UB Editions recovers musical heritage with the presentation of the fourth volume of the Consonantia collection

On Thursday 20 February, at 7.30 pm, in the Sant Felip Neri church, the fourth book in the Consonantia collection will be presented: Repertorio inédito para tecla en la Barcelona de comienzos del siglo XIX: de la ópera al salón y el convento, edited by Antonio Ezquerro, Oriol Brugarolas and Javier Artigas, with the collaboration of Mercè Gras and Neus Verger. The publication is based on a 19th-century manuscript guarded by the University of Barcelona. 

Some published musical works will be performed at the event, with Manuel Grande at the pianoforte and Javier Artigues at the organ. The concert will give the public an idea of the amalgam of musical styles in the manuscript, characteristic of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The book also includes four QR codes that link to recordings of four musical pieces from the manuscript, such as the Sonata en fa major by Carlos Baguer (1768-1808) and the Rondó en do major by Fray Joaquín de Jesús, María y José, the secular name of Joaquín Laposaría Alsina (1778-1839). 

​​​​​​​The Consonantia collection, an initiative of the UB and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), in collaboration with the Archdiocese of Barcelona, aims to raise awareness of the music collection held by the UB’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The first three titles have published facsimile editions of some theoretical treatises on music accompanied by the corresponding critical studies, but in the Repertorio inédito para tecla en la Barcelona de comienzos del siglo XIX: de la ópera al salón y el convento, for the first time, a critical edition of a manuscript with modern musical notation is published: some eighty pieces of music for piano and organ from the late 18th and early 19th centuries from the manuscript Libro de Sonatas, dating from the year 1378. 

From a musicological approach, Consonantia traces and rediscovers the sound traces of our past. Thus, by broadening the scope of musical heritage, it contributes to the transfer and dissemination of knowledge in society through a high-level multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary study. The works published as part of this collection make available to everyone, from experts to amateurs, a whole new repertoire for organ or piano that provides a better and closer understanding of the entry of music into the Contemporary Age in a city like Barcelona. Some eighty works for keyboard of different styles and types (sonatas, rondos, minuets, arrangements of fashionable overtures and arias and some symphonies) and composers, such as Francesc Mariner (1720-1789), Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801), Johann Simon Mayr (1763-1845), Carles Baguer (1768-1808), Joan Obradors (fl. 1798-1810) and Francisco Rodríguez (fl. 1778-1811), are published. 

Antonio Ezquerro Esteban (ed.) is a researcher at the CSIC’s Milà i Fontanals Institution. He has published several research papers on historical music in the Spanish-speaking world and has focused on archiving and cataloguing musical sources. He teaches at several universities and, as a musicologist, has been awarded numerous prizes. 

Oriol Brugarolas Bonet (ed.) holds a PhD in History, and is a lecturer at the UB’s Department of Art History. As a researcher, he has specialized in the study and recovery of Catalan musical heritage; musical production, consumption and trade in Spain between 1780 and 1900, and the history of musical education in Catalonia in the contemporary period. 

Javier Artigas Pina (ed.) is a musician and professor at the Department of Early Music at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Murcia. He also collaborates with other educational centres, such as the Escola Superior de Música de Cataluña and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. As a researcher, he has been responsible for transcribing, studying and editing works for keyboard, harp and vihuela.