The cultural earthquake of 1580 in Spain

Abstract

The text explores the profound “cultural earthquake” that took place in Spain around 1580, conceived as a silent yet decisive transformation marking the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque. This revolution was not confined to literature or theatre; rather, it encompassed music, poetry, dance, and new forms of urban entertainment. The author proposes an integrative theory in which several simultaneous developments—the rise of the comedia nueva, the success of the romance nuevo, the spread of strummed-guitar practice, the emergence of sung dances, and the adoption of triple meter with hemiolas—constitute facets of a single cultural process.

The opening of public theatres (corrales) and the emergence of playwrights such as Lope de Vega shifted cultural authority from aristocratic and ecclesiastical elites toward a paying public. This democratization of taste provoked moral and political debates, exemplified by Juan de Mariana’s fierce attack on theatre as a threat to Spain’s social and religious stability.

At the same time, the romance nuevo flourished through cheaply printed pamphlets and large anthologies like the Romancero general (1600). Its rapid dissemination was fundamentally musical: romances were sung texts organized into octosyllabic quatrains shaped by melodic patterns. Popular musical practice thus played a crucial role in their formal development.

A major musical shift occurred with the renewed dominance of triple meter and the creation of a unique notational system—the compás de proporción menor—designed to capture sophisticated rhythmic alterations. Sung dances such as the zarabanda, chacona, and jácara, supported by strummed-guitar accompaniment, defined a new soundscape. Although this repertoire was mostly transmitted orally and rarely notated, it anticipated core features of later European Baroque music.