Ganir, Phillip Alcon, S.J. “Musicking in the Missions: The Indigenous Mission Opera San Francisco Xavier and Its Living Legacy.” In “Renovatio Mundi: The Jesuits as Educators in History (Proceedings of the Symposium held at Boston College, June 11–13, 2024),” ed. Cristiano Casalini, Alessandro Corsi, and A. Taiga Guterres, special issue, International Symposia on Jesuit Studies 4, no. 1 (2026): e05. https://doi.org/10.51238/ISJS.2024.05.
Research Article
Renovatio Mundi: The Jesuits as Educators in History
Part 2
Musicking in the Missions: The Indigenous Mission Opera San Francisco Xavier and Its Living Legacy
Ganir, Phillip Alcon, S.J. “Musicking in the Missions: The Indigenous Mission Opera San Francisco Xavier and Its Living Legacy.” In “Renovatio Mundi: The Jesuits as Educators in History (Proceedings of the Symposium held at Boston College, June 11–13, 2024),” ed. Cristiano Casalini, Alessandro Corsi, and A. Taiga Guterres, special issue, International Symposia on Jesuit Studies 4, no. 1 (2026): e05. https://doi.org/10.51238/ISJS.2024.05.
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Abstract
Christopher Small’s influential 1998 text Musicking argues that music is best understood not as a static object but as a social activity that involves composers, performers and listeners in creating meaning and shaping communal identity. This paper applies Small’s theory to San Francisco Xavier, one of two mission operas that survived from the Jesuit Reductions of the 17th and 18th centuries. Since Jesuits rarely composed or performed, “musicking” better describes the Society’s modo de proceder, engaging networks that catechized communities and strengthened cultural identities. Although professional musicians recorded the opera after the Guggenheim Foundation funded a major reconstruction of its deteriorating score in 2000, the 2024 performance marked the first time an indigenous ensemble performed the work in its original setting—likely the first showing in the reductions since the 1780s.
Keywords:
Jesuit music; musicking; Opéra San Francisco Xavier; reductions; catechesis; Jesuit education
Full Article
From April 19 to 28, 2024, over fifteen hundred musicians from fifteen countries gathered in Eastern Bolivia to perform 136 free concerts over ten days in twenty-two towns and cities. This was the fourteenth Biennial International Festival of Renaissance and American Baroque Music sponsored by La Asociación Pro Arte y Cultura (APAC), a non-profit cultural organization that promotes and produces artistic initiatives related to the missions the Jesuits established between 1691 and 1760. Georgetown University’s Chamber Singers—the only ensemble from a Jesuit institution—were among the invited musicians, which included groups from some of the world’s most prestigious music schools—like Juilliard and the Royal College of Music—who performed for and alongside mission orchestras. The opera was restored in 2000 by the Divine Word priest and musicologist Piotr Nawrot in collaboration with a number of language specialists in the region and with a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation. Boston College sponsored the opera premiere in San Javier and reprised it a day later in neighboring Concepción Cathedral, which also houses one of two major repositories of mission music in the region.
This performance was particularly noteworthy because the opera provides a glimpse into how Jesuits used music for evangelization. It is the only surviving opera in Bésiro—the indigenous language in the Chiquitania region of Eastern Bolivia—and this was the first time—in around two hundred years—that the residents of San Javier (as opposed to foreign professionals) performed the opera in the place for which it was originally intended.[1]
While score analysis has provided a valuable perspective into this episode of Jesuit reduction history, other musicological methods are helpful to appreciate the opera’s historical and contemporary import. Specifically, I refer to the musicologist and music educator Christopher Small (1927–2011), who articulated his theory called “Musicking”—the notion that music is better understood as a verb, rather than a noun. This does not negate the importance of the musical manuscript but instead provides a window into the context of music-making and the network of relationships that the music inspires.[2]
Small’s idea is particularly helpful when it comes to the study of Jesuits and music in the reductions because the Jesuits who composed and taught music were relatively few in number. In fact, as I will argue, Small’s “musicking” more accurately describes their modo de proceder (mode of proceeding) and how Jesuits used music for evangelization in the reductions.[3] Viewed from this lens, we not only appreciate the musical compositions and the historical contexts in which the music was performed but also the communities who promoted and sustained musical activity—especially after the Jesuits were expelled. In other words, while score analysis asks about form, structure, and sound, a musicking analysis sensitizes us to the world beyond the score and asks: “What does it mean when this performance takes place at this time, in this place, with these participants?”[4] Musicking also sensitizes one to processes, and also, to change. What was the story that led to a given performance? To what extent does its meaning shift over time?
Such a musicking dynamic is noticeable in the case of the Bolivian reductions, which continue to exist today and where Jesuit music has experienced a renaissance over the past thirty years, unlike the reductions in neighboring Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina, many of which lie in ruins or have completely disappeared.[5] Moreover, the recent reconstruction and performance of San Francisco Xavier provides a helpful hermeneutic to understand more fully how music was not only a vehicle to transmit doctrine but also a method for strengthening communal identities and preserving cultural heritages.
After setting the historical context, I will briefly outline the salient features of Small’s musicking theory; I will then show how this study adds to the growing scholarship on Jesuits and music before tracing the development of the score’s restoration and showing how the score illuminates musicking in the missions. The paper’s fifth and final section illustrates how the score animates contemporary dynamics of musicking through the most recent performance of this opera.
Setting the Historical Context: Key Dates
The development of San Francisco Xavier takes place in the context of the rich history of the Jesuit reductions in Bolivia, which were the last set of missions they established in South America before the papal suppression of 1773. These missions are particularly distinct because they were influenced by Jesuits from the Peru and Paraguay provinces, though ultimately, the Paraguay province—which included modern-day Argentina—took fiscal and pastoral responsibilities for the Eastern Bolivian region.
Table 1 outlines the major events of this episode of reduction history—with special emphasis on the following Jesuit musicians: Anton Sepp, Martin Schmid, Florian Pauke, and Domenico Zipoli, who was the most famous of the group but died before he reached the Bolivian missions. While the composer is anonymous, it is likely that Schmidt may have been influential in the opera’s development.
Expanding Jesuit Historiography with Musicking
When Small published Musicking in 1998, he was already seventy-one and retired from his active work as a music educator and musicologist. And while Small did not actively seek to establish a research “method” per se, it was this book, written after years of experience as a musician, scientist, and entrepreneur, that highlighted the importance of performance as the locus of meaning (as opposed to the Western musicological convention of emphasizing score analysis). For him, subordinating performance to score analysis impoverishes music and perpetuates four related corollaries that Small challenges. I will present the arguments here to help us appreciate the historical landscape of musicking in the missions but also how the same towns incorporate musicking practices into their own cultural identities.
The first corollary maintains that the process of creation does not impact the performance; it is simply the medium by which the composer communicates their intention to the listener.[6] Consider the opening iconic motif to Beethoven’s fifth symphony: G-G-G-E flat. The short-short-short-long pattern set to the key of C minor became famously known as Beethoven’s “fate knocking at the door,” which has become a staple in the Western classical music canon. Most are familiar with the tune, but it requires music literacy to appreciate its import. Small finds this problematic because to focus exclusively on score reading risks an exclusivism that eclipses the fact that much of the world’s music is not expressed through scores. Moreover, how a musician plays a composition also determines how it is received. Simply consider how two conductors can yield two completely different interpretations of Beethoven’s motif. Small’s critique will be important to keep in mind when we examine the restoration of San Francisco Xavier. While Nawrot and his team worked to reconstruct the opera, it is also helpful to imagine what people might have added or improvised beyond the score.
