Los claves coloniales de Sucre y Potosí

Abstract

By the end of the seventeenth century, the workshops established in the Jesuit missions of South America had already built an array of musical instruments for use in their reductions. Historical documents indicate that the first models of keyboard instruments brought to the region were of Flemish origin. Their original characteristics remain unchanged until the second half of the eighteenth century. Simultaneously, the established route for those destined to the regions of Charcas and Chiquitos, now Bolivia, allows us to track a similarity in instrument building among popular and native instrument workshops. A striking example is clearly noticeable in the two extant eighteenth century harpsichords from the once known as Imperial Village of Potosí and the city of La Plata, present day Sucre. Among the very small number of historical harpsichords preserved in the entire American Continent, these harpsichords differ from other surviving instruments in that they were locally built and therefore exemplify the establishment of a very defined Andean and possibly Amazonic school of harpsichord making. In addition, the panorama presented by the many period organs and other keyboard instruments such as clavichords (many of them still preserved in churches and museums throughout Bolivia), document the legacy of an unprecedented musical flourishing.