge of theoretical and practical music, "I should not have been able to complete this work, or I should have had to limit it to general points of view, had it not been for the efficacious help of the Spanish composer and bibliophile, Don Francisco Asenjo Barbieri, who ... opened wide for me the doors of his library ... , helping me, in addition, with his own notes and counsel. . . . Whatever is new and important in this chapter is owed to Mr. Barbieri."7 In their discussion of the musical theories of Antonio Eximeno, Menendez y Pelayo and Asenjo Barbieri are concerned not with what Eximeno said but what they find implicit in his work. What, then, led to the perpetuation of the remark of Menendez y Pelayo and Asenjo Barbieri as Eximeno's? Here, I believe, some exception must be taken to Mr. Chase's view that the responsibility for that error was entirely Pedrell's, and an attempt should be made to note the several sources and circumstances that caused this statement to find its erring way, under Eximeno's name, into the most reputable works of musical reference. The first page of the miscellany gathered together by Pedrell in I920 under the title of Antonio Eximeno does contain, in quotation marks, as Mr. Chase has indicated, this sentence, as the first in a glossary of Eximeno's ideas: "On the basis of national song each nation should establish its sys7 Menendez y Pelayo, Obras completas, Vol. II, pp. 461-62, n., and Vol. III, p. 606, n.

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tem."8 It should be pointed out, however, that at the very outset the glossary is introduced by an acknowledgment to Barbieri and Menendez y Pelayo for their investigation of "the magnum opus of the musical revolutionary" (i.e., Eximeno's Del origen). Although the "national song" statement that follows is certainly misleading at that particular point, in a later chapter (the 32nd) Pedrell makes clear his precise source and does not fail to indicate its dual authorship: "Men6ndez y Pelayo and Barbieri have both pointed out '... that our Valencian Jesuit was the first to speak of popular taste in music and to insinuate that on the basis of national song each nation ought to construct its system.' "9 Even as early as 1895, 25 years before the publication of his Antonio Eximeno, Pedrell, in referring to Eximeno as "artistic innovator," "musical reformer," etc., was careful to attribute these concepts and judgments to Menendez y Pelayo.o1 In 1897, Pedrell had included in his biographical dictionary a long article on Eximeno, a large portion of which (including the "national song" item) is taken verbatim or paraphrased from the chapter in the Historia de las ideas estiticas. The portion of the dictionary article that is concerned with the Del origen bears quotation marks and is cited as being Menendez y Pelayo's. The long passage ends with the "national song" comment fully and correctly quoted.l" The entire plot of this little comedy
8 Felipe Pedrell, P. Antonio lencia, 1920), p. 7.

of errors cannot, then, be laid at the feet of Pedrell, for several reasons: firstly, the correct quotation and attribution are to be found in several of his works; and secondly, it is unlikely that the limited diffusion of a work of the nature of Pedrell's Antonio Eximeno, written, of course, in Spanish, could have produced such a long line of erroneous progeny. Another and more likely source for the propagation of this error is the Dictionnaire du Conservatoire.12 The section on the music of Spain and Portugal was directed or written by Rafael Mitjana. The only three parts of this section that bear signatures other than Mitjana's are the one by Raoul Laparraon "La Musique populaire," Michel'Angelo Lambertini's "Portugal," and Henri Collet's "Espagne: XIXe Sikcle: Deuxieme Partie." The long section on the aestheticians of the i8th century in general, and on Eximeno in particular, is taken almost verbatim from Menedez y Pelayo, without any such attribution.13 The "famous" pronouncement appears here in the French language of the article and also, in a footnote, in what purports to be the "original" Spanish. The statement "Sobre la base . . ." is followed by a loc. cit.,14 in which the writer of the Dictionnaire article indicates that this, as well as all future quotations from and references to Eximeno's musical history, will be taken from Del origen, in the Spanish version.15 On the very last page of
12 Encyclopedie de la musique et dictionnaire
ed. Albert Lavignac (Paris, Partie: Histoire de la mudu Conservatoire, 1920), Premiere

Eximeno

(Va-

Real Academia de Bellas Artes (Barcelona,

1895), p. i6. The allusion to Eximeno refers the reader to n. 3, P. 39, which cites M. y 11 Felipe Pedrell, Diccionario biogrdfico y bibliogrdfico . . . (Barcelona, I897), Vol. I, pp. 620-24, 633.