Small proposes and challenges a second corollary: musical performance is generally regarded as a “one-way system of communication”—running from composer to individual listener, mediated through the performer.[7] Seen in this light, the composer’s intention weighs heavily in appreciating the meaning of the musical performance. The danger in this assumption is that listeners do not have anything to bring to this conversation, nor do they play a role in shaping musical meaning. Interaction between performer and the score is non-existent. Yet, as we will see, Small creates space for performers to bring their own meaning into the work in order to appropriate the piece for their own cultural and faith identities.
Third, a performance cannot exceed the quality of the work. Or put differently, a poorly composed piece of music cannot yield a good performance.[8] Small vehemently rejects this idea by stating that a superior performer has the ability to turn the most mundane piece of music into a work of art and even has the capacity to improve upon it. This idea will become particularly important in examining San Francisco Xavier’s score. While the melody is simple and harmonically basic, it still provides a window into how contemporary audiences find meaning in performance.
And finally, the fourth corollary is that each musical work is autonomous, and that it exists without “necessary reference to any occasion, any ritual or any set of religious, political or social beliefs.”[9] In light of our Beethoven example—to take this fourth corollary to its extreme—the symphony’s context bears little meaning in relation to its notes. It is of little consequence that when Beethoven premiered the work in 1808, it was met with little fanfare, and that gradually it became regarded as a staple within the Western musical canon, even amid political turmoil, which complicated his relationship with Napoleon, and his own personal struggles with an encroaching deafness.[10]
Small did not write from a religious or theological perspective, but he was conscious of the harm of untethering the piece from its own context, which diminishes music’s creative power. Thus it was necessary to understand its role within the greater context of meaning-making. As we will see, for this Jesuit opera, Small’s insight will be particularly helpful in appreciating its role within the context of mission life.
To place music into the realm of activity does not weaken the role of the score but frees it from traditional methodological approaches that concentrate on its objectivity at the risk of forgetting music’s social and religious nature.
“Jesuita non cantat” (A Jesuit Does Not Sing): The Paradoxical Relationship Between Jesuits and Music
Small’s methodology also converges at a point where Jesuit scholars have been reexamining the role of music within the order’s own history, as we cannot necessarily assume that the study of music was a topic of scholarly inquiry. In fact, thanks to the axiom “Jesuita non cantat,” the idea of “Jesuits and music” has become something of a joke in certain circles.[11] And there is good reason to hold such a view. Ignatius wrote nothing to support the development of music curriculum or singing. In fact, he became known for arguing successfully against the common chanting of the Divine Office—a radically unconventional idea when the order was founded in 1540. Unlike their monastic and mendicant cousins, Jesuits have not developed a reputation for investing heavily in the musical patrimony of the church, even though evidence suggests otherwise.
When Jesuits undertook the ministry of education and developed a corresponding international network of schools, music gradually became an important part of religious instruction for many of these institutions, particularly for those based in cities. Along with dance and theater, these schools and their neighboring churches became centers for music and the arts, a natural extension of the order’s commitment to studia humanitatis—an educational innovation that essentially fused the classics of the pagan tradition with Ignatius’s spiritual vision. Despite Ignatius’s reservations about chant, Jesuits have never hesitated in employing the best maestri di cappella for their institutions. In addition to music’s educational benefit, early Jesuits recognized how music had become an effective medium for promoting Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises, his series of meditations to deepen one’s relationship with Christ.
Yet up until the twentieth century, historical scholarship generally reflected the common assumption that Ignatius and the early Jesuits did not engage music seriously. The histories of Joseph de Guibert, S.J. and William Bangert, S.J., considered standard texts in Jesuit history, do not list “music” or “art” in their indexes.[12] However, that view started to change in the 1970s with landmark English-language studies that not only shifted the way Ignatius and the early Jesuits’ relation to the arts was understood but also countered the assumption that “disassociated the Society of Jesus from a vibrant musical tradition.”[13] Here, it will be important to survey the scholarship of three Jesuit musicologists and their impact on the historiography of mission music literature.
Thomas Culley, S.J., and C. J. [Clement James] McNaspy, S.J.
When both Culley and McNaspy earned doctorates in musicology from Harvard and Montreal, respectively, it was during a time when the order was starting to rediscover its artistic heritage. Jesuits were not generally encouraged to study music and the arts but were instead missioned for other fields such as philosophy, theology, and the humanities. It was not until a pivotal address by Superior General Pedro Arrupe (in office 1965–83), regarded as the “second founder” of the Society, that a re-commitment to the arts started to gain traction. Given in 1972 at Mondragone, Italy, to the newly formed Jesuit Institute of the Arts, Arrupe’s address reaffirmed the critical role of the arts and reminded Jesuit scholars that its purpose was “for God’s greater glory [ . . . ] to teach [ . . . ] and [for] the formation of youth to a Christian life.”[14] Arrupe’s address not only recognized the growing interest among Jesuits in studying their artistic patrimony but also gave the field a needed push that sparked a new wave of scholarship and pastoral creativity.
Born in 1928, Culley entered the Jesuits in Grand Coteau, Louisiana, and was ordained in the summer of 1965. Vatican II (1962–65) would be concluding that December, and Culley, a new priest during a time of significant theological change, was completing his performance and musicological studies at the Juilliard School and Harvard University. His Harvard dissertation, which focused on the patrimony of Jesuits and music, would later be published in 1970, the first significant English-language study of the order’s musical enterprise.[15] That book, Jesuits and Music: A Study of the Musicians Connected with the German College in Rome during the 17th Century and of Their Activities in Northern Europe, directly challenged assumptions that music was not a priority of Ignatius and the early Jesuits:
It may seem odd to some that an entire book could be written about music and musicians at a Jesuit college [Germanicum]. Members of that Society, by and large, have no great reputation for being knowledgeable in music matters; indeed, their general incompetence and lack of interest in the area are a sort of joke in clerical circles [ . . . ]. While at present this is very nearly an accurate statement of affairs, it was not always so.[16]
Culley’s study of the Germanicum, considered a model seminary from the Tridentine reforms, shows that there was not only robust musical activity but that musical training was an intimate part of the curriculum.
