Hanacpachap cussicuinin

The story

"Hanacpachap cussicuinin" is a processional hymn to the Virgin Mary in the Quechua language of central Peru, written in a largely European style of sacred music. It was composed between 1620 and 1631 by Juan Pérez de Bocanegra, a Franciscan priest who was also chief examiner of native languages for the Archdiocese of Cuzco, and published in 1631 in the Viceroyalty of Peru. It is the earliest work of vocal polyphony printed in the New World.

The hymn first appeared in Bocanegra's Ritual, formulario e institución de curas, a handbook for priests in Quechua and Spanish printed in Lima by Geronymo de Contreras in 1631; the hymn itself is in Quechua only, without a translation. The four-part score stands on pages 708 and 709 with the first verse beneath it, and the other verses follow on pages 710 to 712. On page 707 Bocanegra says that he wrote the prayer in Sapphic verse in Quechua in honour of the Immaculate Virgin, set for four voices so that cantors could sing it in processions, on entering the church, and on Our Lady's days and feasts. Some have doubted his authorship, pointing to a harmonic slip in the music that a trained editor of choral works would hardly have made, and suggesting another author or a native musician; the slip could as well be a copying or printing error, and since the book carries his name throughout, his authorship is generally accepted.

The hymn has twenty verses, each of five eight-syllable lines and a closing four-syllable phrase, set strophically to the same music. It is written for four voices, treble, alto, tenor and bass, moving together syllable by syllable in the harmony of Renaissance church music. Its rhythm falls into groups of 3+3+4+3+3+4 with lilting syncopations, close to the cachua, a native dance, and suggests a slow procession. It has been called the musical counterpart of the paintings of the Cuzco school.

Since the early 1990s the hymn has been recorded widely by choirs and early-music ensembles around the world. Most performances use only a few of the verses to avoid repetition; Ex Cathedra under Jeffrey Skidmore issued the first complete version in 2007.

What it says

An ode to the Virgin Mary, built on images of love and nature drawn from Quechua culture. Its titles for Mary can be read both as orthodox Catholic praise and as a continuation of older Andean religion; two names for the Pleiades, a sign of fertility, stand out, while a third, linked with the Taki Unquy movement, may have been avoided on purpose.

The words