MÚSICA
ANTIGA DE GIRONA: is an association that was founded in the year
2000. It is composed of singers, instrumentalists and musicologists
with the intention of recovering and disseminating XVII and XVIII century
music from the music chapel of Girona cathedral. This chapel was one
of the main instruments of ecclesiastical education in Girona society
after the Council of Trent. The current chapterhouse archive, when compared
to all other Catalan ecclesiastical archives, contains the best preserved
musical legacy that bygone generations have left us, thus constituting
a valuable tool for the understanding of religious sensitivity and the
way faith was experienced in past centuries.
Recovery is based on the digitalization and classifying of the sheet
music from the chapter -house archive belonging to the period of time
studied, that is from 1690 - the time of the composer Josep Gaz to the
death of Rafael Compta in 1815. About 700 scores have been digitalized
and classified and approximately 18,000 photographs have been taken.
Musical dissemination is based on concerts that take place in the cathedral
as well as in other localities, generally in Girona. We dedicate a project
to each choirmaster from between 1690 and 1815 that culminates in the
publication of the respective CD with a selection of their most interesting
works. In this way, we are able to make this music known to a much wider
audience, further afield than Girona. At the same time as we preserve
these musical works for future generations, our intention is to continue
to fill in the gaps in baroque Catalan music. The scope of each one
of these projects is rounded off with the publishing of articles in
various magazines. Most of this work has been made possible thanks to
funding by the Diputació de Girona (Girona Provincial Council).
As a result of the three projects that have already been carried out,
we have edited three CDs: the first one being a miscellaneous collection,
while the second is dedicated to the time of the napoleonic sieges with
compositions by Raphael Compta and Carlos Quilmetes. The third is dedicated
to Josep Gaz, who was active in Girona between 1690 and 1713. Each CD
is accompanied by a booklet containing details of historical and musical
research into the authors and their works as well as information about
the sung texts. The explanations are presented in Catalan, Spanish and
English. We interpret the compositions with instruments that are replicas
of historical ones in an effort to reproduce the characterisitics of
baroque sounds as closely as possible. Our goal is to gradually spread
the knowledge of these baroque compositors and their influence in a
city, that despite its secondary importance in Catalonia, was well situated
on the main communication axis running through the country and possessed
its own cultural dynamics. Being aware of events in the rest of the
country and in Europe Girona, accepted or rejected the influences coming
from its neighbours as appropriate. These tendencies were introduced
by all kinds of musicians, ranging from court players to exiled religious
ones and also included military composers.