One year after Culley’s book, he published a key study in the Archivum historicum Societatis Iesu with his older contemporary, McNaspy, entitled “Music and the Early Jesuits: 1540–1565.” That article unpacked the musical ethos at the founding of the order up until roughly a decade after Ignatius’s death. Like Culley’s book, the article provided a contrasting counterpoint to the narrative that many had assumed but this time applied not to Ignatius but to the early Jesuits: “As far as the art of music among members of the Society is concerned, it is generally thought not to have fared very well [ . . . ]. Such was by no means the case in the old Society, however, in which music flourished vigorously indeed.”[17]
With regard to Ignatius, Culley and McNaspy make the critical distinction that Ignatius’s being anti-choir did not necessarily translate to his being anti-music. In fact, they argue that Ignatius held music in high esteem and derived much consolation from hearing it. They cite Luis Gonçalves da Camara, who composed Ignatius’s so-called Autobiography: “He [Ignatius] derived much consolation from hearing sung Mass, vespers, and compline in a church he attended while at Manresa.”[18] Furthermore, according to Camara, Ignatius noted:
If I were to follow my taste and inclination, I would put choir and singing in the Society; but I do not do it because God our Lord has given me to understand that it is not his will. Nor does he wish to be served by us in choir, but in other matters of his service.[19]
It is critical at this point to define what Ignatius meant by “music.” The Constitutions state:
Furthermore, for the sake of decorum and propriety it is expedient that women should not enter houses or colleges but only the churches [L],[20] and that arms should not be kept in the house, nor instruments for vain purposes [M],[21] but only such instruments which are helpful toward the end which the Society seeks, the divine service and praise.[22]
Culley and McNaspy show that these constitutional regulations were made in reference to Jesuit novices in formation and were not meant for the entire Society. They argue that “the injunction is not against music, but rather against some sort of abuse of it.”[23]
Prior to the publication of “Music and the Early Jesuits,” McNaspy had already been working to build momentum for an artistic renaissance within the order. For ten years, he worked as the dean of music at Loyola University; edited the arts section of America, the Jesuit periodical; and co-founded the Jesuit Institute of the Arts, a developing association of Jesuit scholars devoted to rediscovering their order’s roots in the spirit of Vatican II. After retirement in 1980, he continued to work as a missionary and published Lost Cities of Paraguay, a monograph on the Jesuit missionary activity in the South American reductions of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. McNaspy’s attention to the Jesuit artistic enterprise would later bring more scholarly attention to Jesuits who used art and music as part of their evangelization efforts—highlighting the work of Anton Sepp, S.J., considered “the father of the Paraguayan national instrument, the harp,” as well as Domenico Zipoli, S.J., a young volunteer for the missions known for his compositional skills in orchestra and opera.[24] McNaspy later worked as a consultant to Roland Joffé’s film The Mission, which earned six Oscar nominations and one win in cinematography at the 1987 Academy Awards. Earlier that season, Ennio Morricone won the Golden Globe for Best Original Score, whose melody “Gabriel’s Oboe” captured the popular imagination of Jesuits using music as a means to evangelize. McNaspy expressed that sentiment through Manuel de Nóbrega, founder of the Brazilian Jesuit mission, who is known to have said that “‘with music and harmony of voices’ he could win all the ‘gentiles’ to Christ.”[25]
T. Frank Kennedy, S.J.
After Kennedy was ordained in 1976, his priestly ministry comprised more musical studies, which earned him an MFA from Tulane in harpsichord and a PhD in musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, exploring Jesuit music and the European tradition from 1547 to 1622. Having enjoyed the friendship and mentorship of Culley and McNaspy, Kennedy’s academic appointments led him to teaching positions at the College of the Holy Cross (Worcester) and Boston College. While in Boston, where he held many positions of leadership until his death in 2016, he became recognized as the authoritative voice on issues relating to Jesuits and music, with more than two dozen articles and music performances of the genre.
Kennedy’s legacy shaped the understanding of Jesuits and their musical patrimony in at least three major ways. First, he developed the research of McNaspy and initiated efforts to uncover and study a vast musical corpus never explored before. While Kennedy’s dissertation explicitly focused on the European tradition of the Jesuits, he contributed much to missionary efforts in South America because “new” music was being rediscovered. In fact, the recovery of manuscripts in the 1980s and 1990s in the cathedral archives in Mexico City, Guatemala City, Santa Fe de Bogotá, Sucre (Bolivia), and the Gesù Church in Rome (the Jesuit Mother Church) all contributed to Kennedy’s thesis that “mission music” needed to be a distinct genre of the more established “cathedral music.” One particular contribution of note was the re-staging of Zipoli’s little-known mission opera San Ignacio de Loyola, produced in Rome at the request of Superior General Peter-Hans Kolvenbach (g. 1983–2008) to mark the 450th death anniversary of Ignatius.
Second, Kennedy’s academic output established the Jesuits within musicological circles. His entry in the second edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians provided a concise yet comprehensive account of the musical activity of the Jesuits from their founding until their suppression in 1773. If we can begin to speak of “Jesuit music,” it is because of Kennedy’s efforts. Kennedy also nuanced music’s complicated history in the early Society. If Culley and McNaspy helped people understand that Ignatius’s anti-choir attitude was not anti-music, then Kennedy could trace why early Jesuits might have been confused by that lack of clarity from Ignatius himself. While it was clear that Ignatius had reservations about music, he made occasional exceptions. For instance, Kennedy notes that polyphony was permitted for the Mass ordinaries and the magnificat at vespers. Simple harmonization, falsobordone, was allowed for other psalms at vespers, and Gregorian chant was the default mode for everything else.[26] At times, local superiors permitted motets or sacred madrigals at liturgy, though a number among the ranks held that music was “dangerous because of its ability to stir the emotions, thereby evoking sensuality.”[27] Some also felt that while music was helpful to enriching liturgy, it could potentially also be distracting and even eclipse the reason why one came to liturgy in the first place.[28] Based on this prejudice, “music in and of itself was a dangerous thing.”[29] Yet despite such attitudes, musical activity still flourished.
Third, Kennedy’s collaboration with historian John O’Malley, S.J., not only provided a significant output of scholarship but also expanded the historical and musicological discussions outside of Jesuit and even Catholic circles. Kennedy’s training as a musicologist and O’Malley’s background as a historian proved itself a significant pairing. And given Kennedy’s role as the director of the Jesuit Institute at Boston College, they co-sponsored two significant multi-day conferences in Boston with O’Malley. The first conference, in May 1997, entitled “The Jesuits: Culture, Learning and the Arts, 1540–1773,” brought together the growing number of scholars who studied the early Jesuits in their respective disciplines. That conference represented a significant landmark in the understanding of the early Jesuits because of the breadth and scope of the work. Most were not affiliated with Jesuit colleges and institutions, and some were not themselves Catholic or Christian. The proceedings were so significant that they published a volume of essays through the University of Toronto Press in 1999. A second conference, organized in 2002, continued to capitalize on the growing interest among scholars in “Jesuit studies” and in 2006 produced its proceedings in a second volume of essays also published by the University of Toronto Press. In both conferences, Kennedy infused his musicological contributions with the spirituality of the order’s Ignatian spirit, its modo de proceder. Consider Kennedy’s emphasis of mission in light of Vatican II and General Congregation 31:
As John O’Malley has noted, the word “mission” is popular today. Almost everyone has a mission, and a wide variety of modern institutions will provide the public with their mission statements. While the secular usage of the word certainly stems from the ecclesiastical one, the word mission did not generally acquire its contemporary sense until the sixteenth century [ . . . ] for the Jesuits, function was always central and it was located in that sense of mission that was rediscovered and renewed by them in the age of their own beginnings.[30]
Central to that mission is the theme of reconciliation. In Kennedy’s “Candide and a Boat,” he discusses Voltaire’s Candide, a fictional account of Jesuits venturing into the “exotic New World,” and that of a boat representing the Jesuit desire to evangelize despite criticism from the Paraguayan reducciones. Kennedy articulates music as part of a “mission” and places these developments in light of understanding the “Other,” a movement in which Kennedy argues that people are becoming “increasingly aware [of their] cultures and histories.”[31] Kennedy’s use of Voltaire’s Candide is not accidental. It is representative of the type of reconciliation that took place between classic Western canons and the humanistic movement of the sixteenth century with the Jesuits. Kennedy argues that this “movement” was also characteristic of the missions:
What one discovers in the extant repertory is a continual process of reconciliation. One discovers a linking of the Western present with the Western or classical past, as well as an attempt to link the Western present with newly encountered non-Western cultures [ . . . ] there is evidence that not only the Jesuit musical tradition but the whole approach to the fine arts within the Society follows the same principle, with the result that the fine arts in Jesuit corporate culture become a way of conveying meaning that binds and reconciles.[32]
Kennedy’s collaboration with O’Malley not only broadened the former’s professional platform but also gave him language by which to refract and reframe the Jesuit musical enterprise within the language of mission and themes of reconciliation.
