Juan Manuel Gaitán y Arteaga, the influenced musician [final]

Alba Conejo Mangas

Name: Alba Conejo Mangas. Main subject: Historical violin. Research supervisor: Wouter Verschuren. Title of the research: Juan Manuel Gaitán y Arteaga, the "influenced" musician. Research question: Is it possible to distinguish the influence of pre-flamenco in the villancicos of Juan Manuel Gaitán y Arteaga? Summary of results: During my research, I never imagined finding music from Lima or Guatemala composed by Juan Manuel Gaitán y Arteaga, a musician from Córdoba, Spain, in the XVIII century, who had never been in these places. This discovery presented an interesting challenge: to bring back to life scores that had been forgotten for over two hundred years and to explore the music played in Córdoba Cathedral during the middle of the XVIII century. My interest on Juan Manuel Gaitán y Arteaga started when I listened to a beautiful villancico "Voy buscando mi cordero" by Gaitán y Arteaga, performed by La Orquesta Barroca de Sevilla with Enrico Onofri. Despite being sacred music composed for the church and for weekly mass, it was written in Spanish and carried a distinct Spanish folkloric flavour. Did Juan Manuel Gaitán y Arteaga have a connection with XVIII century Spanish folk music? This caught my attention and spurred me to delve deeper into his music, particularly his villancicos. I soon realized how little-known Juan Manuel's music is today The line of research I pursued falls within the realm of musicological-historical research. The musicological techniques employed include those related to musical historiography, such as the chronological organization of historical-musical events, particularly in Córdoba. Additionally, it involves an understanding of musical compositions, forms, and styles, as well as musical aesthetics, encompassing the conception of music, its functions, and purposes. The objectives are: to understand the musical personality of Gaitán y Arteaga in his villancicos and the relation between the folkloric and ecclesiastical world in Spain on XVIII C. Biography: Born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, she finished her modern bachelor under the guidance of Gordan Nikolic in Rotterdam. It was then, that she started her interest in historical performance. After her graduation, she studied for her baroque bachelor's in Brussels under the guidance of Ryo Terakado, and in 2022 she started her master's degree at The Hague Conservatory with professor Ryo Terakado too.

2. BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF JUAN MANUEL GAITÁN Y ARTEAGA.

Juan Manuel González Gaitán y Arteaga was born 1716 in Cordoba, Spain. His parents were Bartolomé González Gaitán and Ana Luisa de Arteaga, both originally from Córdoba. Juan Manuel was the sixth of seven children that this marriage had. On May 14^th of 1725, Gaitán appears as an aspiring choir boy, at the age of 9. Before entering the choir, he complies with the estatuto de limpieza de sangre (statute of cleanliness of blood), which was an essential requirement to enter to serve at the Cathedral. The chapel master at that time was Agustín de Contreras (1678-1754). Juan Manuel teachers’ of canto de organo were Pedro Millán, Francisco del Rayo, violinist of the Cathedral, and Pedro Corchado.

On 1734, at the age of 18, he got economical support from ayuda de costa to go to Italy, in order to better dedicate himself to music and composition. He was granted 200 reales de vellón by the Cabildo of Cordoba (city hall) for this trip. This concern of the Cabildo for its promising young people is not exclusive to musicians; students from the San Pelagio, a school in Córdoba, were also granted with scholarships to study in Bologna and Salamanca. However Gaitán was a special case; no other musician is sent to Italy, although there were some who requested it.

Italy, and more specifically Naples, was the highest point that a music student could aspire at that time. All nationalities came to its conservatories to learn the latest compositional innovations of the moment. It was there where Gaitán learned about opera buffa and the use of turquerías, which would later influence the style of his compositions in Spanish. His first composition was Misa a 8 Pangelingua, a mass composed in 1740. It is not clear how many years Juan Manuel stayed in Italy, however, in 1748 he was already Chapel Master at the Cathedral of Segovia where he would stay till 1752, when he moved to Córdoba being eligible as Chapel Master.

On 1751, Chapel Master of Cathedral of Córdoba, Agustín de Contreras (1678-1754), asked the city hall his retirement, considering that he had served this cathedral for forty-six years and was seriously ill for a long time with perlesia disease. On Monday, January 10^th of 1752, a letter from Gaitán from Segovia was read in Córdoba, in which he gave the corresponding thanks for his appointment as a chapel master at Córdoba Cathedral. Gaitán was directly appointed to fill the position as Chapel Master without any examinations.

On Monday, February 7^thof 1752, the council of Córdoba established the obligations of the new chapel master:

He composes all the pieces that are necessary for the choir and regular masses (Thursday and Sunday).
All the music should stays in the music library of the Cathedral. Even his own compositions.
He is in charge of distributing the roles to the musicians.
He will rehearse with the musicians the music played for Thursdays and Sundays.
To teach the children of the choir.
Every day he will receive 12 reales de vellón.

On February 17^th of 1752, Gaitán finally began his responsibilities. In October of the same year he began a trip through Spain, Madrid, Toledo and Cuenca looking for voices for the chapel, in which he was successful. The Cabildo paid him 3000 reales de vellón for his efforts. During his time in Córdoba he was responsible for about 45 musicians in the chapel.

Juan Manuel will continue being the Chapel Master in Córdoba till 1779. It was then, when he requested and was granted his retirement in 1780 because of his poor health, given the certifications of three doctors in which they asserted his impossibility due to his ailments. Since his retirement, Gaitán did not loose contact with cathedral. In 1785 he was appointed to the opposition tribunal for Chapel Master. In June 1802 Franciscans welcomed him into their convent until his death.

Seventy-four compositions are preserved in the archive of the Cathedral of Córdoba by Juan Manuel on loose papers, three in choral books and four handbooks. Some of his compositions from his time in Cordoba are distributed in Spanish and Latin American archives. The archive that contains the largest number of works in Spanish by maestro Gaitán is the Archbishop's Archive of Lima, Peru. There are twenty pieces that this archive preserves, all of them villancicos and cantadas in Spanish. Next in number is the archive of the Royal Chapel of Granada, in which seventeen pieces are preserved, of which sixteen are villancico in Spanish. In the archive of the Royal Monastery of El Escorial, seven villancico in Latin. One villancico is preserved in the archive of the Cathedral of Santiago, and another carol is preserved in the Cathedral of Salamanca, both in Latin.

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Alba Conejo Mangas - Juan Manuel Gaitán y Arteaga, the influenced musician [final] - 2024