La presencia del romancero español en la música europea del primer romanticismo. Spanische Lieder, chansons espagnoles y Spanish Ballads

Abstract

Herder´s theory of Volksgeist, supported by Goethe´s concept of Weltliteratur, provoked an initial wave of philological interest in texts derived from Spanish romances and ancient Castilian poetry, and served as an inspiration to European musicians, who became culturally involved in the Volkslied movement. This movement was previous to and different from the interests of Spanish exoticism which arose some years later and which was influenced and oriented by questions of a social and political nature. The main objective of this dissertation is the study of the works of the Lied and song repertoire of early Romanticism which was inspired and based upon texts or themes taken directly or indirectly from the Spanish Romancero. The methodology used for the study of over 370 Spanische Lieder, chansons espagnoles and Spanish Airs that have been located in their first editions in different European archives and libraries, has been based upon the concepts of diversity as developed by Victor Segalen in his l'Essai sur l'exotisme of 1917. Through an exhaustive historical, literary and musical documentation, important advances have been made on the subject of the various ways in which poets, translators and composers understood and represented Spain and the Spaniards within each historical period and according to the changing social, cultural and political events. Within the diversity of the musical works which have been examined, it has been possible to observe an evolution of the characteristics of the individual pieces, based upon the progressive degree of contact with “the real” (real knowledge of Spain, of the Spaniards and of their music): from the first Volkslieder, French romances and Spanish Airs in English, initially based on the philological studies of the Romancero, on through the more developed epic Balladen based on idealized romance texts, and finally arriving at the boléros, mélodies and Lieder with exotic intentions. The diversity of themes and styles, both literary and musical, of the different repertoires studied has made it necessary to formulate a theoretical framework which could examine the causality of the literary-musical creation with its various signifiers and meanings (topoi), as well as the reception and the feedback that this reception brought about in the new and changing socio-political contexts of the 19th-century.