Liberalism as a political, economic, and ethical worldview dominated the nineteenth century in the Western world. Founded on philosophical assumptions, and embodied in economic doctrines and political institutions, liberalism emerges as a complex, polysemic and often contradictory concept. The tension between free trade and protectionism, the aspirations of universal fraternity and the development of nation-states highlight the intrinsic contradictions of this system. The difficulty in tracing the limits of freedoms, resulting in the exclusion of important population sectors, reflects this convoluted process. Nevertheless, liberalism showed an astonishing ability to adapt to pre-existing institutions. And this is perhaps one of the traits that best characterizes it.
Against the framework of liberalism, musicologists have felt more comfortable working around concepts such as romanticism. The aesthetic matrix of this concept made it possible to guarantee the autonomy of music, safe from the political, economic or social “contaminations” with which liberalism threatened. General histories of music refer to liberalism in passing. Music in the Nineteenth Century, by Richard Taruskin, and The Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Music, edited by Jim Samson, touch the concept of liberalism lightly. For its part, the now classic Nineteenth-Century Music, by Carl Dahlhaus, traces the connection of liberalism with political romanticism, recalling how this trend was associated in France to revolutionary liberalism (for Victor Hugo, “romanticism is nothing more than liberalism in literature”), while in Germany it was linked to the Restoration.1
However, liberalism appears to be a haunting presence in the literature concerning the arts in the nineteenth century, and studies on liberalism and music have only emerged more recently. Music and Victorian Liberalism, edited by Sarah Collins, addresses the connection between Victorian values and the transformation of society, whereby music occupied new spaces and carried important political messages. Some studies compare two cultural contexts, as is the case with Katherine Hambridge’s “Music, Romanticism, and Politics”, in which the author examines the complex relationship between these three topics in France and the German lands. Italia e Francia nell’Ottocento, by Fabrizio Della Seta, contrasts the transformations of opera in Italy and France.
The vast majority of monographs focusing on one country were published decades ago. Significant exceptions are Historia de la música en España e Hispanoamérica, volume 5: La música en la España del siglo XIX, by Juan José Carreras, and volume 6: La música en Hispanoamérica en el siglo XIX, by Victoria Eli and Consuelo Carredano, and Opera, liberalism, and Antisemitism in Nineteenth-Century France, by Diana R. Hallman. Recent dissertations, such as Alberto Napoli’s “Cosmopolitan Provincialities” mark the return of liberalism to the foreground. Other outputs focus on a city, such as “Brahms as Liberal: Genre, Style, and Politics in Late Nineteenth-Century Vienna,” by Margaret Notley.
Regarding liberalism, Anglophone historians have referred to this concept as “the doctrine par excellence of Western civilization” and have often confined its origins and development to the North American tradition.2 In contrast to this type of interpretation, constructed a posteriori, a historically based study reveals that the concept of liberalism was multifaceted and polycentric. For this reason, it should not simply be observed as an imported appropriation of “external” ideas and events. As stressed by Jorge Luengo and Pol Dalmau, “a much more productive exercise is to rethink the global set of interactions that gave birth to, and shaped, the evolving meanings associated with the term ‘liberalism.’”3
The term “liberalism” emerged in the Iberian context endowed with a markedly political and economic component, rather than an ethical or philosophical one.4 On the other hand, the word “romanticism” only entered the Spanish and Portuguese languages in the second decade of the nineteenth century.5 It was in the context of the Peninsular War when the transition from the adjective “liberal” (used in the realm of moral: “liberality”) to the substantive “liberalism” (with political and/or economical meaning) occurred. In Spanish, the term was used as soon as 1813 to refer to those in favor of the Cádiz Constitution, as opposed to the partisans of the ancien régime.6 Meanwhile, in Portuguese the term was employed in relation to the economical doctrines of Adam Smith that inspired the opening of the ports to trade with the Allies (i.e., the British) during the Napoleonic invasion, which had previously forced the transfer of the court to Brazil.7 Nonetheless, the impact of the Cortes de Cádiz, and especially of the penetration of periodicals published in London by Portuguese exiles, meant that the term had begun to acquire a political dimension by the end of the 1810s.8
All in all, the Iberian liberalism came to be based upon the concept of a written constitution, thus equating liberalism with the existence of a law not based on arbitrary principles.9 The fact that during the first half of the century many of the writers associated with romanticism in the Iberian and Latin American world (and especially in Spain and Portugal) were also high-placed politicians helped to strengthen the relationship between (political and economic) liberalism and culture, and to position liberalism as one of the fields of action of intellectual praxis.10
The “Atlantic crisis,” a process that began in 1807–08 and lasted until about 1830 in the Ibero-American world,11 was marked by a multiplicity of events spread over a vast geographical area across two continents. Four main categories stand out: revolutions,12 civil wars,13 constitutions, and independence.14 It is difficult to synthesize and approach holistically, in a transnational reading, the different realities encompassed by these typologies (some of them accompanied by a new linguistic and conceptual framework, as Fernández Sebastián explains).15 In addition, there is a rich bibliographic production that the recent independence celebrations have helped to boost and that proposes reinterpretations of the nationalist views that have prevailed since the nineteenth century.16 However, given that several issues are crucial to framing of texts in this book, it is worth recalling them in a synthetic version, despite the difficulties that such a task entails.
