Barker Center, Room 133
Tracing the Lineage of the Sarabande
Speaker: Álvaro Torrente, Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Instituto Complutense de Ciencias Musicales
The zarabanda (sarabande), widely regarded as the most popular and controversial dance-song of the late Renaissance in the Iberian world and beyond, remains a persistent subject of inquiry in Western music historiography. The prevailing theory attributes its origins to Latin America, potentially rooted in indigenous traditions or African influences, although a Spanish origin has not been conclusively ruled out. Alternative hypotheses, often grounded in sometimes imaginative etymological analysis, suggest Hebrew, Persian, Moorish, or even Ancient Greek and Roman origins. This study critically examines both traditional and emerging evidence concerning the zarabanda’s origins, highlighting the shortcomings of certain claims. Ultimately, it proposes that the zarabanda emerged as a mixed-race cultural phenomenon, shaped by a dynamic confluence of traditions from America, Africa, and the Iberian Peninsula, embodying the complex interplay of identities in the early modern Atlantic world.
Álvaro Torrente studied at the Universidad de Salamanca and obtained his Ph.D in musicology from the University of Cambridge. He is a Professor of Music History at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and Chair of the Instituto Complutense de Ciencias Musicales (ICCMU), the leading academic music research institution in Spain. He has been a Visiting Scholar at NYU (1999), Yale (2009), and Harvard (2025), and has received the AMS Stevenson Award (2008) and the Deustche Musikeditionpreis (2013). His publications include La ópera en España e Hispanoamérica (2001), Devotional Music in the Iberian World (2007), Historia de la Música en España e Hispanoamérica: La música en el siglo XVII (2016), and The Cambridge History of Music in Spain (2025). He is Associate Editor of The Operas of Francesco Cavalli (Bärenreiter), and his editions of early operas and zarzuelas have been performed at prestigious venues including the Royal Opera House, Bayerische Staatsoper, and Teatro Real.
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