10 Felipe

9 Ibid., p. 81.

Pedrell,

Discursos

leidos ante la

sique, IV. Espagne-Portugal.

Pelayo's Historia de las ideas ....

13 Except for one footnote (p. 2117, n. 6, concerning Rodriguez de Hita), the name of M. y Pelayo does not appear either in this portion of the text or in the Sommaire of Fascicule 78, which lists the names of collaborating for France, nine for Italy, etc. scholars-eight 14 Dictionnaire du Conservatoire, p. 2214. 15 Ibid., p. 2211, n. 3.

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TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING

the same year prefers "national folksong."18 The 1943 Oxford Companion and the 1954 Grove's Dictionary19 go back to the term "national song," still with Eximeno's name firmly affixed. In several works on music the
17 A. Bonaventura, "Felipe Pedrell," Musica eenth Century Spain (Illinois Studies in Language and Literature, Vol. XXII, Nos. 1-2)
(Urbana, d'oggi IV (1922), p. 265. 18sMary Neal Hamilton, Music in EightWarren 16 H. Collet, Dictionnaire
...
,

i939, while the International Cyclopediaof

the same volume, H. Collet concludes his article on 19th-century Spanish music with the observation that, at last, Spain again exists musically, because now Eximeno's principle is "radiantly applied."16 With Collet's "quotation" of "Eximeno's principle" there begins a curious series of metamorphoses of Menendez y Pelayo's wording. In all the ensuing citations, with or without variants, the statement is associated with the name of Antonio Eximeno. Collet uses the term "chant populaire" instead of "chant national," which appears in the article by Mitjana in the Dictionnaire. Two years later (1922), another variation is introduced in an article appearing in Musica d'oggi. The author quotes the "maxim" in Spanish, but in the (Italian) language of his article interprets it to mean "the indigenous popular songs" from which national opera must stem.17 In 1937 the variant "national folk music" is used in the translation of the well-worn "maxim" given by M. N. Hamilton in i937 and by W. D. Allen in

P. 2484.

89 item is the one "national song" only listed or discussed under Eximeno's name, and occasionally it is even repeated in the listing under the name of Pedrell. The end result of bandying about the worn-out refrain in truncated and mutilated form has been to charge Eximeno with a theory of musical composition akin to that of the Russian Five.20 In reality, Eximeno's respect for the popular forms and themes was, at best, minimal. While praising the extraordinary musicality of the Italian people, he states, nevertheless, that they frequently err in matters of taste and judgment. "But when have the [common] people been wise in their judgments?"21 In Eximeno's novel, Don Lazarillo Vizcardi, Agapito, the "mad musician," invites Lazarillo to a popular festival in which the music, customs, and general level of "popular" taste so repel the guest that he can scarcely wait to return to the sanctuary of his cultured home and to his weekly evenings of select chamber music.22 What did interest Eximeno greatly were the forms and patterns of popular speech. He asserts, along with Arteaga and others, that the musicality of the Italian nation is attributable to the musical qualities of its language, vowel sounds, accent, etc. It is not the language sanctioned by academies that should determine the rhythms and accents of poetry and music, but rather the mode of expression (including grammar) "natural"

OF ANTONIO EXIMENO

Allen, Philosophies of Music History (New York, I939), . 50o; The International Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians, ed. Oscar Thompson (New York, I939), p. 516. 19 The Oxford Companion to Music, ed. Percy A. Scholes, 2nd American ed. (New Music and Musicians, ed. Eric Blom, 5th ed.
(New York, I954), Vol. II, p. 983. York, 1943), p. 890; Grove's Dictionary of

1937),

p.

255;

Dwight

Vol. I, p. 87.

20 F. Pedrell, in his Diccionario biogrdfico S. . , p. 624, states that "national song, which could establish for our nation its system, as it has gloriously done in Russia, is still, for us, a desire, an aspiration, as it was in the days of Padre Eximeno." 21 Del origen, Vol. III, pp. 227-28. 22 Don Lazarillo Vizcardi (Sociedad de Bibli6filos Espafioles, No. Io) (Madrid, I872),

