A Young Bishop, Eleven Music Manuscripts, and a Remote Cathedral Archive: A Mexican Musical Legacy Comes to Light

Discreetly situated behind the Cathedral of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, is the Archivo Histórico Diocesano, where in 2005, eleven music manuscripts composed by five 19th-century Mexican musicians were found. To explain this significant discovery it is necessary to understand the circumstances and the historical context of this southern state of Mexico. In 1853, during the period of Independent Mexico and in the midst of the confrontations between Church and State, a young Carlos María Colina was, to his surprise, nominated as the bishop to this remote and modest diocese of Chiapas. Colina must have known that in order to accomplish his appointment he needed to restore the importance of this church. It is with him that the manuscripts arrived. For a brief period, prior to Colina’s exile, the music chapel of San Cristóbal was part of a music tradition, which has yet much of its history to be disclosed.