Prácticas musicales en el ecosistema penitenciario franquista (1938-1948)propaganda, contrapropaganda y clandestinidad

Résumé

ABSTRACT This thesis studies the musical practices developed in the penitentiary sonic environment of Franco’s Regime from 1938 to 1948. To offer a whole vision of the phenomena presented here, both the musical practices organized by the state institutions have been attended with the same level of depth of the ones produced by the prisoners. To this purpose, I have taken into consideration the biographies of seventy-three authors who participated in these practices. In total, to date, I have been able to register one hundred and seventy six musical works written by them. In this sense, the concept of «sonic environment» has been essential as it has been understood as the «whole» in which these practices were inscribed in a specific space-time –context– as processes related to each other and determined by functional aspects. To achieve the aim of the thesis I have divided the main body of the text in two blocks. In the first one (Penitentiary musical practices from the first Francoist incarcerations to the promulgation of the Penal Code) the irruption of these practices in prisons is analyzed from the first arrests carried out by the rebel side until 1944, the year in which the entire criminal regulations were published in a single text. This block addresses three essential aspects when it comes to studying prison musical practices in these years: the reflection of music in prison legislation in the period studied (chapter 1); the articulation and organization of the first musical programs in prisons (chapter 2); and music as a manifestation of the cultural dissent of the detainees (chapter 3). In relation to the regulations produced by the State regarding the use of music in prisons between 1938 and 1948 (chapter 1), the organizations and institutions in charge of ruling the daily prison life at a general level –Dirección General de Prisiones– have been analyzed as those others that at a more specific level were in charge of imposing these practices –Patronato Central para la Redención de Penas por el Trabajo (PCRPT)–, without prejudice to the interventions of other entities that, without being properly linked to the penitentiary system, developed an active role in these activities. I refer here to the Escuelas de Hogar. On the other hand, the imposition of these practices in prisons has been analyzed at different levels. In order to link these practices with their context, it has been sought that the chapters that address both the official practice (chapter 2) and the unofficial practice (chapter 3) dialogue with each other, at the same time as with the music scene outside the prisons. Within the framework of official musical practices (chapter 2), parameters such as the typology of the musical proposals of the Regime in prisons have been taken into consideration. The content of said programming has been analyzed based on musical parameters. However, this has not been the only vision that has interested the author. Other issues have been taken into account such as the intention of the repertoire itself. Likewise, the configuration of space and time traversed by music has been addressed from a physical perspective but also from a philosophical point of view, adopting and adapting the vision of the French philosopher Michel Foucault regarding the prison panopticon. Finally, the sociocultural profiles and the musical background of the prisoners is represented in the conceptualization «prisoner musician» / «musician prisoner» that differentiates between those musicians who were victims of repression and the political prisoners who, without being musicians, were forced to take part in the aforementioned activities. The third part of this first block (chapter 3) is the one that attends to the prisoners’ musical organization as an expression of their cultural dissidence. This manifestation could be given in a collective way with political intention –counter propaganda and / or protest– or of a more individual form linked to an artistic aspiration. To establish a dialogued analysis with what was stated in the previous part (chapter 2), not only has the purely musical question been addressed, such as the organization and configuration of the repertoire, but other aspects such as the reappropriations and resignifications of the repertoire have been taken into consideration, both on the official side and on the unofficial side. The para-institutional, material, economic and symbolic resources available to the prisoners have also been valued. In other words, the networks established from abroad as part of the prisoners’ cultural support, as well as the means that the prison community itself developed for itself, have been the object of analysis. In this sense, the notions of space and time as heterotopias of the prison crossed by music have been studied under the Foucauldian scheme. The second block of the main body (Penitentiary musical practices from the enactment of the Penal Code to the publication of the Internal Regulations of the Prison Services) has been built in mimesis with the preceding block and deals with the development of musical practices between 1944 and 1948, that is, in the period that runs between the two most relevant penitentiary texts. To this end, the effects of the aforementioned Penal Code have been analyzed in the articulation of official musical practices (chapter 4) in accordance with the parameters already exposed (chapter 2) and comparisons have been established between one period and another, seeking the articulation of a continuous discourse. The second part of the block (chapter 5) focuses on how the consolidation of the penal system opened the possibility of the articulation of a stronger cultural fabric that was influenced by the musical repertoires that came from outside the prison in a clandestine way. For this, two interventions that were essential in enriching the political repertoire of a counter-propaganda and protest nature I have analyzed the entrance of the Revolutionary Songbook, by Armando Triviño and the repertoire from the León-Galicia Guerrilla Front. The research confirms how the musical practice was present in the propaganda framework of the Franco regime from the first moments of the war and how in the same way and in response, the prison population also resorted to it to recover, rebuild and promote their own cultural, political and moral identity. In short, the study of music in the Franco regime prison context is an important page for the Spanish musicology since the absence of a consolidated tradition in the analysis of music as an element of punishment, torture and re-education had left behind this unique context so important to fully understand the evolution of the 20th century music scene.