Books by Aurèlia Pessarrodona
Monumentos de la Música Española, 86 (CSIC) , 2022
Estudios en torno a Luis Misón, 2020
Editorial Arpegio (Colección Estudios Musicales del Clasicismo, 5), 2020
Anunciamos el volumen 5 de los Estudios Musicales del Clasicismo, dedicado al compositor y flauti... more Anunciamos el volumen 5 de los Estudios Musicales del Clasicismo, dedicado al compositor y flautista Luis Misón. Son nueve ensayos que ofrecen un amplio retrato de uno de los “padres” de la tonadilla, analizando destacados aspectos de su obra y de su biografía: repercusión en la prensa coetánea y recepción de su figura, adecuación a las convenciones musicales y teatrales de la época, entorno familiar y genealógico, su papel en la génesis de la tonadilla, su técnica compositiva, así como algunas de sus piezas instrumentales más representativas. Por último, culmina el volumen la primera catalogación sistemática que se ha hecho de sus obras.
Este volumen contiene el estudio y edición crítica de trece tonadillas de Jacinto Valledor (Madri... more Este volumen contiene el estudio y edición crítica de trece tonadillas de Jacinto Valledor (Madrid, 1744-¿Madrid?, 1809) compuestas entre 1768 y 1778, cuyos materiales originales manuscritos se conservan en la Biblioteca Histórica Municipal de Madrid. Se incluye biografía actualizada del compositor, inventario cronológico de sus obras, análisis de las tonadillas publicadas en el volumen, descripción de sus fuentes literarias y musicales, edición completa de los libretos (de autores desconocidos) y edición de las partituras con las correspondientes notas críticas. Son piezas para conjuntos de entre una y cinco partes vocales solistas con violines, trompas y bajo, y en algunos casos también con oboes o flautas. Las obras editadas son: "Las seguidillas del apasionado" (1768), "Los majos satisfechos" ("ca." 1771-1773), "Bellos apasionados" (1772), "La ramilletera" ("ca." 1773-1775) / "La naranjera del Prado" (¿1778?), "El valiente Campuzano y Catuja de Ronda" (1774), "El desafío de las majas y soldados" (¿1774?), "La españolizada" (¿1774?), "Ya ha venido, mosqueteros" (1775), "Señores, señoras" (1775), "La rosquillera" ("ca." 1775-1777), "La buena consejera" (¿1776?), "Buenas tardes, señores" (antes de 1778) y "El sargento Briñoli, oficial y criada" (¿1778?). Todas las piezas tienen textos íntegramente en castellano salvo "La ramilletera", interpretada en Barcelona, que combina texto en catalán de la protagonista femenina con textos en castellano de los tres restantes personajes. Solo se conserva el libreto de esta obra, pero su música se reconstruye a partir de los materiales musicales de una versión posterior de la misma, también publicada en este volumen y titulada "La naranjera del Prado" (¿1778?), que fue interpretada en Madrid con ligeros cambios en el libreto y los textos de todos los personajes en castellano. Está previsto publicar un segundo volumen con otras once tonadillas de Jacinto Valledor compuestas a partir de 1785 para completar la edición integral de las veinticuatro piezas del género conservadas de este autor.
editorial Arpegio, 2018
Las tonadillas conforman un género de teatro musical característico de la segunda mitad del siglo... more Las tonadillas conforman un género de teatro musical característico de la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII español que había sido olvidado hasta que fue puesto en valor a mediados del siglo pasado. Se trata de un género breve, próximo a la zarzuela y al sainete, en el que tanto el libretista como el compositor se inspiran en la cotidianeidad para crear tramas sencillas pero punzantes, a modo de “espejos sonoros deformantes” de la sociedad de la época.
Uno de los tonadilleros que pusieron en escena un gran número de obras de este género en Barcelona, Madrid y otras ciudades españolas, fue Jacinto Valledor, cuya vida y obra se recupera aquí, con acierto y mérito, la especialista Aurèlia Pessarrodona, haciendo gala de una inmensa capacidad investigadora, ya que la documentación sobre Valledor es más escasa y menos conocida que la de otros contemporáneos. Este libro es, por tanto, una importante contribución al conocimiento de la cultural de nuestro Siglo de las Luces.
La tradición textual del teatro del Siglo de Oro constituye uno de los grandes legados documental... more La tradición textual del teatro del Siglo de Oro constituye uno de los grandes legados documentales de la edad moderna. Por el carácter efímero e inestable del evento teatral, manuscritos e impresos obligan a menudo al editor crítico a considerar variantes de autor y distintas versiones de la obra para fijar un texto definitivo que deriva de perspectivas opinables. "La dama boba" es una de las piezas más conocidas de Lope de Vega, y se conserva en testimonios muy peculiares: el manuscrito autógrafo, una copia que posiblemente deriva de la memorización ilegal de la pieza durante las representaciones, y una edición a cargo del mismo autor. El proyecto tiene el objetivo de ofrecer un nuevo modelo de representación de esta complejidad, a través de la publicación de una edición crítica comparable con el archivo de los testimonios utilizados.
