Music and Francoism

Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini, Lucca, Italy

The monograph “Music and Francoism” edited by the Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini brings together 22 essays by musicologists of different nationalities. It provides studies exploring today’s most active lines of research within the field of musicology and analyzes the networks of relationships developing out of the musical activities and phenomena of the Franco regime (1938–1975). These studies offer approaches to specific genres (chamber music, instrumental and theatrical music, flamenco, jazz, copla, light music, and cinematic music) and to diverse repertories and creative musical languages (nationalist, Neoclassical, and avant-garde) without neglecting musical creation, discourse and its producers (composers, performers, and critics) within public and private institutional frameworks.  The studies also investigate the music policies that formed part of the regime and involved repertories, creators, and performers.  In this latter regard, the chapters that study music within the context of international relations up to the end of the Second World War stand out, as do those that investigate the impact that historical events such as the Spanish Civil War — or others specifically musical in nature with special symbolic weight within Spain — exerted beyond the Spanish borders on foreign composers and their contexts as well as on Spanish composers in exile. This volume presents a critical synthesis of hitherto historiographical reflections focusing on the relationship of the music scene with the Franco regime, together with an analysis of the theoretic-artistic and identity-defining forceful speeches during early Francoism, with an evaluation of their precedents. Two chapters constitute the first section of the book, followed by another two that include studies on music, propaganda at home and abroad, musical institutions and activities, and, finally, musical practices and the dissemination of repertories. 

November 15–17, 2013 
Lucca, Italy 

Further Information: 
www.luigiboccherini.org