Political unrest in the Americas intensified from the late eighteenth century, driven by the American Revolution, subsequent wars, and uprisings like the Tupaq Amaru Revolt of 1780 and the Haitian Revolt of 1791. Although these phenomena differed greatly in their goals and the social groups behind them, some authors have categorized them collectively as the “Atlantic Revolutions.”17 More recently, a debate emerged concerning whether there are significant differences between the revolutions on both sides of the North Atlantic, specifically the American and French revolutions, and those in Latin America.18 On the other hand, the impact of the Napoleonic Wars on the Iberian Peninsula is widely recognized as a pivotal event and catalyst for the “Atlantic crisis.”
To evade the impending threat, the Portuguese royal family departed from Lisbon at the end of 1807 and took up residence in Brazil, its most considerable and affluent colony, for a period exceeding a decade. The transfer of the capital of a European country to the Americas remains an unprecedented act. For the colony, especially Rio de Janeiro, this transfer brought a sudden surge of development, opening its ports to trade with other nations (under pressure from England) and laying the foundations for independence. This resulted in South America’s only monarchy, and provided an island of relative stability amid the turmoil that affected its neighbors in the first third of the nineteenth century.
In Spain, the emperor compelled the abdication of the Bourbons and replaced them with his brother Joseph Bonaparte in 1808, which elicited a vehement response. In the viceroyalties across the Atlantic, the accession of a foreign king was a catalyst for change and political instability.19 Some Spanish and Ibero-American historians suggest reinterpreting “these events not as ‘national events’ [as traditional historiography has done], but as moments of a global crisis of a monarchical body politic of imperial dimensions.”20 The challenge here is to broaden our vision to include the Portuguese and Brazilian cases, which have generally been seen as separate.21 We will have to formulate the problem in terms of a double monarchical and imperial crisis, which, especially in its European aspect, appears as two sides of the same coin, despite the rivalries between the two Iberian monarchies. Looking at these complex realities through the history of music and the transnational processes that have facilitated it (e.g., the movement of musicians, agents, instruments, scores, and performance models) makes it easier to overcome the traditional national vision, which has historically impeded a comprehensive examination of the two cases.
The year 1810 proved to be a pivotal one on both sides of the Iberian Atlantic. On the Iberian Peninsula, the ongoing instability, precipitated by the French invasions and, in the case of Portugal, the subsequent British tutelage, engendered a favorable environment for the emergence of novel liberal political values. Meanwhile, the Americas witnessed an escalation in political turbulence. Still from 1810, juntas (governing boards) were formed in Buenos Aires, Santiago, Caracas, Cartagena de Indias, and Santa Fe de Bogotá, marking the beginning of the “revolutionary birth” in the Americas.22 Subsequently, a multitude of disparate and complex circumstances emerged, exhibiting distinct characteristics in each instance. Influence from figures such as Simón Bolívar led to the adoption of a more revolutionary stance by some juntas, although this was not unanimously embraced. In other instances, the newly established governments proclaimed their loyalty directly to Ferdinand VII, while in other cases they did so to the Supreme Junta of Cádiz, who had taken power in opposition to the French. At the same time, the first declarations of independence by rebel groups appeared.
