Marina

SATB with renaissance wind quartet, cornetto, 2 sackbuts, curtal all doubling recorders. Accompaniment also available for flute, 2 clarinets and bassoon or in piano reduction.

Duration circa 8 minutes.

Poem copyright 1980 by Lucha Corpi, used by permission.

Lucha Corpi’s notes on the poem:
Dona Marina was a young Indian woman given in slavery to Hernan Cortés after his arrival in Mexico. She served him as guide, interpreter, comrade-at-arms and nurse throughout the conquest, and bore him a son. When Cortés was preparing his marriage to a Spanish lady of noble rank, he made a handsome gift of land to Marina and married her to one of his lieutenants. Contemporary accounts of the conquest speak of the extraordinary beauty, intelligence, courage and loyalty of this woman, but the attitude of subsequent generations of Mexicans toward her has been ambivalent. She has been idolatrized as a mother-goddess or reviled as a traitor—her Indian name, Malinche, has become a synonym in Mexico for treachery. These poems were written by way of vindication.

Performed by San Francisco Choral Artists with the Whole Noyse, Magen Solomon, conductor. Recorded at St. Paul’s Church Oakland, March 28, 2009.

1. Marina madre view score



2. Marina virgen, grazioso



3. La hija del Diablo, driving



4. Ella (Marina ausente,) sostenuto