Papers by Aurèlia Pessarrodona
Acotaciones, 51, 2023
This article proposes theoretical and conceptual tools to analyze the role of the singing... more This article proposes theoretical and conceptual tools to analyze the role of the singing body in shaping gender identities in the 18th century. In this period there is a shift from a baroque, fluid conception of the body in which men perform women, women perform men, and hybrid beings mythical heroes, to a modern conception laying the foundations for a supposedly naturalistic and realistic view of vocal typologies associated with the female and male genders that will be consolidated in the 1840s. These theoretical frameworks serve as the starting point to provide a first approach to the Hispanic case, especially in Madrid, from the perspective of the transition from a single-sex model to a two-sex model observed by Thomas Laqueur throughout the century. The article notes that these tools can help understand in a more contextualized way the vocal predominance of women on the Madrid stage, as well as the Spanish reception of Metastasian dramma per musica and the overwhelming hegemony of the female singing body in the tonadilla.
Journal of Musicology, 2022
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While eighteenth-century Spanish folk airs such as the fandango and seguidil... more Tools
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While eighteenth-century Spanish folk airs such as the fandango and seguidilla are now gaining more recognition, there remains an important oversight: the tirana, a dance song that became particularly popular during the last third of the century onward, even inspiring foreign composers such as Luigi Boccherini, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Saverio Mercadante. Lacking a systematic study, the tirana has been regarded as a general name for Andalusian songs without clear typologies or concrete, identifying musical characteristics. Based on an analysis of approximately one hundred tiranas found in the repertoire of the old theaters of Madrid (held in the Biblioteca Histórica Municipal de Madrid) and dating from the late 1770s and 1780s, the period of development and consolidation of this dance song, this article verifies that the tirana has distinct attributes and evolved from its earliest forms, originating in Andalusia, to more complex and richer examples. In light of this analysis, it is now possible to investigate the circulation and impact of the tirana abroad in the late eighteenth century. For example, Vicente Martín y Soler’s “Viva, viva la Regina” from Una cosa rara (1786), long wrongfully considered the first onstage manifestation of the Viennese waltz, can now be identified as a tirana.
Acta Musicologica 93-2, 2021
"The Beginnings of Lorenza Correa’s Career in Madrid: Her Training and
Development as a Singing A... more "The Beginnings of Lorenza Correa’s Career in Madrid: Her Training and
Development as a Singing Actress throughout the First Known Repertory
(1787–94)": The soprano Lorenza Correa (1773[?]–after July 1832) belonged to the first generation of Spanish singers who developed a prominent career abroad. But, unlike Manuel García’s and Isabel Colbran’s cases, there are no studies on her. In order to begin to fill this gap, the objective of this essay is to study Correa’s process of training,
development, and consolidation as a singing actress in the initial years of her professional career and howit contributed to her later international success. As such I analyze the repertory performed by her in the public theaters of Madrid from 1787, the moment in which she joined the Madrilenian companies as an eleventh lady, up until 1794, when she became third dama de cantado, the main singer of tonadillas.
Throughout this analysis I observe that she rapidly excelled as a singer thanks to her exceptional natural vocal skills and her training with music and singing teachers such as Pablo del Moral and probably Carlo Marinelli. Besides this, her experience in the public theaters of Madrid provided her a versatile training in a wide variety of registers: from spoken theater to sung performance, from serious to comic styles, and from Italian opera to autochthonous airs with folk flavor, even playing
the guitar. Moreover, from this context one can infer a notable singing level in some Spanish actors, as well as an important value of tonadillas as an excellent training tool for singing actors.
Rivista Italiana di Musicologia, 56 (2021), 2021
Attualmente abbiamo un’ampia conoscenza dell’emergere dell’attività operistica nei teatri impresa... more Attualmente abbiamo un’ampia conoscenza dell’emergere dell’attività operistica nei teatri impresariali spagnoli dalla metà del XVIII secolo in poi. Tuttavia, non ci sono ancora studi sulla ricezione in Spagna del repertorio operistico che aveva maggior rilevanza nei circuiti impresariali europei di fine Settecento. Per cominciare a colmare questo vuoto, questo articolo si propone di esaminare la ricezione spagnola de Il barbiere di Siviglia (1782) di Paisiello, una delle opere più popolari del circuito impresariale europeo. Questo approccio include non solo testimonianze della stampa, documentazione d’archivio e un confronto filologico tra le partiture italiane e spagnole, ma anche un’analisi drammaturgico-musicale delle fonti primarie, al fine di comprendere il processo di adattamento dell’opera al gusto spagnolo nel suo contesto teatrale, soprattutto nel caso di Madrid. In effetti, nelle sue messe in scena madrilene l’opera subì un’importante trasformazione, il cui aspetto più evidente fu il suo adattamento al più agile formato della zarzuela – con la traduzione del testo in spagnolo, la trasformazione dei recitativi in dialoghi parlati, l’eliminazione dell’inappropriata seghidiglia spagnuola e il rispetto della convenzione secondo la quale a interpretare il ruolo di Figaro doveva essere il gracioso, basso, grasso e carismatico, anche quando la sua voce non era all’altezza della parte.