In the southern Spanish city of Cádiz, the cortes met and elections were held in every corner of the empire: from Cádiz to Mexico, from Havana to Manila. The constitution, which was approved in 1812, was repealed in 1814 following Fernando VII’s return to the throne and the reinstatement of absolutism. Nevertheless, the Cádiz Constitution can be regarded as a foundational text, as it defined the concept of nation, which would prove essential in the years to come.23 On the Lusophone side, the United Kingdom of Portugal and Brazil was proclaimed, representing an attempt to create a model similar to that of the United States, with the Atlantic Ocean at its center. An alliance with England was deemed crucial in establishing this intercontinental state, as Rui Ramos has observed. The primary objective of this union was to integrate Portugal into a liberalized trading area.24
Following the Bourbon restoration, the Crown’s loss of power in the Americas was a consequence of the actions of Crown, the absolutists, and the liberals after 1820.25 A negotiated solution for the viceroyalties seemed possible to the junta of Cádiz, who wanted to create a community of “Spaniards born in both hemispheres,”26 but incompatibilities soon arose. The liberals thought they were ready to grant a certain autonomy to the Americas’ representatives, but their ideals did not always coincide with what was expected on the other side of the Atlantic. Something similar happened in Portugal after 1820, when the cortes once again tried to subjugate Brazil to the power of the metropolis.27
On the European side, the political situation changed in 1820 with the beginning of the liberal triennium in Spain and the outbreak of the Portuguese liberal revolution. The following decade was one of great instability, with revolutions and counterrevolutions, waves of emigration, and civil wars. In the Americas, parallel to the various wars of independence in the Spanish Empire, Brazil emancipated and became a slave-based monarchy.28 Independence was not equally accepted throughout the vast territory however, as several northern provinces and Cisplatina reacted negatively to the authority established in Rio de Janeiro. Portugal did not accept either until 1825, demanding substantial compensation for all the assets the Crown had left on Brazilian soil.29
With the 1830s, the “Atlantic crisis” came to an end, but the problems of both the affirmation of liberalism on the Iberian Peninsula and the formation of the new American nation-states prevailed. In Europe, a quadruple alliance was signed, under which France and England were obliged to support the new regimes in Spain and Portugal. At stake were the Atlantic interests of these powers and the reorganization of Europe after the revolutionary outbreaks of 1830. Spain appeared on the political chessboard of the time as a secondary power, its vast empire reduced to a series of small, scattered possessions.30 In the Americas, Cuba stood out, undoubtedly the richest of the remaining Spanish colonies, and it took considerable effort to maintain it throughout the nineteenth century.31 Portugal, on the other hand, had lost Brazil but retained a large empire without the means to control it.
The American processes of independence were accompanied by civil wars and deep disagreements between those who assumed the various leadership positions, as happened in Mexico and Venezuela (despite Simon Bolívar’s actions and the attempt to create a large state under the name of Gran Colombia).32 The most illustrative example of the challenges and inconsistencies inherent in the formation of new American nation-states is Santo Domingo, the initial European settlement on the American continent. Throughout the nineteenth century, it experienced annexations by Haiti and periods of independence. Twice, it aspired to return to colonial dependency with Spain: first in 1808–0933 and again in the 1860s, when it was briefly under Spanish rule. This return coincided with Spain’s recognition of most new Latin American countries, marking the end of a process that had begun fifty years earlier.34
Between the affirmation of liberalism and the 1850s, the Iberian Peninsula experienced turmoil and political conflict. While the political situation in Portugal tended to calm down in 1851–52, this did not happen in Spain: a progressive two-year period began in 1854; in 1868 the Glorious Revolution deposed the queen and established a liberal democratic constitution; and a republican revolution broke out in 1873. However, the central third of the century laid the foundations of liberal institutions in Spain, in a process that culminated with the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1874 and the proclamation of a new constitution in 1876. The empire finally fell in 1898 as a result of the war with the United States in Cuba, and the ceding of the remaining colonies in the Americas and the Pacific. The situation had a profound effect on Spanish society and was reflected in an artistic and literary movement known as the Generation of ’98.
