“Thus do ye, bees, for others make honey”. Music and primary education in Durango during the first half of the 19th century

Abstract

This article is based on a speech from an 1836 press report regarding student examinations at a public elementary school called ‘Colegio Chico’, in Durango. With it, I examine the insertion processes of music through education in the civil sphere since the end of cathedral musical tradition, and the political implications of the school’s children orchestra. By analyzing the discourse of the authorities attending the events, the article interprets the expressed feeling of historicity within the civil and religious elite. This paper provides unprecedented explanations, from a cultural point of view, of the secularization processes of Durango’s music in the first half of the 19th century, and offers new elements to the Mexican historiography on the subject.