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to a particular people,23 or even to a given sector of the populace. In Italy, for example, the speech pattern of the women of Rome is found to be the most beautiful of all, as well as "the most expressive and appropriate for performing an anatomy of the human heart,"24 Eximeno's equivalent for the "peindre les sentiments" concept stressed by the French Encyclop6distes in their discussions of music. In true I8th-century fashion, Eximeno feels that "our problem will then be to reduce music to a simplicity as correspondent to nature as is agreeable in practice, proving that music is a pure language having its roots almost in common with those of speech."25 The natural prosodic style of the ancient Greek dramaswhich Eximeno, in strong opposition to Martini, regarded as lyric dramas -was the ideal to which music should aspire. The "common speech" of the ancient Greeks, which was "a true song" (canto), was heightened in the great Greek drama by the use of music.26 The requisite for good music is, then, good language and great poetry. The barbarian tribes coming into a Latinized Europe brought with them harsh, guttural, consonantal tongues, which, mingled with Latin, resulted in rude linguistic confusion. With this basic "impediment" good music could not be produced. "But no musician would be capable of making a melody of good taste out of the German word melvischstapp."27 The high level of musical development in Italy is attributable not only to the inherent qualities of the Italian language but to the existence, in Ex23 Del origen, Vol. III, pp. 165-77, 209. 24 Ibid., Vol. III, p. 168. 25 Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 92-93. 26 Ibid., Vol. III, p. 219. 27 Ibid., Vol. III, pp. 114-15, 123. 'Melvischstapp' appears to be a coinage of Eximeno.

imeno's own time, of the great poet Metastasio. Where lyric poetry is moribund or of poor quality, great music cannot be created, for "prosddia or pros-ode is a Greek word which means ad-cantum [accent], and 'rules of prosody' means rules of

song."28

imeno's ideas on the relation of lancomprehensible.29Divorced from the

It is, perhaps, with respectto Ex-

guage and poetry to music that the implication of "national song" is

linguistic sense of accent (ad-cantus) and in its general musical application to voice and tonal quality.30 Thus, with the additional attribute of "nacional," it refers to the way in which a particular nation produces the sounds of speech and song. Each nation, because of its particular ethos, will express its ideas and emotions in a characteristic manner.3' It is, perhaps, this national character, reflected in melody-the direct melody of speech or the indirect melody of song32-that the two great scholars, writing in the Historia de las ideas
28 Ibid., Vol. III, p. 219. 29 Although the "canto nacional" item appears in the course of his discussion of Eximeno's Del origen, there is always the possibility that M. y Pelayo found such an implication, or even the term itself, in another work or document by Eximeno known to him and to A. Barbieri. 30 In MU'sica en Vol. III, la sociedad ..., p. 168, A. Salazar uses thus the word canto in reference to Eximeno, who "proceeds from the Jacobin criterion of music born in the spirit of language (song [canto] as accent, as ad cantus . ."). 31 Eximeno follows the view of Montesquieu concerning the effect of climate on culture, language, etc., and uses it to sing a paean to his beloved Valencia. See Del origen, Vol. III, pp. 2, 176. 32 Don Lazarillo Vizcardi, Vol. II, pp. 6364. "The voice of speech is direct, that of song [canto] a reflection or echo."

conceptof "folksong"or "national song,"the fundamental meaningof "cantonacional" derivesfirst from the Spanish word cantoin its broad

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TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING

OF ANTONIO EXIMENO

91

estiticas, thought to be implied by Eximeno as a basis for the writing of music appropriate or "natural" to each nation. Typically searching for a kind of Newtonian psychological law to unify all the differences of mankind, Eximeno stresses the common origin of all of man's expression. He recognizes the existence of differences among nations with regard to music, but those nations all "use the same chords, the same harmony and the same scale.... Man must have within himself the origins of music, which ... come from instinct, as does language."33 Impugning the view of music as a mathematical science and scoffing, in the prologue to Del origen, at the blind pedantry of traditional musicians with their "little lessons in counterpoint," Eximeno sought to create a modern philosophy of music, the basis of which was to be man's nature and the ultimate criteria those of good taste. To those who criticized him for "never having been at the head of a choir, scaring flies out of the church," he replied in the same prologue that "with regard to [musical] theory, I address myself to the philosophers, and with regard to practice, to the young lovers of music." It was in this light that Eximeno was seen by his contemporary and compatriot, the distinguished philosopher Juan Andr6s, who praised Eximeno for being "sufficiently well-versed in mathematics and in music to know intimately the nature of each, and a philosopher sincere enough to have the courage of his own opinions. . ... ,34 While the "national song" legend has been falsely memorialized and
34 Juan Andr6s, Dell' origine . . . d'ogni letteratura (Rome, 1782-98), p. 283.