Latin America acted as a great laboratory for constitutional experiments,35 and liberalism became the official ideology of the new states. However, its roots were very superficial, as the societies of the former colonies were deeply influenced by traditional Iberian values and indigenous cultures. Their structures were also highly hierarchical and racialized. In particular, it is worth remembering the slave-owning past of the American colonies of Spain and Portugal: although slavery was abolished in most cases during the independence processes, it continued in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Brazil until the 1870s and 1880s.36
Faced with the innumerable difficulties of establishing new forms of government and defining the bases and borders of the new states, clearly liberal figures such as Bolivar began to abandon these principles. The constitutions (such as that of Bolivia) that he granted in his last years were already moving in an authoritarian direction.37 Others, like Emperor Pedro I of Brazil/King Pedro IV of Portugal, took on two distinct and contradictory political facets: “[I]n Brazil, he was a liberal constitutionalist à la rebours, but at heart (and then in practice) a notorious absolutist, and later, in the last stage of his life, already in Portugal, a liberal again.”38 It was not until the second half of the century that liberalism gained ground in Latin America, largely thanks to very significant economic growth based on the export economy in several countries and their consequent entry into international trade networks.39 Nevertheless, in many cases the persistence of societies strongly marked by hierarchies and ethnic differences, frequent conflicts between conservative and liberal groups or between centralist and regionalist tendencies, as well as caudillismo, were serious obstacles to the affirmation of liberal and democratic regimes.40
Using liberalism as an umbrella term to designate a period often glosses over its convoluted history. Marked by fundamental tensions and lacking an unambiguous meaning for the men and women of the nineteenth century,41 liberalism spread unevenly and with distinct timelines across Iberian-American spaces. Its articulation with international trends reflected a complex and profound process. General trends coexisted with local specifics in forging effective liberal programs. Employing liberal ideas to a heterogeneous reality was discontinuous and often marked with violence. The universalist ideas of the Enlightenment clashed with the particularism of the rising nation-state as “the people” became a political subject.
This construction of “the people” was a site of inclusion and exclusion that had tremendous consequences for liberal policies. Universal suffrage, abolitionism, and public education collided with the structures of the ancien régime. Carving a rift between “public” and “private” transformed nineteenth-century society.42 The ubiquity of dichotomies like public interest vs. private property, independence vs. colonialism, universalism vs. nationalism, free trade vs. protectionism, individual liberties vs. slavery, urban vs. rural, and free speech vs. censorship permeated the era. They work as two ends of a spectrum in which liberalism developed, moved, and changed.
The Iberian-American space articulated these binaries in particular ways, which reveals the often-contradictory application of liberal policies across a complex constellation of places and practices. The porous boundaries between this space and other parts of Europe, America, and Africa fostered an intense circulation of new ideas. The permeability of the internal borders of the Iberian-American world also fed these cultural flows as music travelled effortlessly.
A discourse concerning individualism and emotional self-expression circulated in the long nineteenth century. The association between interiority and the immateriality of music fueled the creation and performance of instrumental works.43 Liberalism placed the romantic genius at the epicenter of the musical world. However, this position created an interesting ambivalence. While music reached an almost religious status, its commodification accelerated.44 A transnational network of opera houses, that relied on impresarios, embodied ancien régime sociability.45 For its part, zarzuela, which represented in musical theater the way Spanish society felt European, spread to Portugal, the Americas, and the Philippines, contributing to the development of autochthonous traditions.46 The rise of the musician as an entrepreneur, the spread of music publishing, and the development of the music instrument business added to this circuit.47 A discourse of artistic transcendentality stumbled in the material conditions established by the developing capitalism. This issue is especially relevant when addressing virtuosos, who inhabited a unique space in this geometry.48 While Italian opera incarnated romantic entertainment and sociability, instrumental music retained an artistic aura. Virtuosos shared the space of the prime donne in the press while performing instrumental pieces. However, their flashy repertoire placed them closer to popular entertainment than to the music-as-philosophy of early romanticism.
