Siluetas en la oscuridad: el maestro de capilla Cayetano Rodríguez (Arequipa, Perú, Siglo XVIII). Ejemplo del uso de las fuentes no musicales en la reconstrucción de la historia de la música colonial de Sudamérica

In the 18th century in South America there were active musical chapels in provinces that perhaps established relations with other border cities or other kingdoms through musicians who settled far from their hometowns and influenced permanently the musical activities in their new work sites. In many cases, the evidence of their musical production in such venues has been lost due to fires, wars or particular circumstances of each cathedral archive, and thus, so far, these personalities and their work within the chapels have remained submerged in the dark. Is it possible to rebuild, even without written music, the performance of these musicians and establish ways to study their contribution to the development of their respective institutions? Could exchange or influence circuits among provincial towns or South American capitals be established, at least tentatively, by studying these examples? To try to answer these questions, we present the case of Cayetano Rodríguez, chapelmaster of the Cathedral of Arequipa, Peru, between 1765 and 1808 of whom no written work is left, but could well have had a gravitating influence on Peruvian musicians of the immediate aftermath as Pedro Ximénez, Mariano Tapia and Lorenzo Rojas.