publicized in connection with Eximeno's name, an authentic and significant work on music written by Eximeno in the later years of his life has been relegated almost to oblivion. Don Lazarillo Vizcardi exists in only one edition, that of 1872, issued 64 years after the author's death.35 It is listed in some histories of Spanish literature among the imitations of Cervantes's Don Quijote, but it is omitted by more. Its fate in music histories is even worse. Of the literary historians, the only one who treats Don Lazarillo extensively is Menendez y Pelayo, and his critique fails to do it justice.36F. Pedrell and the Dictionnaire du Conservatoire echo the views and words of Menendez y Pelayo.3 Only A. Barbieri, in his study and biography of Eximeno which prefaces Don Lazarillo, finds the novel meritorious, while N. Otafio praises "the Cervantes of the books of musical chivalry" for his wit and for his ideas on sacred music. Don Lazarillo is, first and foremost, a restatement in fictional form of the author's already known ideas on mu35 Don Lazarillo Vizcardi: Sus investigaciones muisicas con ocasi6n del concurso a un magisterio de capilla vacante (Sociedad de

Bibli6filos Espafioles, No. io) (Madrid, I87273), 2 vols. See Henri Collet, Le mysticisme
musical espagnol

for a quotation from Don Lazarillo, attributed to the reedition made by the Sociedad de Bibli6filos Espafioles. Eximeno had completed the novel in 1802 and submitted it for publication in I8o6. Because of the crises prevalent in Spain during the Napoleonic era, publication was not achieved. The reddition is probably the form in which the Sociedad finally published it in 1872. 36 See M. y Pelayo, Estudios de critica histdrica y literaria (Buenos Aires, 1944), Vol. IV, p. 62. "As a novel, D. Lazarillo is not

(Paris,

1913),

p. 82, n. 6,

only bad but detestable." And, p. 63, " one of the worst imitations made of Cervantes [Don Quijote]. The very idea of teaching music in the form of a novel is too absurd.
37 F. Pedrell. Diccionario biogrdfico .

3a Del origen, Vol. I, p. 165.

p. 633.

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SOCIETY JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL

sic.38 That Eximeno considered his renewed acquaintance with the very novel importantis borne out by the conservative church music and choirfact that the idea of such a venture masters in the place of his birth and the actual working out of the might have given Eximeno further book occupiedhis thoughtsfor many impetus for completing this work.40 years. He alludes to it thus, on the Don Lazarillo is wrought out of Eximeno's indignation at the lingering opening page of his Apologia de ... Cervantes:"The Musical Investiga- dominance that the Baroque writers tions of Don LazarilloVizcardi. . , and theorists maintained over the becauseof the fact that it is volumi- music of his day. The novel is cast nous, and becauseof the author'sde- chiefly in the form of dialogues, set sire to correct it again and clarify it forth in the edition of the Sociedad with copious notes relating to the de Bibli6filos Espafioles, in numbered history of music, ancient and mod- paragraphs within each chapter. The plot concerns the filling of a ern, has not yet seen the light of day." He also asserts that since he vacancy in the position of choironly wears the "masqueof a novel- master in the cathedral of a "mariist," he brings forth his book with time city in Spain."41Three contesthe greatest trepidation, especially tants present themselves for the since even such an old handat novel- competition-each representing a writing as Cervantes had suffered very different level and school of harshtreatmentfrom the critics. musical preparation. Don Narciso Eximenoprobablybeganthe writ- Ribelles, a Catalonian, is the modern ing of Don Lazarilloin Rome, where musician, fresh from Madrid and imhe also completed it. Meanwhile, bued with the latest and best (Exhowever, there came into the life of imeno's) concepts of his art. Mos6n Eximeno an agreeable interlude of Juan, another contestant, is a very two years in his native Valencia.39 intelligent musician, curious about During this time, he renewed his ac- every aspect of the art, but strictly quaintancewith family, friends, and schooled by an excellent teacher (the the Spanish tongue. (Don Lazarillo defunct choirmaster) in the compliis the only major work written in For accounts of the extreme conservatism Spanish by Eximeno. His earlier 40 Spanish church music, particularly in the works on mathematics,philosophy, of Valencian school, see A. Araiz, Historia de la etc., were written in Latin, as was mzsica religiosa en Espaila (Barcelona, 1742), much of his skillfully composed po- p. 163; H. Eslava y Elizondo, Breve memoria histdrica de la mdsica religiosa en Espaia etry. His works on music-the Dell' (Madrid, I86o), pp. 82-83, 96; Mary N. Haorigine, Dubbio, and variouspolemi- milton, Music in Eighteenth Century Spain, cal writings-were written in Ital- pp. 11-12, 118, 198-99, 206-8, 237-39; W. H. Hadow, in The Oxford History of Music (Oxian.) It has also been suggested that ford, I904), Vol. V, pp. 178-82; F. Pedrell,
knew an earlier musical satire, Johann Kuhnau's Der musikalische Quack Salber (Dresden, 17oo). In another important and neglected work, his Apoldgia de Miguel de Cervantes (Madrid, 18o6), Eximeno speaks of D. Lazarillo as a "fhbula" in which the knotted web of related events spun by the hero, Lazarillo, is untied in the felicitous resolution of the tale. 39 J. Pastor Fdister, Biblioteca valenciana, p.
322.