Diagonal, 2019
In this article the concept of the “singing body” is used to study the body of the singer as a cr... more In this article the concept of the “singing body” is used to study the body of the singer as a creator of meanings onstage, in a performative sense (vocal, gestural) as well as a configurator of identities (roles, gender, charisma, etc.), and how it appears in music of the past. The selected repertory has been the six tonadillas a solo (for one voice) composed for the actor Miguel Garrido, housed in the Municipal Historical Library of Madrid. The reason of this choice is twofold. On one hand, Garrido’s success as a comic actor (gracioso) was so important that these tonadillas allow to study how such a specific singing body could influence the composition of his repertory. And, on the other hand, these six pieces for Garrido represent a rare exception in a subgenre like the tonadilla a solo, which was principally performed by women. The methodology to analyze the presence of the singing body in these six tonadillas a solo for Garrido takes as a starting point an innovative and original theoretical framework: Jacques Fontanille’s semiotics of the body, explained in his book Soma et Sema (2004), and its musical version developed by Eero Tarasti within his existential semiotics (Semiotics of Classical Music, 2012).
Revista Catalana de Musicologia, 2019
This paper deals with the presence of about thirty manuscripts of 18th- and early 19th-century It... more This paper deals with the presence of about thirty manuscripts of 18th- and early 19th-century Italian operas in the musical archive of Sant Esteve d’Olot (Regional Archive of La Garrotxa), found in the course of the IFMuC project. These finds are particularly remarkable because of the lack of operatic manuscripts from this period in Catalonia. Here we seek to contextualize this material within the context of everyday life in Olot, with special regard to a still little-known aspect of the musical life of this town and of Catalonia at large: opera performance in the domestic settings of well-to-do families and specifically of the Conill family in this case.
Fontes Artis Musicae, 2017
Until recently, Catalonia was one of the few European regions still unaware of the richness of it... more Until recently, Catalonia was one of the few European regions still unaware of the richness of its musical heritage in terms of the repertory of compositions by its chapel masters, organists and musicians, which are conserved but forgotten in numerous, mainly ecclesiastic, archives. For this reason, at the beginning of the 2001-2002 academic year and in the Department of Art and Musicology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, a group of researchers and students, initiated a new line of research with the immediate priority of working to recover the collections of manuscripts that constitute the musical heritage of Catalonia. This project has continued to the present, becoming the IFMuC project, acronym of Inventaris dels Fons Musicals de Catalunya (‘Inventories of the Catalan Musical Collections’).
The aim of this article is to present the IFMuC project at an international forum in order to make it known beyond the Catalan boundaries. Over these years the IFMuC project has registered almost 300 collections of musical manuscripts; 17 of them have been catalogued, with an index of approximately 1,000 composers and 10,358 recorded works, including manuscripts and printed materials; and a considerable number of musical collections are still in the cataloguing process. The dissemination process has been conducted through different strategies, including the publishing of printed copies of some series, articles in magazines and above all the creation of a web-site (<http://ifmuc.uab.cat>) with an open-access digital database, undoubtedly the greatest milestone hitherto of the IFMuC project.
Resumen: Aires de danzas y bailes de sabor popular ―los llamados en la época sonsonetes populares... more Resumen: Aires de danzas y bailes de sabor popular ―los llamados en la época sonsonetes populares― plagaban las tonadillas de la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII, hasta el punto de ser considerados elementos consustanciales a este género. En el presente artículo proponemos estudiar cómo los compositores de tonadillas usaban estos sonsonetes populares, y para ello partimos del fandango, concretamente el teatral a tres partes. A través del análisis de diversos casos vemos cómo los compositores de tonadillas manipulaban y adaptaban un material sonoro y coréutico sobradamente conocido por el público según la intención dramática de la obra, desde la síntesis caricaturesca hasta usos metafóricos y conceptuales. Palabras clave: fandango, tonadilla, siglo XVIII, danza, historia de la danza, danza histórica, gesto, baile bolero, baile de teatro, cuerpo danzante THE FANDANGO IN DRAMATURGY MUSICAL TONADILLESCA: THE GESTURE IN ITS CONTEXT Abstract: Dance musics of popular flavour ―the so-called sonsonetes populares at the time― plagued the tonadillas of the second half of the eighteenth century, to the point of being considered an inherent feature of this genre. In the present article we would like to study how the composers of tonadillas used these sonsonetes populares, and for this purpose we take as a starting point the fandango, concretely the theatrical with three parts. Throughout the analysis of some cases we observe how the composers of tonadillas manipulated and adapted a sound and dance material well-known by the audience, according the dramatic intention of the play, from caricatural synthesis to metaphorical and conceptual uses.
