Global Soundscapes from the First Voyage of Circumnavigation, 1519-1522

RMA2021, Newcastle UniversityThe first recorded voyage of circumnagivation set out from Seville on 10 August 1519 under Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) with five ships and 237 men; just one ship returned to Spain on 6 September 1522, with twenty-one sailors under Sebastián Elcano (c.1486-1526). A number of the survivors wrote accounts of the voyage: the most famous is that of Antonio Pigafetta (c.1491-c.1531), first published as Le voyage et nauigation, faict par les Espaignolz es isles de Mollucques (Paris, 1525). Texts emanating from this circumnavigation arguably constitute the first surviving examples of ear- and eyewitnessing on a truly global (or circumferential) scale. Given the quincentennial commemorations of the voyage currently taking place in Spain, Portugal, the Philippines, and elsewhere, these invite renewed musicological attention. Soundscapes in the trans-Atlantic voyages of Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) have been critically examined by Eliana Cabrera Silvera in her monograph Eventos sonoros en los viajes de Cristóbal Colón (Bologna: Bononia University Press, 2013); however, no comparable study yet exists (to the best of my knowledge) for the range of auditory experiences emerging from the Magellan-Elcano voyage. The account of Pigafetta - which exists in multiple sources from the sixteenth century - discusses sonic factors such as the trade of hawksbells, the playing of Indigenous instruments in the Malay world, sound in Christian and non-Christian religious ceremonies, and timbral qualities of voices. This paper examines soundscapes emerging from accounts of Pigafetta and several other circumnavigators, considering their implications for global music history