The Habermasian concept of the “bourgeois public sphere” is frequently associated with a male-dominated public life.49 This notion resonates with the “doctrine of separate spheres,” based on gender inequality.50 The public life of men contrasted with the private life of women: the former participated in politics, frequented cafés, and worked outside the house, while the latter maintained family identity, supervised children’s education, and managed household chores.
This dichotomy was more idealized than practiced, and reached only the people who could live with one income per family. This separation had consequences for music. Public spaces, like pleasure gardens, became the stage for a changing sociability in which wind bands and music education were inextricably bound. The diversity of these ensembles, from professional military bands to amateur societies, filled the urban space with their sounds.51 Arrangements of canonical pieces, like opera overtures, coexisted with fashionable dances. The public sphere became populated by periodicals, a staple of the nineteenth century. These contained important information about music, and fostered the establishment of the music review as a literary genre.52 However, periodicals were subject to censorship, which reveals a discernible dichotomy of liberalism.53 While freedom of speech was cherished, it was often limited and subject to deep scrutiny.
Privacy and domesticity went hand in hand with the new gender roles. Women stepped on the stages and concentrated the male gaze as singers, actresses, and dancers. Some became international stars. However, their visibility did not grant them autonomy, and raised suspicions concerning their reputation. At the other end of the spectrum, we find the bourgeois housewife. While responsible for the domestic space and children’s education, women often cultivated music. Organized salons, where virtuosos performed, and family gatherings with collective singalongs coexisted. The rise of domesticity and the association of music with self-cultivation and sophistication fed a market built around the parlor piano and sheet music.54 People bought accessible pieces, like arrangements of opera arias, and practiced them tirelessly. The piano catered to virtuosos and amateur children, crossing boundaries of space, skill, and purpose.55
The Iberian-American world was, predominantly, Catholic. The relationship between Church and State changed dramatically in the nineteenth century. The secularization of society faced significant hardship in many countries as religious authorities retained relevant power. In any case, it impacted music profoundly. As religious institutions lost power and influence, many musicians faced adversity by losing financial stability. Some adjusted to the new requisites as the music market developed. Meanwhile, religious pieces, like Mozart’s Requiem, integrated the musical canon but, in order to complete this canonization process, it was necessary that they moved from the churches to the concert halls, reflecting the secularizing trends.56
Secularization transformed music teaching as state conservatoires complemented and replaced religious music schools.57 Their spread was uneven, reflecting the Enlightenment strife for accessible music education that catered to the rising needs; however, private teaching was frequent, with musicians conveying self-improvement ideas in domestic settings. From the highly respected virtuosos to the “piano girl,” people engaged with music differently. The focus on collective needs transformed the relationship between musicians, and fostered unionism. While some societies retained the ancien régime scope of musicians’ guilds, new institutions incarnated a rising value system based on communal demands and equality.58
The origin of this book lies in the international conference Música, política e sociedade. Ecos do liberalismo no mundo iberoamericano, held in Lisbon in May 2022, organized by the then Centro de Estudos de Sociologia e Estética Musical-Universidade Nova de Lisboa in collaboration with the Sociedad para el Estudio de la Música Isabelina (SPEMI). Subsequent meetings and seminars have shaped a volume with the participation of ten authors (some of whom were present at that conference) from various countries on both sides of the Atlantic.
All those meetings have made it evident that liberalism can be a valuable tool for understanding the phenomena that characterized nineteenth-century musical culture on both sides of the Atlantic. The approach adopted in this book seems even more necessary, given that it refers to a cultural space—the Iberian Peninsula and the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking Americas—where liberalism served as the backbone of the coeval political, social, and cultural realities. By doing so, we can outline an interpretation of musical life that brings to the forefront aspects related to the sonic presence of liberalism in both the public and private spheres and the circulation of people and material goods, highlighting the existence of contradictions and limits within the framework of liberalism.