Historiography Beyond Jesuits: Daniele Filippi
While Jesuits have not produced significant musicological research on the topic since Kennedy’s death in 2016, the scholarship has not diminished. In fact, Italian musicologist Daniele Filippi collaborated closely with Kennedy and the Jesuit Institute at Boston College. Though Filippi does not study Jesuits and music exclusively, he has emerged as an authoritative voice on its historiography and provides a bridge between Jesuits and lay scholars. In 2012, four years prior to Kennedy’s death, Filippi investigated the soundscape of early modern Catholicism, which critically examined musical sources in liturgy, missiology, and popular music in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Those investigations yielded articles in 2015 and 2016 on how early modern Jesuits taught the catechism through singing;[33] and also how Jesuits used their global network to disseminate and promote devotional music.[34]
In 2016, Brill Publishers invited Filippi to serve as a guest editor for the third volume of their Journal of Jesuit Studies, which aimed to show how Jesuits were intimately involved with the use of music in their work, which “covered the full spectrum of the classical threefold motto: docere–deletare–movere (to teach, to delight, and to move).”[35] Featuring seven scholars who published six articles, the volume provided a global perspective—refracted through musicological and ethnomusicological lenses—illustrating how Jesuits penetrated Catholicism’s peripheries through a novel sonic landscape. Emanuele Colombo concluded that issue with a timely interview with Ennio Morricone, whose soundtrack from The Mission played a tremendous role in capturing the Jesuit enterprise in the reductions. On a more poignant note, Kennedy’s contribution to that volume would be among his last publications.
Most helpful for our purposes is Filippi’s “Retrieving the Sounds of the Old Society: For a History of Historiography on Jesuits and Music” published and maintained online by Brill. Here, Filippi traces the development of Jesuit musicologists, takes stock of recent musicological studies from a wide variety of non-Jesuit scholars, and provides his own assessment of where the scholarship might continue to deepen. While Filippi’s scope is global, he discusses the pioneering work of historian Guillermo Fúrlong, S.J. and musicologist Samuel Claro, who have expanded the subfield of reduction music, along with the critical work of scholars Bernardo Illario, Leonardo Waisman, Gerardo Huseby, and Irma Ruiz, who have infused their musicological and ethnomusicological methods with a postcolonial framework to help us interpret the legacy of Jesuit music and the complex landscape by which it is received today.[36] Since many of those scores have been lost, or are in the process of being restored and performed, investigating how such music is received becomes an important point for scholarly consideration.
Rediscovering the Opera
In the final scene of Joffé’s The Mission, a surviving Guaraní girl retrieves a violin awash on the riverbank and carries it into a boat where she and other children leave for a new settlement. While that chapter in mission history ended with those reductions destroyed, Joffé implies that music would somehow endure in their future. Westerners, however, did not know what the music sounded like. People assumed that the scores were also lost with the order’s suppression. In fact, when Morricone composed the film’s soundtrack, he had to make educated musical guesses and be particularly mindful of reflecting the spirit of that encounter. His fusion of Western forms and indigenous sounds yielded a score that has become an enduring album.
Musicologist Samuel Claro was the first scholar who became acquainted with mission repertoire—as early as the 1960s. And providentially, around the time of the filming of The Mission in the 1980s, elders started sharing their scores with musicologists, which eventually included Kennedy and Nawrot. As the sheets deteriorated from paper-eating worms (carcomidos), and as the music became more culturally valuable, they had to be collected and protected from theft. Eventually, Nawrot became the primary driving force in the restoration, publication, and promotion of this music—more than twelve thousand pages—which is now collected in two major archives: San Ignacio Moxos in Beni and Concepción Cathedral in Chiquitos. His sustained commitment has earned him international acclaim, including an honorary doctorate from The Catholic University of America’s commencement in May 2024.
Before seeing the Moxos manuscripts, Nawrot recalled his encounter with the local elders. “For three hours they questioned me about my faith, my religion,” Nawrot explained. This “complete reversal of roles,”[37] he reflects, points to the significance of music in their lives: “It was like the Ark for the Jews; no matter where they moved, they took this sacred music. For them this music is not just sound and harmony—this is the history of their sacred salvation.”[38] In collaboration with local leaders, Nawrot has produced more than a dozen publications and has more projects on the horizon to “last more than a lifetime,” he explains.[39]
Moreover, Nawrot’s role as the artistic director of APAC and his pastoral work as priest provide him a unique position to reanimate and reconnect this music with Bolivians themselves—as opposed to relegating this repertoire strictly to the music libraries of professional ensembles and conservatory students specializing in the growing field of mission baroque. APAC has, for instance, financed music education programs and the construction of instruments so that most of the missions have functioning choirs and orchestras as they did during the reduction era.
APAC’s “Baroque Sunday” initiative pairs mission ensembles with participating parishes so that Bolivian Catholics might have a sense of their musical heritage. For Nawrot, grounding this music in worship is an essential dimension to understanding its soul: it reveals people’s lived faith. San Francisco Xavier may not be a liturgical piece, but it is a devotional one.
Overview of the Restored Score
Table 2 summarizes the major movements of the score along with the characters, its general musical tone, and the key and time signatures. With the exception of the overture noted with an “andante,” or “walking” feel, most of the opera’s arias are marked “allegro,” reflecting the joy that the saints amplify through their dialogues. The melodic lines are within the range of treble voices, and the harmonic structures are basic.
A messenger announces what God has revealed to Francis Xavier. Then the ensuing eight pairs of dialogues and arias between Xavier and Loyola elaborate on God’s goodness and providence, akin to how David praised God in the psalms. The closing minuet in D major reinforces the opera’s celebratory feel.
Other points are important to consider in Nawrot’s reconstruction.
First, restoring the opera was a painstaking process. Because of the state of the paper and the surviving segments, parts had to be rewritten—most notably the dialogues that preceded each aria, as well as parts of arias themselves. It is not clear what role the instruments played in these dialogues, if any.
Second, since there are very few places in the region where that old variant of Chiquitano is spoken, deciphering the text had not been an easy task. However, Nawrot and his team were able to identify language instructors from the local school at the community of San Antonio de Lomerío who were able to work with the opera transcribers in order to restore the texts.