Bulletin of Spanish Studies, 93-2 (2016), pp. 211-238
In order to achieve a fuller understanding of women as they are portrayed in the eighteenth-centu... more In order to achieve a fuller understanding of women as they are portrayed in the eighteenth-century Spanish lyric theatre, a key aspect, namely, the role of women in the tonadilla a solo repertoire, remains to be studied in depth. In this genre, the leading singing character, almost always a woman, would come on stage in order to relate or sing something of significance directly to the audience. This article considers the figure of the tonadillera—the female singer of tonadillas—as an archetypal woman who communicates not only by means of the text she delivers, but also through her body, her gestures and her music. The article analyses, for its source-material, the tonadillas of Jacinto Valledor, in which an emancipated type of woman may often be found. Though restrained of course by prevailing moral and ideological attitudes, the tonadilla was a popular type of play which functioned, in the way it was composed and performed, at the margins of the more conventional lyric theatre of the time.
Para completar el panorama femenino del teatro español del siglo XVIII todavía falta estudiar un aspecto inédito y clave: la importancia de la mujer en la tonadilla a solo, en la que la protagonista—casi siempre una mujer—subía al escenario para contar, cantando, algo directamente al público. Este artículo es un primer acercamiento a la figura de la tonadillera entendida como un arquetipo de mujer que, desde el escenario, comunica no sólo con el texto, sino también con el cuerpo, el gesto y la música. Este trabajo se ha elaborado a partir de las tonadillas a solo de Jacinto Valledor, y muestran un modo de ser mujer emancipado y muy moderno gracias a un género popular ‘marginal’, aunque siempre constreñido a las coordenadas ideológicas y morales de la época.
Scripta. Revista Internacional de Literatura i Cultura Medieval i Moderna, 7 (juny 2016)
Ensalades en clausura: Una primera aproximació als cançoners del convent de les carmelites descal... more Ensalades en clausura: Una primera aproximació als cançoners del convent de les carmelites descalces de Santa Teresa de Vic*
Ensaladas in the cloister: A first approach to the songbooks of the convent of the Discalced Carmelites of St. Teresa of Vic
Resum: La recent troballa de dos cançoners al convent de Santa Teresa de Vic, datables al segle XVII, ve a ampliar i enriquir de manera considerable el que ja se sabia sobre la creació literària conventual i la presència de música, cants i altres manifestacions performatives dins de la clausura del Carmel descalç femení durant l'Edat Moderna. En aquest article es fa una primera aproximació a aquests cançoners, que posa de manifest les diferències entre ambdós: un recull repertori forà més antic, del segle XVI i inici del XVII, entre el que hi destaca la curiosa presència de moltes de les ensalades editades per Mateu Fletxa el Jove a Praga l'any 1581; i l'altre és un excel·lent exemple de la creació literària de les pròpies monges, amb obres que abarcarien tot el segle XVII i inicis del XVIII. A més de descriure els manuscrits i apropar-se al seu contingut situant-lo en el seu context, en el present article es reflexiona sobre la possible praxi performativa del repertori, especialment sobre les ensalades.
Abstract: The recent finding of two songbooks in the convent of Saint Therese in Vic (Barcelona), dated to the 17th century, broadens and enriches strikingly what was already known about the literary creation in monasteries and performative manifestations —music, theater, dance— in the enclosed life of female discalced Carmel during the Modern Age. This article provides a first approach to these songbooks, that shows significant differences between them. The first one collects a foreign and older repertory, from 16th and early 17th centuries, that includes the unusual presence of ensaladas edited by Mateu Fletxa the Youger in 1581. The other one is an excellent example of literary creation of the nuns, with works dated from 17th to early 18th century. As well as a description of the manuscripts, an approximation to their content and placing them in their context, the article includes some reflections concerning the performative practice of this repertory, above all of the ensaladas.
Música Oral del Sur, 12 (2015)
El objetivo principal de este artículo es indagar sobre qué herramientas musicales podía usar el ... more El objetivo principal de este artículo es indagar sobre qué herramientas musicales podía usar el compositor de tonadillas en la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII para representar los personajes franceses o relacionados con Francia y, en general, el concepto de lo francés. A lo largo de estas páginas se muestran diversos recursos dramatúrgico-musicales vinculados con la capacidad comunicativa de la música del siglo XVIII (topoi sobre todo de música de danzas y bailes, estilos, formas y gestos musicales) que conforman un amplio espectro sonoro de lo francés, una posible francofonía musical que no necesariamente tenía que ser realista pero si eficaz dentro de la particular dramaturgia de un género lírico-escénico breve y humorístico.
