Only then can his creative genius begin redounding, as it should, to the glory of Black music history,” writes the musicologist Robert Stevenson in his 1982 article, “The First Black Published Composer.” Stevenson’s subject was Vicente Lusitano (ca. 1520-ca. 1561), an African-Portuguese priest and musician who enjoyed an international career. Stevenson heralds works like the motet “Heu me domine” (1551), which exemplifies the composer’s unusual embrace of chromatic counterpoint. Listen to the first 1:08 of this stellar performance of the piece by the Australian Chamber Choir to hear the tendencies that make Lusitano’s music so distinctive:
Centuries of Silence
Vicente Lusitano and classical music’s selective memory