38 One can only wonder whether Eximeno

o18-9. 41 For accounts of actual competitions of the time, see Mary N. Hamilton, op. cit., pp.

Mdsica sacro-hispana

A. Eximeno, p. 65; N. Otafio, "A. Eximeno,"

(June, 1914), pp.

de capilla en Espafia durante el siglo XVIII,"

Anuario musical II

2oo-I

; Jose Artero, "Oposiciones (1947),

al magisterio

Artero states that the competition held in 1789 for the coveted position of chapelmaster at Salamanca (won by Manuel Jos6 Doyagiie) was the prototype of all those contests and of the one used by Eximeno in D. Lazarillo.

pp.

I91-202.

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TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OFANTONIO EXIMENO

93

cated theories of plainsong and counterpoint. A third competitor is D. Candido Raponso, who is ludicrously "Gothic" in his following of all the artifices of the old florid polyphonic school until, at the end, he changes his ways, and even his identity. The real villains are Pablo Nasarre42 and Pietro Cerone, especially the latter, who with his Melopeo y maestro,43 has not only impeded musical progress in Spain but has, with reference to this novel, caused Agapito Quit6les to become demented. Agapito, a poor, deluded soul, has abandoned his real vocation for the priesthood to become a church musician, a calling for which by temperament, natural endowment, and education he is thoroughly unsuited. The hero is called Lazarillo, a name probably derived from Lazarillo de Tormes and eminently appropriate to his dual function as apprentice and leader in matters musical. He is the gifted son of an intelligent, cultured bourgeois of Italian ancestry who is sufficiently affluent to be free from most mundane cares. Father and son are passionately devoted to the improvement of men's minds-in this instance, particularly of Agapito's. Lazarillo, under the tutelage of Ribelles and further guided by his own good taste and intelligence, is able to lead those who, blinded by ignor42 Pablo Nasarre

author of Fragmentos muisicos . . . and the Escuela muisica segtin la prdctica moderna, is the butt of many of Eximeno's jibes and the cause of Agapito's almost fatal illness, since it was Nasarre's theory of audible celestial harmonies that sent Agapito out on a cold evening in an attempt to hear the music of the spheres.
43 Pietro Cerone

(1664-1724),

the

blind

melopeo y el maestro, set down, in encyclopedic form and proportions, the musical knowledge and practices of his day. Throughout D. Lazarillo Eximeno mocks Cerone's pedantry, his presumptuousness, and, above all, his emphasis upon training in difficult types of enigmatic canons.

(1566-1613?),

in his El

ance, incompetence, prejudice, and stupidity, have clung to the old forms and styles of composition. Even Agapito is cured, finally, of his Ceronesque obsessions, but not until chills and a fever, contracted atop a mountain as he was attempting to listen for the harmony of the spheres, have brought him to the verge of death. [The Dictionnaire du Conservatoire errs again on pp. 2216-17, where it reports Agapito's demise.] The novel ends upon a note of complete optimism based, perhaps, on the I8th-century belief in man's fundamental reasonableness and perfectibility. Each of the three contestants gets the treatment he merits, and Lazarillo establishes a kind of academy for the study and performance of the best music being written for voice and for instruments. He also provides a note of perfect connubial bliss when he weds the intelligent and musically gifted Dofia Julia, whose incisive wit and cantabile voice had caused in him many a skipped beat of the heart. One of the most interesting and sympathetic portraits drawn in this novel is that of Padre Diego, who, Eximeno himself tells us, represents Padre Martini."4He is the possessor of great depth, insight, and knowledge and is open-minded with regard to a point of view (Lazarillo's and Rib6lles's) far less conservative than his own. Highest praise and admiration are accorded his library, in which Lazarillo and Rib6lles find constant evidence of his learning and catholicity.45 It is, perhaps, this view, rather than that taken in the earlier years of the Dubbio and the Efemeridi, that is more truly indica44 D. Lazarillo, Vol. II, pp. 91, 354. 45Ibid., p. 85. Martini's library is, of course, now the basis of the library of the Liceo Musicale in Bologna.