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Books by Aurèlia Pessarrodona
Uno de los tonadilleros que pusieron en escena un gran número de obras de este género en Barcelona, Madrid y otras ciudades españolas, fue Jacinto Valledor, cuya vida y obra se recupera aquí, con acierto y mérito, la especialista Aurèlia Pessarrodona, haciendo gala de una inmensa capacidad investigadora, ya que la documentación sobre Valledor es más escasa y menos conocida que la de otros contemporáneos. Este libro es, por tanto, una importante contribución al conocimiento de la cultural de nuestro Siglo de las Luces.
Papers by Aurèlia Pessarrodona
Search Site
While eighteenth-century Spanish folk airs such as the fandango and seguidilla are now gaining more recognition, there remains an important oversight: the tirana, a dance song that became particularly popular during the last third of the century onward, even inspiring foreign composers such as Luigi Boccherini, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Saverio Mercadante. Lacking a systematic study, the tirana has been regarded as a general name for Andalusian songs without clear typologies or concrete, identifying musical characteristics. Based on an analysis of approximately one hundred tiranas found in the repertoire of the old theaters of Madrid (held in the Biblioteca Histórica Municipal de Madrid) and dating from the late 1770s and 1780s, the period of development and consolidation of this dance song, this article verifies that the tirana has distinct attributes and evolved from its earliest forms, originating in Andalusia, to more complex and richer examples. In light of this analysis, it is now possible to investigate the circulation and impact of the tirana abroad in the late eighteenth century. For example, Vicente Martín y Soler’s “Viva, viva la Regina” from Una cosa rara (1786), long wrongfully considered the first onstage manifestation of the Viennese waltz, can now be identified as a tirana.
Development as a Singing Actress throughout the First Known Repertory
(1787–94)": The soprano Lorenza Correa (1773[?]–after July 1832) belonged to the first generation of Spanish singers who developed a prominent career abroad. But, unlike Manuel García’s and Isabel Colbran’s cases, there are no studies on her. In order to begin to fill this gap, the objective of this essay is to study Correa’s process of training,
development, and consolidation as a singing actress in the initial years of her professional career and howit contributed to her later international success. As such I analyze the repertory performed by her in the public theaters of Madrid from 1787, the moment in which she joined the Madrilenian companies as an eleventh lady, up until 1794, when she became third dama de cantado, the main singer of tonadillas.
Throughout this analysis I observe that she rapidly excelled as a singer thanks to her exceptional natural vocal skills and her training with music and singing teachers such as Pablo del Moral and probably Carlo Marinelli. Besides this, her experience in the public theaters of Madrid provided her a versatile training in a wide variety of registers: from spoken theater to sung performance, from serious to comic styles, and from Italian opera to autochthonous airs with folk flavor, even playing
the guitar. Moreover, from this context one can infer a notable singing level in some Spanish actors, as well as an important value of tonadillas as an excellent training tool for singing actors.
The aim of this article is to present the IFMuC project at an international forum in order to make it known beyond the Catalan boundaries. Over these years the IFMuC project has registered almost 300 collections of musical manuscripts; 17 of them have been catalogued, with an index of approximately 1,000 composers and 10,358 recorded works, including manuscripts and printed materials; and a considerable number of musical collections are still in the cataloguing process. The dissemination process has been conducted through different strategies, including the publishing of printed copies of some series, articles in magazines and above all the creation of a web-site (<http://ifmuc.uab.cat>) with an open-access digital database, undoubtedly the greatest milestone hitherto of the IFMuC project.
Para completar el panorama femenino del teatro español del siglo XVIII todavía falta estudiar un aspecto inédito y clave: la importancia de la mujer en la tonadilla a solo, en la que la protagonista—casi siempre una mujer—subía al escenario para contar, cantando, algo directamente al público. Este artículo es un primer acercamiento a la figura de la tonadillera entendida como un arquetipo de mujer que, desde el escenario, comunica no sólo con el texto, sino también con el cuerpo, el gesto y la música. Este trabajo se ha elaborado a partir de las tonadillas a solo de Jacinto Valledor, y muestran un modo de ser mujer emancipado y muy moderno gracias a un género popular ‘marginal’, aunque siempre constreñido a las coordenadas ideológicas y morales de la época.