Third, the composer is unknown, though scholars speculate that it was likely a collaboration between a Jesuit (probably the Swiss priest Martin Schmid) and a Chiquito musician, probably from San Javier, around 1740, which Nawrot would classify within the “middle period” of Jesuit music activity.[40] At that point, there was a high amount of musicking as music schools were stitched into the fabric of mission life. And Jesuits often taught music trends from Europe while embracing local musical customs and practices.
Fourth, the opera serves no liturgical function, but it would have been integrated into the larger devotional life of the community starting with Vespers the day before, followed by Eucharist in the morning, then concluding with a procession and opera in the evening. Moreover, as Nawrot notes, this would have also been performed at the visitation of a high-ranking civic or church official.
Fifth, the minuet is one of the opera’s more notable features. Nawrot placed it at the end of his restored score, but in performance practice, its position is variable—as dance music was freely incorporated in the opera. For instance, Ensemble Elyma’s recording and San Javier’s performance presented the dance at different points of their respective performances.
Historical Musicking in the Missions
Sources continually reinforce the idea that music was active and influential in reduction life. An annual letter to Rome in 1731 provides the context:
A permanent feature in this town that is especially pleasant has been the vocal and instrumental music, with orchestra, the solemnity of Holy Mass as well as the theatrical functions of the afternoon. It should be noted that the Indians are very musical and as long as there is music they spend hours on end listening to the orchestra in ecstasy. As long as there is accompaniment to the [choral] music they assist with great fervor at the sacred functions.
Probably the most distinctive feature of how Jesuits used music was their practice of appointing lay maestri di capella. This was unusual since the position was usually held by a cleric, and unlike other religious orders, Jesuits did not aspire to that position.[41] Instead, they recruited, trained, and contracted local musicians. They had to. Given the type of work they were required to do, to be a music teacher was just one of their responsibilities. Tyrolese Jesuit Antonio Sepp, who worked in the Paraguay reductions for forty-two years, wrote that besides being a priest, he learned how to be a “cook, merchant, food distributor, doctor, nurse, builder, brick maker, carpenter, baker, miller, key maker, blacksmith, gardener, painter, and choir director.”[42] Collaborating with a constellation of lay musicians and instrument builders was a necessary part of reduction life. More importantly, the Jesuit missionaries cultivated a sense of esteem and respect for the maestro.
Thus, naming this position was a necessary and important task. To be maestro was to be recognized as a major town leader that required official nomination renewed yearly. And before receiving the baton, the Jesuit used that opportunity to instruct him about his obligations, which included training cantors, preparing music for liturgies, catechesis, prayers, and social events, the copying of music, and being an upstanding moral leader in the mission.[43] Typically, the maestro would need to meet with students twice daily—in the morning for musical lessons, and in the afternoon to prepare for the required music of the next feast. Moreover, the maestro was in charge of copying and disseminating music—a task that required a level of discipline and attention to detail. As Nawrot argues, the discipline imposed by the maestro reflected a “profound respect for the sacredness of the liturgical music.”[44]
When the Jesuits were expelled in 1767, an inventory was conducted of all the liturgical items and musical instruments in the former Jesuit reductions. These include:
• Liturgical Books
◦ Five Missals in good condition; 1 Old; 2 Rituals
• Instruments and Music
◦ One grand organ
◦ Two small organs with flute pipes of tin
◦ Two harps
◦ Eight violins
◦ Three violoni (violones)
◦ Two trumpets marine (trompas de cuerda)
◦ Two brass clarini (clarines de metal)
◦ Two psalteries
◦ Two clavichords (clavicordios)[45]
These items are more or less consistent with the other pueblos, with this exception: one leather trunk with “papers” of music. In time, these papers were kept and copied. Some of these papers endured; some deteriorated. And eventually, this music was kept by the indigenous people and later became the subject of scholarly inquiry and restoration. Interestingly, when these papers were discovered, none were found in San Javier but in other churches in the region, namely San Miguel and Santa Ana.
The diversity (and number) of musical instruments shows that there was an active engagement of music activity in all of the missions. This, as Nawrot would suggest, is “a culture which could be compared to and comfortably compete with many of the centers of music of its time, such as for example major cathedrals of the region and even Europe.”[46] We could also assume that highly skilled teachers and instrument makers were required in order to devote the necessary type of attention to meeting the musical requirements for the liturgies as well as the performances associated with the Eucharist.[47]
We also have reason to assume that this opera was performed even after the Jesuit suppression, based on the writings of the French naturalist Alcides d’Orbigny and Moritz Bach, a German who served as secretary to the provincial governor.[48] They visited the Mojo and Chiquitos region and have testified to the legacy of not only the music but also the music-making culture the Jesuits left behind. D’Orbigny’s description of mission life, even to the detail of clothing, would serve as a point of inspiration for the contemporary performance in 2024.
Contemporary Musicking
Since its restoration, Argentine conductor Gabriel Garrido has performed the opera with his Ensemble Elyma and the Coro de Niños Cantores de Córdoba, which also includes a 2017 recording that is easily accessible online. However, the distinctive feature of the 2024 premiere was its production by the town’s local ensemble, Coro y Orquesta Misional San Xavier, founded in 2003 by Eduardo Silveira Rodriguez with the support of APAC.
This was also the first time since its restoration that the opera was performed in the mission church itself—one of six former Jesuit reductions recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as a world heritage site. The Swiss architect Hans Roth was particularly instrumental in securing international support for their deteriorating structures from 1972 up until his death in 1999. When Silveira Rodriquez describes the experience of performing the opera in its original space as “magical,” he not only refers to the church’s natural acoustical properties due to the wood from the region’s famously arbored rolling hills but also to the church’s symbolic role as the first Chiquitos reduction established in 1691.[49]
By the time Silveira Rodriguez had concluded their months of preparation, they had garnered enough interest and support that by the time San Javier premiered the opera on Tuesday evening, April 23, 2024, the town mayor, Dany Montalvan, had to execute plans to accommodate the overflow crowd. The space was simply not big enough for the local residents and international visitors as los yarituses (dancers portraying their sacred birds) processed, funneled, then eventually squeezed their way into the church for the unprecedented premiere of the restored mission opera.
The opera lasted only forty-five minutes, but in theater-speak, it was the first of a three-act production that evening. Act 2 started after the opera concluded as Mayor Montalvan and local civic leaders thanked performers and reflected on the opera’s role in preserving Chiquitano identity within the larger plurinational reality of Bolivia. Then, to conclude, one could speak of an “act 3,” where Mayor Montalvan invited all to a block party in the plaza, with more musical numbers, a public dance, and even fireworks. The event was not an ordinary performance, but as the journalist Carolina Villagrán writes, a “cultural milestone for Bolivia,” as this town witnessed a Jesuit opera performed in a venue probably for the first time since the 1700s.[50]
The musical style is simple and rooted in the European tradition—a feature some find difficult to reconcile, especially among those who distance themselves from Bolivia’s colonial past. And while the process of decolonization continues to unfold in these territories once colonized by Spain, researcher and former APAC president Ana Luisa Arce suggests that if Chiquitanos truly wanted to rid themselves of Jesuit influence (and the faith), they would have done so long ago. In fact, historical records indicate that in the case of Santa Ana de Velasco (which was established after Jesuits were expelled), they deliberately maintained and followed blueprints in the style of other Jesuit-run missions and did not want to impose “even the slightest modification” to the customs and practices the Jesuits established as a way to honor the gratitude their elders expressed in coming to know God.[51]
Moreover, and also ironically, as the only surviving opera set in Bésiro, a rarely spoken regional language, it serves an important role in preventing the language from becoming extinct. In fact, performers had to work closely with local elders and language specialists when they began rehearsals in January 2024. For eighteen-year-old Yhoryina Algarañaz Choque, who played the title role of Francis Xavier, the opportunity to share her language and culture outweighed the stress from the intensive study and rehearsals, describing it as a “point of pride.”[52]
The opera also provided a means to rediscover, restore, and include other elements of local culture. Miguel Parapaino, the only luthier (creator of stringed instruments) in San Xavier, worked for three months to create native instruments typical of the missionary period. These include the sananá (a horn made of tacuara cane); the yoresoma (a type of flute composed of reed tubes); and an array of percussion instruments like the bombo (a hand drum) and the paichechise (a string of dried seeds affixed to the knees). Choreographer and costume designer Gonzalo Canedo Vega incorporated native dances like the chovena into the fabric of the performance and drew from the reports of French researcher d’Orbigny, whose detailed descriptions of Chiquito clothing provided inspiration for the costumes.
