Abstract
With Spain, it is futile to attempt to set a date for the beginning of the Baroque period in music. The principal genres of both secular and sacred music in early seventeenth-century Spain continued traditions and techniques established by the final decades of the previous century. Spanish music did not go through a Mannerist phase, nor did a particular musical publication, a specific controversy or the work of any composer around the turn of the century represent a challenge to the late Renaissance aesthetic. Changes in the generalized musical language came about gradually, and a characteristically Spanish seventeenth-century style was not fully realized until towards 1650, although the early years of the century did witness shifts in the focus and social context of Spain’s musical life.
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Notes
Two books and an essay by J. H. Elliott can be recommended: Imperial Spain 1469–1716 (London, 1963), The Count-Duke of Olivares: the Statesman in an Age of Decline (New Haven and London, 1986) and ‘Philip IV of Spain, Prisoner of Ceremony’ in The Courts of Europe: Politics, Patronage and Royalty 1400–1800, ed. A. G. Dickens (London, 1977), 169–89.
So too can two studies by H. Kamen: Inquisition and Society in Spain in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Bloomington, 1985) and Spain in the Later Seventeenth Century 1665–1700 (London, 1980); and a further valuable study:
J. Lynch, Spain under the Habsburgs, ii: Spain and America 1598–1700 (Oxford, 2/1981).
Literature and the visual arts
For an overview of the literature of the period, see R. O. Jones, A Literary History of Spain, ii: The Golden Age, Prose and Poetry, the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (London, 1971).
More specific studies include N. D. Shergold, A History of the Spanish Stage from Medieval Times until the End of the Seventeenth Century (Oxford, 1967),
H. J. Chaytor, Dramatic Theory in Spain: Extracts from Literature before and during the Golden Age (Cambridge, 1925),
G. A. Davies, A Poet at Court: Don Antonio Hurtado de Mendoza (1586–1644) (Oxford, 1971).
On the visual arts, two fine studies are J. Brown, Velázquez Painter and Courtier (New Haven and London, 1986),
J. H. Elliott, A Palace for a King: the Buen Retiro and the Court of Philip IV (New Haven and London, 1980).
Music
The standard work is J. López-Calo, Historia de la música española, iii: Siglo XVII (Madrid, 1983).
L. K. Stein, Songs of Mortals, Dialogues of the Gods: Music and Theatre in Seventeenth-Century Spain (Oxford, 1993); and idem, ‘Opera and the Spanish Political Agenda’, AcM, lxiii (1991), 125–67.
A representative sampling of seventeenth-century Spanish sacred music is available in the following anthologies: Música barroca espanola, iii: Polifonía policoral litúrgica, ed. M. Querol, Monumentos de la müsica española, xli (Barcelona, 1982); and Polifonña aragonesa, i: Obras de los maestros de las capillas de música de Zaragoza en los siglos XV-XVII, ed. P. Calahorra (Saragossa, 1984); ii: Obras de los maestros de música de la Colegial de Daroca en los siglos XVIy XVII, ed. idem (Saragossa, 1985); iii: Obras de los maestros de la Catedral de Albarracín (Teruel) de los siglos XVI-XVIII, ed. J. M. Muneta (Saragossa, 1986). See also Carlos Patino: Obras musicales recopiladas, i, ed. L. Siemens Hernandez (Cuenca, 1986). For a selection of villancicos, see Música barroca española, iv: Villancicos polifónicos del siglo XVII, ed. M. Querol, Monumentos de la música española, xlii (Barcelona, 1982).
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© 1993 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Stein, L.K. (1993). Spain. In: Price, C. (eds) The Early Baroque Era. Man & Music. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11294-4_15
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