Una Celestial armonía: los conventos femeninos en la vida musical de Barcelona en el siglo XVI

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show the different ways in which female monastic institutions contributed to the musical culture of Barcelona in the early modern period as spaces for the meeting, integration and interaction of distinct sectors of society. At least eighteen female monastic institutions were active in Barcelona in the sixteenth century. The analysis of documentation from these institutions preserved in several archives in Barcelona and Madrid allows us to catch a glimpse of the ways in which they were drawn on for the celebration of musical events –with religious, political and cultural purposes– by (1) a variety of individual citizens, who funded post-mortem sung masses and offices for relieving the suffering of their souls; (2) confraternities and guilds, who celebrated ceremonies with music in these convents on the feast day of their saint patron; and (3) aristocracy and nobility, who attended to liturgical celebrations at major monasteries, where they were solemnly welcome with music. Through these musical events at female monastic institutions confluences were produced, not only of different sectors of society, but also of public and private contexts, and of the religious and civil lives of a cosmopolitan city such as early-modern Barcelona.