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tive of the ultimate regard in which each of these antagonists in musical theory held the other. (In a fascinating chapter in his study of Arteaga, M. Batllori describes how the good offices of Arteaga were used to affect a reconciliation between Martini and Eximeno and quotes a moving and humble letter from Eximeno to Martini in which the former, deeply touched by the latter's request for his portrait, to be included in a collection of portraits of illustrious musicians, expresses his esteem and admiration for one whom he never really thought of as a personal antagonist.) 46 In accord with the taste and fashion of his time, Eximeno has written a didactic novel in which the dialogue form is used as a vehicle for the conveying of all his tenets and for passing in review several of his earlier works. Totally different from the 19th-century novel of ideas, Don Lazarillo is an interesting example of how the passion for ideas in the Age of Enlightenment created art forms suitable for their expression. In the 17th century, the infinitely creative pen of Cervantes had found a unique art form in which to set forth his principles. If Eximeno, the philosopher, mathematician, and theorist, chose, two centuries later, to use certain segments of the framework and selected portions of the (anecdotal) material for the creation of a palatable exposition of his musical ideas, he need scarcely be accused of writing a bad novel or possessing the temerity to try imitating one of the best ones ever written. Eximeno gives every evidence of knowing Don Quijote intimately and of perceiving clearly some of the novel's fundamental proportions and purpose. He himself declared that such a work is
46

inimitable and pointed out that bad attempts had been made at imitating it.4' One can imagine with what delight Eximeno, always interested first in a theory and then in its application,48 must have taken certain characters, episodes, humorous incidents, and even types of verbal humor from his beloved Don Quijote and recast them in the form of music lessons. In the opening pages of Don Lazarillo, for example, Eximeno follows Cervantes's procedure in pretending to despair of being able to write a prologue.49 The musical library of Agapito, the demented musician, suffers the kind of scrutiny, pillaging, and burning suffered by the fiction library of Don Quijote.50 In both, the book-burning and other episodes in which books are discussed serve as a means of presenting criticism-for Eximeno, of works on music, and for Cervantes, of works of imaginative literature. They serve, too, as a pretext for the introduction of other works by Cervantes and Eximeno. Don Lazarillo and Don Quijote contain a chapter each on the theater. Each author takes a strong stand on the content, function, and form of the drama, and, of course, on the always burning issue of the three unities.51 With regard to the characterization-keeping in mind all the differences in period,
47 Apologia

48 Eximeno insists throughout his works upon the primacy of theory over practice. He holds this to be true not only in art, but also in scientific matters. See Oracidn en la abertura de la Real Academia . . . de Artilleria . . . de Segovia (Madrid, 1764), PP. 3, 9, 14. 49D. Lazarillo, Vol. I, Prologue, pp. 1-3,

de . . . Cervantes,

Dedicatoria.

begins "Ben6volo o mal6volo lector. .. ." D. Quijote, Vol. I, Prologue, begins "Desocupado lector.... 50D. Lazarillo, Vol. II, p. 6; D. Quijote, Vol. I, p. 6. Vol. I, p. 48.
51 D. Lazarillo, Vol. II, p. i; D. Quijote,

