De triunfos y méritostres celebraciones en la Universidad de Oviedo en el último cuarto de siglo XVIII (1783-1798)

Abstract

The University of Oviedo, founded in September 1608, embraced music from its very beginnings, through the Chair envisaged in its founding statutes. The teaching community enhanced their most important celebrations with music, both during academic events and external commemorations: births, weddings and funerals for the royal family or distinguished leaders, the exaltation of Asturian figures promoted to prominent political positions. Three of these occasions took place during the late-eighteenth century: the birth of the twin infantes Charles and Philip and the signing of the peace treaty with Great Britain (1783), the Count of Campomanes's promotion to the Presidency of the Castilian Council (1789) and Jovellanos's appointment as Minister of Justice (1797-98). The cathedral music chapel was essential in these celebrations with the participation of its musicians, while the chapel masters and organists composed the repertoire preserved at the Oviedo Chapter Archive (E: OV). There is no mention of these celebrations in the University Records, which were destroyed during the 1934 Revolution. Indirect resources such as festival lists and collections of poems and plays have thus been used to reconstruct these celebrations, together with historical documents and the music held at the Oviedo Chapter Archive.