Conclusion: A Theological Vision Through Musicking?
As we have explored in this analysis, the restoration of San Francisco Xavier provides a lens into the musicking dynamic that reflects the Jesuit evangelization efforts from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It highlights a vibrant musical activity, which not only outlived the era of the Jesuit reductions but now provides a renewed sense of cultural identity for many Chiquitanos. So, for Percy Añez, APAC’s president, the scores are not museum artifacts nor pious devotions divorced from social realities. The order’s eighty-year legacy still has important lessons to teach contemporary audiences. Añez explains: the people have integrated this repertoire into their own cultural identities; for the encounter between Jesuits and the local Indians modeled a “culture of love based on God and expressed through the Christian Catholic tradition.” In fact, as he recalls a famous homily of Benedict XVI (r. 2005–13), Añez suggests that the mission music represents a sharp counterpoint to the “dictatorship of relativism” against which the former pope once preached. Where cultures breed duplicity, music reflects truth; in the face of superficiality, music offers authenticity. The suppression of the Jesuits may have changed the missionary landscape of the region, but those seeds are yielding artistic expressions of faith that still testify “that love wins.”[53]
The historical Ignatius and Francis Xavier did not work in the Bolivian reductions during their lifetimes. However, that detail did not matter for the composers. At the opera’s end, the angel invites both saints into God’s Beatific Vision because they evangelized in the “kingdom of Chiquitos” (aiñataityo au niki unama chikito) and multiplied—to use a local image—“five ears of corn” (aityoximiata tato ñemo sirimana). Yet their entrance into heaven is not an escape. The music’s major keys and dance rhythms mitigate against such a dualistic view. Rather, by working in Chiquitania, they have come to experience a foretaste of God’s reign. Carla Andrea Pereyra Román, who plays Ignatius, explains that the music can reveal the “happiness and niceness” of God’s reign through the “joy [ . . . ] of their native culture.” Chiquitania is charged with God’s grace, and that alone is reason to celebrate.[54]
Silveira Rodriquez amplifies that sentiment. Unlike European baroque, which can be tonally heavy, he infuses the music with joy and vibrancy. The composers do not evoke the Exodus, but when Silveira Rodriquez blows the sananá as they dance the chovena to celebrate God’s providence, one could easily imagine a biblical parallel to the shofar announcing a time of jubilee.
In a private moment minutes before the premiere, Añez offered words of encouragement to the thirty-six predominantly teenage performers. Reflecting on the memory of his father who introduced him to mission music as a boy, as well as his desire to pass on the same legacy to his own two children, Añez invited the ensemble to imagine God as an encouraging father as they sing: “God loves this music. We are making him happy. He is on his feet applauding.” For Añez, committing to this music—refracted through Chiquitano culture—helps both performers and listeners become attuned to the ways God “helps us.” Añez elaborates:
Because music leads us to beauty. And discovering beauty takes us to discover the truth, to caress the truth. And the truth takes us to fullness. And fullness is one of the most adorable and most sublime feelings that a human being can experience. There is no father (and I understand this as a father myself) who does not enjoy seeing his children living fully. And knowing that God, seeing us strive us for fullness as a community, helps us go on.[55]
| 1400s | ca. 1491 | Ignatius of Loyola born |
| 1500s | 1535 | Francisco Pizarro lays first stone in the Lima Cathedral |
| 1537 | Franciscans found Asunción, Paraguay | |
| 1538 | Lima Cathedral finished | |
| 1539 | Asunción Cathedral built | |
| 1540 | Society of Jesus founded | |
| 1545–63 | Council of Trent | |
| 1552 | Collegium Germanicum founded in Rome (music center of musical activity for Jesuits) | |
| 1554 | José de Anchieta, S.J. founds São Paulo, Brazil | |
| 1567 | Jesuits arrive in Peru | |
| 1571 | Jesuits establish Cusco Church (Peru) | |
| 1599 | Jesuits establish Córdoba Church (Argentina) | |
| 1600s | 1607 | Paraguay province founded |
| 1610 | San Ignacio Guazú (first Jesuit reduction in South America) founded in Paraguay | |
| 1615 | Jesuits build estancias in Argentina to finance reductions | |
| 1655 | Musician Anton Sepp, S.J., born in Kaltern, Tyrol | |
| 1688 | Composer Domenico Zipoli, S.J., born in Prato, Italy | |
| 1691 | San Francisco Javier founded in Bolivia; Sepp arrives in Buenos Aires | |
| 1694 | Musician Martin Schmid, S.J., born in Baar, Switzerland | |
| 1700s | 1709 | Concepción Cathedral founded in Bolivia |
| 1715 | Zipoli hired as organist in Gesú church (Rome) | |
| 1716 | Zipoli joins Jesuits | |
| 1717 | Zipoli travels to Paraguay; Schmid joins Jesuits | |
| 1719 | Musician Florian Pauke, S.J., born in Winsko, Poland | |
| 1726 | Zipoli dies in Córdoba; Schmid ordained | |
| 1729 | Schmid arrives in Buenos Aires | |
| 1730–40 | Approximate time San Francisco Xavier opera was composed | |
| 1733 | Sepp dies in San Jose, Bolivia | |
| 1736 | Pauke joins Jesuits | |
| 1747 | Schmid builds churches in Bolivia | |
| 1748 | Pauke ordained priest, departs for South America | |
| 1755 | Santa Ana founded (Bolivia); only foundation built | |
| 1767 | Expulsion of Jesuits from South America | |
| 1772 | Schmid dies in Switzerland | |
| 1773 | Papal Jesuit suppression | |
| 1800s | 1814 | Restoration of the Jesuits |
| 1871 | Jesuits return to Peru | |
| 1882 | Jesuits return to Bolivia | |
| 1900s | 1927 | Jesuits return to Paraguay |
| 1960s | Musicological research begins in the former Jesuit reductions | |
| 1967 | Bolivia becomes an independent Jesuit vice-province | |
| 1974 | Paraguay becomes an independent Jesuit province | |
| 1986 | The film The Mission is released; APAC (cultural agency that promotes music of the former Jesuit reductions) is founded | |
| 2000s | 2000 | Piotr Nawrot receives Guggenheim fellowship to restore opera; first performance of the opera in San Javier (with international performers) |
| 2024 | First performance of the opera in San Javier (with local performers) |
Table 1. Key Dates.