Equally relevant in articulating this collective work is the adoption of the concept of “Atlantic space.” The ideas of “Atlantic space” and “Atlantic History” have been extensively developed by historians dedicated to the ancien régime.59 For them, the Atlantic world represents an integrated human community as well as the core of a diverse and complex yet coherent civilization, which makes possible the circulation of people, ideas, and goods between both sides of the ocean.60
Historians have begun to apply this concept to more recent periods, even after the collapse of the Spanish and Portuguese empires.61 However, musicologists remain reluctant to use it:62 for most of them, the nineteenth-century independence processes mark the endpoint of that political and cultural unity. Nevertheless, a more careful examination of the events allows us to observe that the independencies of the old colonies did not imply the end of the links with the metropolis, given that connections were maintained on different levels (economic, political, social, cultural, and emotional),63 and allowed for the shaping of shared musical realities on both sides of the Atlantic.
In the context of musicological practices conventionally rooted in nationalist traditions, the adoption of the concept of the Atlantic space seems essential. Such an approach makes it possible to demonstrate the existence of a transnational culture that cannot and should not be studied in other way. At the same time, this approach makes possible to overcome the dynamics of center–periphery that frequently reproduce (neo)colonial discourses, by proposing the image of a network in which circulation, exchange, and transfer occurred.
This book brings together contributions from eleven scholars from both sides of the Atlantic. Through ten case studies, it addresses issues related to the Iberian Peninsula (Portugal and Spain), simultaneously with various geographic areas of Latin America, particularly Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, and Peru. It is structured in four parts: “Liberalism on Stage,” “Streets and Salons,” “Music, Market, and Cultural Identity,” and “Music and Slavery.” These parts address distinct aspects of Ibero-American liberalism but are profoundly interconnected. Showing liberal ideas on stage penetrated private spaces through commodities, like sheet music, that could reflect cultural identities or abolitionist ideas. Part I, “Liberalism on Stage,” focuses on the strategies used for performing liberalism in theaters. The transformation of public life transformed the relationship between people and spaces under liberal ideas. The theater was the epicenter of elegant and cosmopolitan social life in the period this book concerns, and worked as a resonator for the profound transformations introduced by liberalism. From places for performing cosmopolitanism and sophistication to sites that reinforced social bonds through romantic liaisons and gossip, the theater congregated many forces that fed and reflected sociability and the “education of the senses.”64 Liberalism took many forms on stage. Luísa Cymbron studies the Real Teatro de São Carlos, Lisbon’s opera house, comparing the stage works of two liberal and contrasting Italian composers. While Angelo Frondoni lived in Portugal and enjoyed local favor, Giuseppe Verdi dominated the transnational opera scene and was a household name for many people. The performance of nationalist patriotism, a dominant force in the early years of the Portuguese constitutional monarchy, was fundamental in the local reception of both operas. Cymbron’s chapter addresses the articulation between the Portuguese audience and the new liberal and romantic values through their staging in a prestigious venue. Zarzuela reflects the wide circulation and cultural transfer associated with Iberian-American theaters. Its models spanned from French operetta to small-scale regional narratives, a flexibility allowing the genre to transcend geographical and aesthetic boundaries. The dissemination of zarzuela in the Ibero-American world parallels the transnational spread of Italian opera across the globe, making it fundamental in representing a fleeting Spanish identity in a period of intense transformation. Ignacio Jassa Haro examines zarzuela in Lisbon, using the genre as a lens through which to study the transnational flow of sounds and ideas. Many constitutional texts guaranteed basic rights under liberalism. An ancillary tenet of the new policies is freedom of expression. Moving from an ancien régime perspective of censorship, periodicals thrived, and writings circulated. However, censorship remained an important force that restricted the arts. The theater was a special site for censorship as Enrique Mejías García studies the conflict between the growth of an entrepreneurial theatrical milieu in Spain and the changing forms of censorship constricting its shows. The direct intervention of public authorities in the private theatrical circuit illustrates the subtle balance between freedom of expression, individual liberties, and politics in the nineteenth century.
