Silent music: medieval song and the construction of history in eighteenth-century spain

This book shows the influence of medieval musical manuscripts on the articulation of national identity in Enlightenment Spain. Silent Music explores the importance of music and liturgy in an eighteenth-century vision of Spanish culture and national identity. From 1750 to 1755, the Jesuit Andrs Marcos Burriel (1719-1762) and the calligrapher Francisco Xavier Santiago y Palomares (1728-1796) worked together in Toledo Cathedral for the Royal Commission on the Archives, which the government created to obtain evidence for the royal patronage of church benefices in Spain. With Burriel asdirector, the Commission transcribed not only archival documents, but also manuscripts of canon law, history, literature, and liturgy, in order to write a new ecclesiastical history of Spain. At the center of this ambitious project of cultural nationalism stood the medieval manuscripts of the Old Hispanic rite, the liturgyassociated with Toledo's Mozarabs, or Christians who had continued to practice their religion under Muslim rule. Burriel was the first to realize that the medieval manuscripts differed significantly from the early-modern editions of the Mozarabic rite. Palomares, building on his work with Burriel, wrote a history of the Visigothic script in which he noted the indecipherability of the music notation in manuscripts of the Old Hispanic rite. Palomares not only studied manuscripts, but also copiedthem, producing numerous drawings and a full-size, full-color parchment facsimile of the liturgical manuscript Toledo, Biblioteca Capitular 35.7 (from the late eleventh or early twelfth century),which was presented to King Ferdinand VI of Spain. Another product of this antiquarian concern with songis Palomares's copy (dedicated to Brbara de Braganza) of the Toledo codex of the Cantigas de Santa Maria. For both men, this silent music was invaluable asa graphic legacy of Spain's past. While many historians in the Spanish Enlightenment articulated the idea of the modern nation through the study of the Middle Ages, Burriel and Palomares are exceptional for their treatment of musicalnotation as an object of historical study and their conception of music as anintegral part of history. INDICE: Table of Contents Acknowledgments List of Illustrations Abbreviations Notes on Orthography and Terminology Preface Introduction 1. Burriel in the Spanish Enlightenment 2. The Commission on the Archives in Toledo Cathedral 3. A Gem Worthy of a King: The Facsimile of a Mozarabic Chant Book 4. Alfonso X in the Age of Ferdinand VI: Copying the Cantigas de Santa Maria 5. Palomares and the Visigothic Neumes Epilogue Bibliography

• ISBN: 978-0-19-975459-5
• Editorial: Oxford University
• Encuadernacion: Cartoné
• Páginas: 256
• Fecha Publicación: 08/12/2011
• Nº Volúmenes: 1
• Idioma: Inglés