| Movement | Character(s) | Title | Key and Time Signatures |
| Prologue | Messenger | ||
| Overture | Overtura | Andante, G major, 3/4 | |
| First Aria | Ignatius, Xavier | “Aqui ta naqui” (He is here) | Allegro, F major, 2/4 |
| Second Aria | Xavier | “Au nipostij Tupas ape” (Above in the House of God) | Allegro, G major, 2/4 |
| Third Aria | Ignatius, Xavier | “Yzatij Tupas ape” (United with God in Heaven) | Allegro, G major, 2/4 |
| Fourth Aria | Ignatius | “Aipoostij Tupas Ape” (In the house of God above) | Allegro, C major, 2/4 |
| Fifth Aria | Ignatius, Xavier | “Poquînuña” (Their hearts rejoice) | Allegro, C major, 3/4 |
| Sixth Aria | Xavier | “Aub’apaezo yriabo roma” (There are so many to be baptized) | (none), F major, 2/4 |
| Seventh Aria | Ignatius, Xavier | “Fiestas moma” (Their celebrations, on this great day) | Allegro, F major, 2/4 |
| Eighth Aria | Ignatius, Xavier | “Iriquîbo ñaana Yyaî” (I will always call you Father) | Allegro, F major, 3/8 |
| Epilogue | Narrator, Messenger | Followed by minuet | D major 3/4 |
Table 2. Musical Numbers (in the Restored Score).[56]
All arias are preceded by dialogues.
Qualifier:
This paper was presented at the International Symposia on Jesuit Studies at Boston College on Wednesday, June 12, 2024. A condensed popular version describing the historic opera performance is also featured in the Summer (July/August) 2024 edition of America: The Jesuit Review of Faith and Culture.
Notes:
[1] In this paper, I will adopt the spelling conventions Piotr Nawrot and the municipal government use for the opera and their town, respectively. So, the opera will be spelled “Xavier” and the town, “Javier.” Moreover, I continue to use the term “opera,” which Nawrot employs (because that was the term used by the Jesuit missionaries, specifically “opera edificante”). From a musicological perspective, Nawrot suggests that “zarzuela” would probably be more accurate in describing San Francisco Xavier because unlike traditional operas that have accompanying dialogue, Xavier features spoken dialogue between numbers. See Piotr Nawrot, (liner notes), 46, in Garrido, Mission San Francisco Xavier (audio recording).
[2] Small’s “musicking” is not to be confused with “musicing” coined by the music educator and musicologist David Elliott. While the two ideas are nearly synonymous, Elliott emphasizes the sonic nature of music, whereas Small privileges relationality and the active dimension of music-making as a way to root meaning. See David J. Elliott’s Music Matters: A New Philosophy of Music Education (Oxford University Press, 1995), 40–41; Mary Cohen, “Christopher Small: A Biographical Profile of His Life,” Journal of Historical Research in Music Education 31, no. 2 (2010): 132–50, here 133.
[3] Wong Tsz’s dissertation on Matteo Ricci also appropriates Small’s theory as a way to understand more fully Ricci’s evangelization enterprise. See Tsz, “Matteo Ricci’s Xiquin Quyi: A Jesuit’s Expert Musicking in Ming China” (PhD diss., Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, 2017).
[4] Christopher Small, “Musicking: A Ritual in Social Space,” in Oklahoma Symposium on Music Education: On the Sociology of Music Education, ed. Roger Rideout (School of Music, University of Oklahoma, 1997), 1–12, here 2, cited in Cohen “Christopher Small,” 132.
[5] Luis Szarán has done immense work to produce scholarship and performances relating to Jesuits in Paraguay. His Diccionario de la música en el Paraguay (Edición de la Jesuitenmission, 2007) and Muscia en las Reducciones Jesuiticas de America del Sur, 2nd ed, (Fundación Paracuaria, 1999) are representative of his corpus.
[6] Christopher Small, Musicking (Wesleyan University Press, 1998), 5.
[7] Small, Musicking, 6.
[8] Small, Musicking, 6.
[9] Small, Musicking, 7.
[10] Beethoven had complicated feelings regarding Bonaparte’s legacy. On the one hand, Beethoven admired his commitment to the ideals of the French Revolution, but on the other hand, he also became disillusioned when Bonaparte declared himself emperor of the French in 1804.
[11] Thomas D. Culley, S.J., Jesuits and Music: I. A Study of the Musicians Connected with the German College in Rome during the 17th Century and of Their Activities in Northern Europe (Jesuit Historical Institute, 1970), 11.
[12] See Joseph de Guibert, S.J., The Jesuits: Their Spiritual Doctrine and Practice; A Historical Study, trans. George E. Ganss, S.J. (Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1964). Also see William V. Bangert, S.J., A History of the Society of Jesus (Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1972).
[13] T. Frank Kennedy, S.J., “Jesuits and Music: Reconsidering the Early Years,” Studi musicali 17 (1988): 71–72.
[14] Pedro Arrupe, S.J., “Art and the Spirit of the Society of Jesus,” Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits 3 (1973): 82–92, here 87–88.
[15] Prior to Culley, there are some minor English-language publications on Jesuits and music, including an article by Sydney Lennon, “The Jesuits in Music,” published in the Irish Jesuit Directory in 1937. The first known treatment of music can be traced to Max Wittwer, “Die Musikpflege im Jesuitenorden unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Länder deutscher Zunge” (PhD diss, Greifswald, 1934).
[16] Thomas Culley, S.J., Jesuits and Music I: A Study of the Musicians Connected with the German College in Rome during the 17th Century and of Their Activities in Northern Europe (Jesuit Historical Institute, 1970), 15.
[17] Thomas D. Culley, S.J., and C. J. McNaspy, S.J., “Music and the Early Jesuits: 1540–1965,” Archivum historicum Societatis Iesu 11 (1971): 213–25. See also Barton Geger, ed., A Pilgrim’s Testament: The Memoirs of Saint Ignatius of Loyola (Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2020), para. 20.
[18] Culley and McNaspy, “Music and the Early Jesuits,” 218.
[19] Culley and McNaspy, “Music and the Early Jesuits,” 218.
[20] Footnote [L] within the Jesuit Constitutions states: “The custom that women should not enter houses or colleges of the Society ought generally to be observed. However, if there are sons of great charity, of high rank as well as charity, the superior in his discretion may for just reasons give a dispensation for them to come in and look about if they wish.” See Constitutions, 267.
[21] Footnote [M]: “Such are instruments for games and for music, profane books, and similar objects.” See Constitutions, 268. Padberg notes that General Congregation (hereafter GC) 34 in 1995 abolished this norm and rendered it obsolete. A GC is a worldwide meeting of the order called either to elect a new superior general or to deliberate on pressing matters of the time. Since the order’s founding, a total of thirty-six GCs have convened.
[22] Constitutions, 266.
[23] Culley and McNaspy, “Music and the Early Jesuits,” 216.
[24] C. J. McNaspy, S.J., Lost Cities of Paraguay: Art and Architecture of the Jesuit Reductions 1607–1676 (Loyola University Press, 1982), 128.
[25] Manuel de Nòbrega in McNaspy, Lost Cities of Paraguay, 128.