Ensaladas in the cloister: A first approach to the songbooks of the convent of the Discalced Carmelites of St. Teresa of Vic
Resum: La recent troballa de dos cançoners al convent de Santa Teresa de Vic, datables al segle XVII, ve a ampliar i enriquir de manera considerable el que ja se sabia sobre la creació literària conventual i la presència de música, cants i altres manifestacions performatives dins de la clausura del Carmel descalç femení durant l'Edat Moderna. En aquest article es fa una primera aproximació a aquests cançoners, que posa de manifest les diferències entre ambdós: un recull repertori forà més antic, del segle XVI i inici del XVII, entre el que hi destaca la curiosa presència de moltes de les ensalades editades per Mateu Fletxa el Jove a Praga l'any 1581; i l'altre és un excel·lent exemple de la creació literària de les pròpies monges, amb obres que abarcarien tot el segle XVII i inicis del XVIII. A més de descriure els manuscrits i apropar-se al seu contingut situant-lo en el seu context, en el present article es reflexiona sobre la possible praxi performativa del repertori, especialment sobre les ensalades.
Abstract: The recent finding of two songbooks in the convent of Saint Therese in Vic (Barcelona), dated to the 17th century, broadens and enriches strikingly what was already known about the literary creation in monasteries and performative manifestations —music, theater, dance— in the enclosed life of female discalced Carmel during the Modern Age. This article provides a first approach to these songbooks, that shows significant differences between them. The first one collects a foreign and older repertory, from 16th and early 17th centuries, that includes the unusual presence of ensaladas edited by Mateu Fletxa the Youger in 1581. The other one is an excellent example of literary creation of the nuns, with works dated from 17th to early 18th century. As well as a description of the manuscripts, an approximation to their content and placing them in their context, the article includes some reflections concerning the performative practice of this repertory, above all of the ensaladas.
Uno de los tonadilleros que pusieron en escena un gran número de obras de este género en Barcelona, Madrid y otras ciudades españolas, fue Jacinto Valledor, cuya vida y obra se recupera aquí, con acierto y mérito, la especialista Aurèlia Pessarrodona, haciendo gala de una inmensa capacidad investigadora, ya que la documentación sobre Valledor es más escasa y menos conocida que la de otros contemporáneos. Este libro es, por tanto, una importante contribución al conocimiento de la cultural de nuestro Siglo de las Luces.
Search Site
While eighteenth-century Spanish folk airs such as the fandango and seguidilla are now gaining more recognition, there remains an important oversight: the tirana, a dance song that became particularly popular during the last third of the century onward, even inspiring foreign composers such as Luigi Boccherini, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Saverio Mercadante. Lacking a systematic study, the tirana has been regarded as a general name for Andalusian songs without clear typologies or concrete, identifying musical characteristics. Based on an analysis of approximately one hundred tiranas found in the repertoire of the old theaters of Madrid (held in the Biblioteca Histórica Municipal de Madrid) and dating from the late 1770s and 1780s, the period of development and consolidation of this dance song, this article verifies that the tirana has distinct attributes and evolved from its earliest forms, originating in Andalusia, to more complex and richer examples. In light of this analysis, it is now possible to investigate the circulation and impact of the tirana abroad in the late eighteenth century. For example, Vicente Martín y Soler’s “Viva, viva la Regina” from Una cosa rara (1786), long wrongfully considered the first onstage manifestation of the Viennese waltz, can now be identified as a tirana.
Development as a Singing Actress throughout the First Known Repertory
(1787–94)": The soprano Lorenza Correa (1773[?]–after July 1832) belonged to the first generation of Spanish singers who developed a prominent career abroad. But, unlike Manuel García’s and Isabel Colbran’s cases, there are no studies on her. In order to begin to fill this gap, the objective of this essay is to study Correa’s process of training,
development, and consolidation as a singing actress in the initial years of her professional career and howit contributed to her later international success. As such I analyze the repertory performed by her in the public theaters of Madrid from 1787, the moment in which she joined the Madrilenian companies as an eleventh lady, up until 1794, when she became third dama de cantado, the main singer of tonadillas.
Throughout this analysis I observe that she rapidly excelled as a singer thanks to her exceptional natural vocal skills and her training with music and singing teachers such as Pablo del Moral and probably Carlo Marinelli. Besides this, her experience in the public theaters of Madrid provided her a versatile training in a wide variety of registers: from spoken theater to sung performance, from serious to comic styles, and from Italian opera to autochthonous airs with folk flavor, even playing
the guitar. Moreover, from this context one can infer a notable singing level in some Spanish actors, as well as an important value of tonadillas as an excellent training tool for singing actors.
The aim of this article is to present the IFMuC project at an international forum in order to make it known beyond the Catalan boundaries. Over these years the IFMuC project has registered almost 300 collections of musical manuscripts; 17 of them have been catalogued, with an index of approximately 1,000 composers and 10,358 recorded works, including manuscripts and printed materials; and a considerable number of musical collections are still in the cataloguing process. The dissemination process has been conducted through different strategies, including the publishing of printed copies of some series, articles in magazines and above all the creation of a web-site (<http://ifmuc.uab.cat>) with an open-access digital database, undoubtedly the greatest milestone hitherto of the IFMuC project.
