Santiago de Murcia

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Santiago de Murcia (born c. 1682 in Madrid; died c. 1732) was a Spanish guitarist and composer.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Few details about the life of Santiago de Murcia remain. He was probably born in Madrid around 1682, son of the royal manufacturer of instruments Gabriel de Murcia. He studied with the guitarist and composer Francisco Guerau between 1690 and 1700.

Apparently he travelled to Naples, Italy, in 1702 with the king Felipe V, where he would have known the composers Arcangelo Corelli and Alessandro Scarlatti. From the beginning of 1704, he was Master of Guitar to the Queen, Maria Luisa Gabriela de Savoy, a position he held until her death in 1714.

The king's new wife, Isabel Farnese, was only interested in Italian music, and for this reason many royal musicians were dismissed from her service. Around 1714, Santiago de Murcia was employed by Jacome Francisco Andriani, the Extraordinary Envoy for the Catholic Cantones and Caballero of the Order of Santiago, a group of rich and influential aristocrats.

At some point in the 1720s, Santiago apparently travelled to Mexico, perhaps in order to experiment at first hand with the exotic dances of the New World.

Although his name does not appear in Mexican documents, his only three surviving collections of music for guitar were found there, and there are copies of pieces from these collections in several Mexican sources. The probable employer of Santiago in Mexico, Jose Alvarez de Saavedra, died in Puebla in 1737. It is not known when and where Santiago de Murcia passed away.

One of the important aspects of the music of Santiago is his interest in a wide range of musical cultures, including those of France, Italy, Mexico and even Africa, as well as Spain. Thus the collections offer works of different styles grouped next to one another, which certainly offers a rich and varied panorama of the baroque repertoire for guitar.

On 18th September, 2006, it was reported in the newspaper El Mercurio that the manuscript of music by Santiago de Murcia Cifras selectas de guitarra dating from 1722 had been discovered in Chile. The discovery was made by the musicologist Alejandro Vera from the Music Institute at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile. The music consists of French and Spanish dances.

[edit] Works

[edit] Bibliography

  • Monica Hall: Guitar anthologies of Santiago de Murcia University of Open. Engels : Book, Milton Keynes : University of Open, 1983. OCLC: 59292792
  • Craig H Russell: Santiago De Murcia: Spanish theorist and guitarist of the early eighteeth century. English: Book : Thesis/dissertation/manuscript, Microform. 1981. OCLC: 25778189
  • Elena Machado Lowenfeld: Santiago de Murcia's thorough-bass treatise for the baroque guitar (1714) Engels : Book : Thesis/dissertation/manuscript.1974. OCLC: 8075098
  • Neil Douglas Pennington: The development of baroque guitar music in Spain, including a commentary on and transcription of Santiago de Murcia's 'Passacalles y obras' (1732) Engels : Book. Publisher: [S.l. : s.n.], 1979. OCLC: 66179517
  • Alejandro Vera: Una nueva fuente para la música del siglo XVIII: el manuscrito Cifras Selectas de Guitarra de Santiago de Murcia (1722). Revista Resonancias Nº 18, Mayo 2006 . Facultad de Artes . Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile

[edit] External links

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