[26] Kennedy, “Jesuits and Music,” 20.
[27] T. Frank Kennedy, S.J., “Jesuits,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Macmillan, 2001), 13:420.
[28] Kennedy, “Jesuits and Music,” 85.
[29] Kennedy, “Jesuits and Music,” 80.
[30] T. Franks Kennedy, S.J., “Some Unusual Genres of Sacred Music in the Early Modern Period: The Catechism as a Musical Event in the Late Renaissance; Jesuits and ‘El nuestro modo de proceder,’” in Essays in Early Modern Catholicism (University of Toronto Press, 2001), 266–79.
[31] T. Frank Kennedy, S.J., “Candide and a Boat,” in The Jesuits I: Cultures, Sciences and the Arts, 1540–1773, ed. John W. O’Malley, S.J., et al. (University of Toronto Press, 1999), 317–32.
[32] Kennedy, “Candide and a Boat,” 319.
[33] See Daniele V. Filippi, “A Sound Doctrine: Early Modern Jesuits and the Singing of the Catechism,” Early Music History 34 (2015): 1–43.
[34] See Daniele V. Filippi, “‘Ask the Jesuits to Send Verses from Rome’: The Society’s Networks and The European Dissemination of Devotional Music,” in Exploring Jesuit Distinctiveness: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Ways of Proceeding within the Society of Jesus, ed. Robert Aleksander Maryks (Brill, 2016), 62–80.
[35] Daniele V. Filippi, “‘Their Sound Hath Gone Forth into All the Earth’: Music and Sound in the Ministries of Early Modern Jesuits,” Journal of Jesuit Studies 3, no. 3 (2016): 357–64, here 357.
[36] Daniele V. Filippi, “Retrieving the Sounds of the Old Society: For a History of Historiography on Jesuits and Music,” Jesuit Historiography Online, ed. Robert Aleksander Maryks (December 2016), https://referenceworks.brill.com/display/entries/JHO/COM-192554.xml (accessed May 12, 2026).
[37] Nicholas Casey, “Jesuit Legacy in the Bolivian Jungle: A Love of Baroque Music,” New York Times, May 8, 20218, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/world/americas/bolivia-baroque-music.html (accessed May 12, 2026).
[38] Jim McDermott, “The Jesuit Missionaries Who Inspired Roland Joffé’s ‘The Mission,’” America: The Jesuit Review (December 19, 2019), https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2019/12/10/jesuit-missionaries-who-inspired-roland-joffes-mission (accessed May 12, 2026).
[39] Nawrot, personal interview on restoring the score and producing the San Francisco Xavier opera.
[40] Piotr Nawrot, “Vespers Music in the Paraguay Reductions” (DMA diss., The Catholic University of America, 1993), 19.
[41] Nawrot, “Vespers Music in the Paraguay Reductions,” 84.
[42] Jeffrey Klaiber, S.J., The Jesuits in Latin America (Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2009), 109.
[43] Nawrot, “Vespers Music in the Paraguay Reductions,” 84.
[44] Nawrot, “Vespers Music in the Paraguay Reductions,” 85.
[45] Nawrot, “Vespers Music in the Paraguay Reductions,” 86.
[46] Nawrot, “Vespers Music in the Paraguay Reductions,” 86.
[47] Nawrot, “Vespers Music in the Paraguay Reductions,” 112.
[48] Klaiber, Jesuits in Latin America, 142.
[49] Silveira Rodriguez, personal interview on performing in the San Francisco Xavier opera.
[50] Villagran, “En San Javier el arte logró unir la magia de la música barroca con la tradición cultural,” El Deber (April 24, 2024), https://eldeber.com.bo/santa-cruz/en-san-javier-el-arte-logro-unir-la-magia-de-la-musica-barroca-con-la-tradicion-cultural_364132/.
[51] Ana Luisa Arce and Piotr Nawrot, Fiesta patronal de Santa Ana de Velasco Ayer y Hoy, 1st ed. (Fondo Editorial APAC, 2008), 7. (Full quote: “Luego de la expulsion, los indígenas no quisieron imponer la menor modificación a las costumbres, usos y ceremonial establecidos por los jesuitas. Los viejos recuerdan con pena la expulsion de los padres (en 1767) y todos repiten: ‘Gracias a ellos nos hicimos cristianos, concocimos a Dios y fuimos felices.’”) See also Alcides D’Orbigny, Viaje a la América Meridonal (Buenos Aires: Editorial Futuro, 1945), 3:1162. Also, Arce, personal interview on producing the San Francisco Xavier opera.
[52] Choque, personal interview on performing in the San Francisco Xavier opera.
[53] Añez, personal interview on producing the San Francisco Xavier opera.
[54] Román, personal interview on performing in the San Francisco Xavier opera.
[55] Añez, personal interview on producing the San Francisco Xavier opera.
[56] Opera San Francisco Xavier (Editorial Verbo Divino, 2000), introductory pages.
Metadata
Title: Musicking in the Missions: The Indigenous Mission Opera San Francisco Xavier and Its Living Legacy
Author: Phillip Alcon Ganir, S.J.
Article Type: Research Article
DOI: 10.51238/ISJS.2024.05
Language: English
Article number: e05
Pages: 1–25
Keywords: Jesuit music; musicking; Opéra San Francisco Xavier; reducations; catechesis; Jesuit education
Volume: 4
Issue: 1, special issue
In: Renovatio Mundi: The Jesuits as Educators in History
Editors: Cristiano Casalini 
; Alessandro Corsi ; A. Taiga Guterres
In: International Symposia on Jesuit Studies
Publication Date: 30 October 2026
Last Updated: 30 October 2026
Publisher: Institute of Jesuit Sources
E-ISSN: 2766-0644
ISBN: 979-8-90493-018-9
Cite
APA
Ganir, P. A. (2026). Musicking in the missions: The Indigenous mission opera San Francisco Xavier and its living legacy. In C. Casalini, A. Corsi, & A. T. Guterres (Eds.), Renovatio mundi: The Jesuits as educators in history (Proceedings of the symposium held at Boston College, June 11–13, 2024) [Special issue]. International Symposia on Jesuit Studies, 4(1), Article e05. https://doi.org/10.51238/ISJS.2024.05
CMOS
Ganir, Phillip Alcon, S.J. “Musicking in the Missions: The Indigenous Mission
Opera San Francisco Xavier and Its Living Legacy.” In “Renovatio Mundi: The Jesuits as Educators in History (Proceedings of the Symposium held at Boston College, June 11–13, 2024),” ed. Cristiano Casalini, Alessandro Corsi, and A. Taiga Guterres, special issue, International Symposia on Jesuit Studies 4, no. 1 (2026): e05. https://doi.org/10.51238/ISJS.2024.05.
MLA
Ganir, Phillip Alcon. “Musicking in the Missions: The Indigenous Mission Opera San Francisco Xavier and Its Living Legacy.” Renovatio Mundi: The Jesuits as Educators in History (Proceedings of the Symposium held at Boston College, June 11–13, 2024), edited by Cristiano Casalini, Alessandro Corsi, and A. Taiga Guterres, special issue of International Symposia on Jesuit Studies, vol. 4, no. 1, 2026, article e05. https://doi.org/10.51238/ISJS.2024.05.