Para completar el panorama femenino del teatro español del siglo XVIII todavía falta estudiar un aspecto inédito y clave: la importancia de la mujer en la tonadilla a solo, en la que la protagonista—casi siempre una mujer—subía al escenario para contar, cantando, algo directamente al público. Este artículo es un primer acercamiento a la figura de la tonadillera entendida como un arquetipo de mujer que, desde el escenario, comunica no sólo con el texto, sino también con el cuerpo, el gesto y la música. Este trabajo se ha elaborado a partir de las tonadillas a solo de Jacinto Valledor, y muestran un modo de ser mujer emancipado y muy moderno gracias a un género popular ‘marginal’, aunque siempre constreñido a las coordenadas ideológicas y morales de la época.
Ensaladas in the cloister: A first approach to the songbooks of the convent of the Discalced Carmelites of St. Teresa of Vic
Resum: La recent troballa de dos cançoners al convent de Santa Teresa de Vic, datables al segle XVII, ve a ampliar i enriquir de manera considerable el que ja se sabia sobre la creació literària conventual i la presència de música, cants i altres manifestacions performatives dins de la clausura del Carmel descalç femení durant l'Edat Moderna. En aquest article es fa una primera aproximació a aquests cançoners, que posa de manifest les diferències entre ambdós: un recull repertori forà més antic, del segle XVI i inici del XVII, entre el que hi destaca la curiosa presència de moltes de les ensalades editades per Mateu Fletxa el Jove a Praga l'any 1581; i l'altre és un excel·lent exemple de la creació literària de les pròpies monges, amb obres que abarcarien tot el segle XVII i inicis del XVIII. A més de descriure els manuscrits i apropar-se al seu contingut situant-lo en el seu context, en el present article es reflexiona sobre la possible praxi performativa del repertori, especialment sobre les ensalades.
Abstract: The recent finding of two songbooks in the convent of Saint Therese in Vic (Barcelona), dated to the 17th century, broadens and enriches strikingly what was already known about the literary creation in monasteries and performative manifestations —music, theater, dance— in the enclosed life of female discalced Carmel during the Modern Age. This article provides a first approach to these songbooks, that shows significant differences between them. The first one collects a foreign and older repertory, from 16th and early 17th centuries, that includes the unusual presence of ensaladas edited by Mateu Fletxa the Youger in 1581. The other one is an excellent example of literary creation of the nuns, with works dated from 17th to early 18th century. As well as a description of the manuscripts, an approximation to their content and placing them in their context, the article includes some reflections concerning the performative practice of this repertory, above all of the ensaladas.
The taste for lyric drama among audiences at the Casa de Comèdies (Comedy Play House) in Barcelona gradually became established during the 18th century. While much is known about opera, very few studies have been conducted on other genres. In this respect, the tonadilla is especially significant. This genre is a kind of satirical musical comedy, for which the Madrid-born composer Jacinto Valledor was particularly renowned. He was the first musician of the Teatre de Barcelona’s company of Spanish actors at an irregular time between 1773 or 1774 and 1785. Valledor was the star of an odd period when the genre peaked in Barcelona (1773-1775), though subsequent evidence shows that the genre continued to remain current and strong. The aim of this article is, therefore, to try and establish what the tonadilla culture at Barcelona’s Casa de Comèdies was like in that period based on the data we have available, whether directly or indirectly related to Jacinto Valledor.
recapture, restore and interpret them from a choreographically and
choreologically informed point of view.
La historiografía de tiempos pasados quiso entender la tonadilla como baluarte de lo genuinamente hispánico en contra de las nefastas influencias extranjeras, sobre todo francesas e italianas. Sin embargo, desde hace unos años se está empezando a estudiar el género sin complejos asumiendo con naturalidad las influencias extranjeras que sin duda tuvo.
El objetivo de este artículo es estudiar cómo la tonadilla reflejaba las diversas tipologías de personajes italianos en particular, y la idea de lo italiano en general, dentro de la retórica de un género humorístico breve cuya economía de medios hacía necesarios recursos musicales muy eficaces para presentar personajes. Para ello se ha estudiado una amplia casuística —de los fondos de la Biblioteca Histórica Municipal de Madrid— que muestra un predominio de la temática metamusical a la hora de abordar estos estereotipos. Los italianos suelen ser representados a partir de la estética musical del bel canto incluso con citas literales operísticas—, pero deformada y exagerada según el grado de caricaturización del personaje y de la escena. De hecho, en este repertorio la relación con Italia parece ser bastante ambigua: por una parte, lo otro resulta un fácil blanco de caricaturas risibles; pero por otra parte se observa cierta admiración, que llevó incluso a la asimilación de elementos de la dramaturgia musical italiana dentro de la tonadilla, tales como recitativos acompañados o concertantes de acción.
En realidad, estas obras breves reflejan dialécticas dieciochescas entre dos mundos que se superponen ―lo propio y lo otro, o lo tradicional y lo moderno―, en el momento de conformación, dentro del proyecto ilustrado y europeo, de las identidades nacionales tal como ahora las entendemos.