M. Batllori, Arteaga, pp. xvi-xix.

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purpose, and aesthetic philosophy certain verbal errors made by Agapthat separate the two works-we ito frequently suggests the quality of find in Don Lazarillo interesting de- many of the colloquies between Don rivations, variations, and syntheses of Quijote and Sancho Panza. In dismany of the important characters in cussing Nasarre, for example, Agapthe novel of Cervantes. Thus the ito designates him, in a slip of the aging Agapito (about sixty years tongue, as "an organist by birth and old), demented by the unwarranted a blind man by profession." When purchase, study, and application of Lazarillo corrects him, Agapito the rules of florid counterpoint as apologizes for his "lipsus langue," exemplified in the obsolete works of which, Lazarillo hastens to point Cerone and Nasarre, is modelled on out, should have been "lapsus linDon Quijote, Cervantes's aging guae," Agapito counters in language knight whose madness consisted of deliberately reminiscent of Sancho: reading and living the defunct ideals "Sir Lazarillo, said Agapito, we speak and rules of chivalry. The paradox- in order to understand each other, ically complementary function of and if your grace understands me, Sancho Panza is partially assumed'lapsus linguae' is just the same as in its saner, more intelligent, and 'lingual lapsus.',"53 The episode in kindlier aspects-by the counter- which Agapito, out walking in the of Juanito, Agapito's young Plaza Mayor, encounters a puppet figure and talented nephew, whose passion show and mistakes the puppets and for that "sensuous" instrument, the the comedy they are representing violin, and whose derisive attitude for real people and situations, duplitoward riddle canons, crab canons, cates in its quality of slightly mad musical horoscopes, and similar ma- humor Don Quijote's reaction to terials found in Cerone and Nasarre Master Pedro's puppets. The "crisis" cause rage and consternation in his in Agapito's scene arises when one uncle. Sancho's more broadly hu- of the puppets, dressed as a captain, morous antics are assumed by a num- silences the music of the flageolets ber of minor, picaresque figures. accompanying a funeral procession In many episodes-but, of course, as being "good only for dancing the always for the purpose of his didactic fandango." "Upon my word, you rather than "imaginary"52 tale-Exlie," shouted Agapito from his place, imeno handles, with evident relish, "and don't make me return to your some of the broadly humorous inci- gullet the blasphemy you have just dents created by Cervantes as well as spewed forth; that flageolet music is some of his characteristic comic de- written in the second mode, which vices of a linguistic nature. Thus, the is the mode of the dead, as you will manner in which Lazarillo corrects have to confess. . . ." 5 As a final illustration of a broadly humorous incident reminiscent of one in Don 52 In his Apologia, p. 19, Eximeno consistently defends Cervantes against the critic, Quijote, one might select the braying V. de los Rios, on the grounds that Don episode, which, in Eximeno's novel, Quitote, being a work of the imagination, exists only in an imaginary time "of the same proves the asininity of those musinature as his story." In response to criticisms cians who try to put into practice concerning incongruities of place, Eximeno replies that "such an objection could be made only by a schoolboy who has not yet learned the meaning of the word fdbula" (p. 26). 53 D. Lazarillo, Vol. I, p. 5. 54 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 4; D. Quijote, pp. 25-27. Vol. II,

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the theories of Cerone.55 If this episode foregoes the political and transcendentalsignificanceof the braying of the governors in Cervantes's novel, it does partakeof the humor of its circumstanceand the irony of its intention.In this episode,Agapito enliststhe servicesof Juanitoin testing a riddle canon he has written in praise of Cerone.The motto is Vox canentis in deserto, the words are What sweet harmonyis filteredfrom his lips, and the figure is that of an ass looking up at the sky, openmouthed,in the act of braying.The The canon consistsof four measures. first gives the notes for singing What sweet harmony . . . , the second is blank and representsthe desert, the third has the notes for singing is filtered from ... , and the fourth is blank,like the second. When Juanito enters and hears his uncle's "braying," he mocks him and declareshe would have filled in the blank measures with pig grunts rather than donkey brayings-the former being lower (mads fundamental) than the latter. The point of this canon is to guess from the motto that in the blank measuressomething is to be
55 D Lazarillo, Vol. II, p. 3; D. Quijote, Vol. II, pp. 25, 27.

sung: Vox canentisin deserto.What is to be sung, of course, is the note indicated by the donkey figure. Agapito exclaims that anyone who did not understandthis would have to be as much of a donkey as his nephew. This is but one of the innumerable senepisodesin which the rationalist, Antonio sationalist, Spanish abbot, Eximeno, assails those who, in his opinion,deny-by their complicated, intellectualized,and essentially "visual"teachingand writing of music-the fact that music is an aural art, composed of melody and harmony, which has as its chief and simple aim the heighteningof the expressionof emotions. Don Lazarillo Vizcardimerits the attention of scholars in the field of music and of letters for its significance in the history of aestheticsand for its interesting and purposeful manner of evoking and alluding to Cervantes. It most certainly has a superior claim over the highly dubious "national song" motif to be counted as an important contribution to I8th-century thought made by Antonio Eximeno.
NewarkColleges
Rutgers University

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