From Serra to Sancho: Music and Pageantry in the California Missions by Craig H. Russell (review)

In a 1970s liturgical magazine an article appeared entitled "Pocahontas Never Sang Gregorian Chant," never considering the fact that she was baptized in the Church of England. Over many years of research on American Catholic church music the title has amused me as I have come across example after example of Native American Catholics employing chant, from the Mohawk and Passamaquoddy tribes of the Northeast to the missions of California. Although there have been important studies of the music of the Franciscan missions of California before, Craig Russell has produced what must be called a library of materials concerning musical life in and around the missions. The work is extensively documented. For example, chapter one contains thirty-five pages of text followed by twenty pages of footnotes. In addition, Oxford University Press maintains on their website an extensive array of additional documentation and resources collected by the author. In spite of this, the author says that he chose to write "a human narrative" rather than an encyclopedia. He has, in my opinion, actually succeeded at both.

The title of this book refers to two Franciscan missionaries, Blessed Junipero Serra, the friar who founded and oversaw the Catholic missions in what is today the state of California, and Juan Bautista Sancho, in the author's estimation one of the most important musicians working in the early nineteenth century missions. The Franciscans took over the missions in Baja California after King Carlos III of Spain ordered the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1768. These missions were soon handed over to the Dominicans while the Franciscans headed north to Alta California. Serra worked in the missions from the foundation of San Diego in 1769 until his death in 1784 at the Carmel Mission. Sancho arrived in Mexico from Europe in 1803 and worked in the Mission of San Antonio de Padua from shortly thereafter until his death in 1830.

It is entirely possible that no one reader would be interested in every aspect of Russell's work. Conversely most everyone would find something of interest within its vast range. The introduction is a fine overview of the historiography of the California missions and would be a useful reading in American history and American Catholic Studies courses. Music theorists would find the second chapter of particular interest with its discussion of notation and modes. Historical musicologists will be fascinated by the presence of orchestral masses in early European classical style and the extensive manuscript research the author presents. Ethnomusicologists will find the discussion of dance and pageantry enlightening as well as the discussion of Native American music in the missions. Performers and choir directors will benefit from the performing editions of a number of mission-related works contained on the website. Historians will benefit from seeing life in the California missions in a new light and continuing this research with the many original documents and photographs included in both the book and website.

In a work of this impressive scope it is inevitable that some errors can be found, particularly in the case of Catholic theology and practice. For example, the author speaks of a mass setting used on Good Friday (311), a day when no mass in permitted in Catholic worship. In another place the author uses "adoration" and "veneration" interchangeably in regard to the Blessed Mother (303-304) when only the latter is allowed. These are, however, small errors in a generally magnificent piece of scholarship.

Average readers should not be dissuaded from reading From Serra to Sancho. They might well want to skip over some of the more technical sections of the volume, but should not overlook the photographic section of the website. Readers will encounter scenes ranging from the comic (a friar in a shed celebrating mass atop a clavichord while he accompanied himself) to the sublime (Native American orchestras at mass). Most of all, they will find the author...