These pieces usually have been understood as being representative of Boccherini’s admiration for his host country. By contrast, the English traveler William Beckford, in a letter from 1787 published in his Italy: with Sketches of Spain and Portugal (1834), reported Boccherini’s aversion to this kind of Spanish music and dance due to it being contrary to good taste. Scholars have commonly considered Beckford’s anecdote as not being reliable enough. However, there is not yet a global study on Boccherini’s treatment of this Spanish style of music and dance which analyzes its authenticity from a corporal point of view. The main objective of this paper is to evaluate what perception Boccherini had of this “Spanish body”, taking as case studies the aforementioned three pieces. Thus, the intention is to give some answers to the following questions: To what extend did Boccherini have a real corporeal knowledge of these dances? Was Boccherini’s treatment of these “Spanish” dances realistic or manipulated? What image of this “Spanish body” did these pieces transmit? And finally, could these images be understood outside Spain? In order to answer these questions, Boccherini’s pieces will be contrasted with contemporary sources, above all from musical theatre, taking into consideration the most characteristic dancing gestures of this “Spanish” style, remaining mainly in the Bolero School. The selected repertoire allows us to analyze how Boccherini dealt with this “Spanish body” from three different perspectives: 1) a presumably realistic fandango (probably inspired by one of Padre Basilio), 2) the synthesis of two seemingly disparate dances as the minuet and seguidillas, and 3) a tirana converted into sonata form.
l’attenzione dei ricercatori in occasioni diverse, dato il suo carattere particolarmente pittoresco
dentro del paesaggio musicale del classicismo, in questo caso ispirato direttamente dal lungo
soggiorno del compositore luchese in terre ispaniche. Ciononostante, nella maggior parte degli
studi precedenti manca ancora il conoscimento reale dei riferimenti coreomusicali, così come del
modo in cui essi funzionavano come topici nel contesto del Settecento ispanico.
In questo caso, l’attenzione si focalizza sul fandango, ballo che chiaramente ispirò Boccherini
nel suo famoso quintetto op. 40 nº 2 G 341 (1788) e la sua versione ulteriore nel quintetto con
chitarra nº 4 G 448 (1798). Comunque, bisogna ancora vedere fino a che punto il fandango permeò
la creazione boccheriniana al di là di questo riferimento esplicito. Le mie ricerche più recenti,
ancora inedite, hanno affrontato questo argomento partendo dalle fonte coetanee, soprattutto
fandanghi integrati nel repertorio degli antichi teatri di Madrid, analizzando il loro rapporto con
gesti coreografici della danza storica spagnola e il loro significato in questo contesto scenico e
culturale. Quindi, in questa relazione si mostrerà come questo studio ha reso possibile individuare
gli elementi identificativi del fandango settecentesco come topico dentro della cultura spagnola,
la quale cosa ha permesso il riconoscimento di passaggi “afandangati” nella musica strumentale
di Boccherini, solitamente integrati in movimenti minuettati di quartetti e quintetti. Inoltre, si
valutarà il grado di connotazione di questi passaggi come topici: se sono usati sia come elementi
musicali integrati naturalmente dentro del linguaggio compositivo di Boccherini, sia con certa
connotazione, dando una immagine musicale della “ispanità” che poteva abbracciare
dall’ammirazione alla caricatura e la parodia.
Quindi, il mio proposito è fare conoscere i risultati, ancora provisori, di questa ricerca nel
foro di dibattito che rappresenta questo XXX Convegno Annuale della Società Italiana di
Musicologia, anche con l’idea di trasmettere ai musicologi italiani strategie per riconoscere
l’influsso della musica popolare del Settecento spagnolo in compositori internazionali,
specialmente italiani.
Por tanto, la intención de esta comunicación es estudiar la presencia de aires hispánicos en la música instrumental de Boccherini como tópicos teniendo en cuenta estos referentes coetáneos. Así pues, primero se mostrarán los rasgos identificativos del tópico de fandango partiendo de su aparición como tal en fuentes músico-escénicas coetáneas y tomando en consideración el gesto coréutico asociado. Este primer paso permitirá el reconocimiento de pasajes afandangados en la música instrumental de Boccherini, incrustados normalmente en movimientos aminuetados de cuartetos y quintetos de cuerda. Asimismo, se evaluará el grado de connotación de estos pasajes como tópicos: si son usados bien como un elemento compositivo más, integrándose de manera natural en el lenguaje compositivo de Boccherini, o bien como algo realmente connotado, dando una imagen de lo español que podía ir de lo amable y pintoresco hasta lo ridículo y caricaturesco. Esto nos ayudará a entender la posición de Boccherini con respecto a estos aires hispánicos, y por tanto reevaluar la anécdota contada por William Beckford en sus libros de viajes según la cual Boccherini los “despreciaba”.