Part II, “Streets and Salons,” addresses the role that sounds played in liberalism, from public open spaces to the intimacy of the salon. The nineteenth century saw the spread of public concerts in closed venues. However, many people listened to music played by wind and percussion bands at outdoor events. Innovations in instrument-making transformed several instruments, making them more accessible. Military music and anthems permeated the soundscapes of this unstable period, as wind and percussion bands became established members of the sonic communities while embodying the liberal collective. Rui Magno Pinto and Inez Martins Gonçalves compare wind and percussion band circuits in Portugal and Brazil during the nineteenth century. These institutions were fundamental, and fused entertainment, education, and public charity. Wind bands occupied new public spaces with their sounds, embodying liberal and democratic principles. Lisbon’s Passeio Público (Public Promenade) was a gated romantic pleasure garden that charged for admission. The performances of many wind and percussion bands there were profoundly linked to liberal ideas for educating audiences. Their profit could be used in public charity, another important aspect of nineteenth-century liberalism. Fortaleza, the capital of the Brazilian state of Ceará, opened its Passeio Público in 1880. An open space, it reflected new ideas concerning freedom of circulation, attended by many people. Republican and abolitionist rallies took place to the sounds of wind and percussion bands. The salon contrasted with outdoor events as spaces of intimacy. There, family life was performed for guests in a process often led by women. Yael Bitrán Goren writes about Mexican tertulias (the local equivalent of the salon) as spaces to represent privacy and domesticity. These spaces cultivated a variety of musical practices and became fundamental sites for manufacturing and displaying the new ideals about women in the romantic era. This intertwining between education, patriotism, and art stood out in this period when gender and race hierarchies were represented over a political background.
Part III, “Music, Market, and Cultural Identity,” examines music publishing, the press, and virtuosos. As economic liberalism generated new markets for music in the Ibero-American world, music publishers, critics, and freelance musicians rapidly occupied these spaces. The rise of amateur music-making associated with taste and prestige changed the music business profoundly. Music stores and sheet music publishers mushroomed in the nineteenth century. José Manuel Izquierdo König examines the music publishing business in the Andean region, comparing Chile and Peru. His chapter addresses the rising consumerism toward printed music emerging throughout liberalism, and how businesspeople, some with strong ties to European publishing companies, established their ventures in the Americas. Periodicals thrived in the nineteenth century as increased literacy and new ideas concerning participation and censorship rose. Then, distinguished music critics established the music review as a journalistic genre in the press. João Silva discusses the coverage of music by Portuguese periodicals between the mid-nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Liberal intellectuals reported on social life, where the theater occupied a prominent position. The illustrated periodicals and the novel popular genres, like the operetta and the musical revue, changed this panorama, expanding the circulation and scope of Portuguese music criticism. The public concert spread timidly in the Ibero-American space, often dominated by opera and zarzuela. In this inauspicious context, virtuosos began to travel extensively with the new steam-powered transport networks. Thus, technological innovation facilitated the circulation of artists in the Ibero-American world as the freelance artist represented the romantic ideals of genius and progress while embodying liberty and individuality. Alberto Hernández Mateos studies the Iberian tour of the Hungarian pianist Oscar de la Cinna, addressing the role virtuosos played in creating a unique identity and introducing little-known pieces of instrumental music that contrasted with most repertoires heard by Spanish and Portuguese audiences and relied on Central European “artistic” standards.
Part IV, “Music and Slavery,” traces the abolitionist movement in the Iberian-American world. The complex relationship between liberalism and abolitionism as played out in the nineteenth century is well documented.65 Then, ideals of individual emancipation did not always parallel the struggle against slavery. This long process, in which music was profoundly involved, carved significant rifts in the new postcolonial Americas. Brazil and Cuba occupied a prominent place in the Atlantic circuit that profited from enslaved people. The populations of the new independent empire of Brazil reflected this, which fed a staunch abolitionist discourse for decades as liberal ideas spread. However, Brazil was the last American country to abolish slavery, with the passing of the Lei Áurea (Golden Law) in 1888. Rogério Budasz focuses on abolitionist festivals carried out in Brazil in the second half of the nineteenth century. These events used music for philanthropic purposes, engaging a heterogeneous set of individuals, from radical liberals to conservative monarchists, in the anti-slavery movement. Cuba abolished slavery slightly before Brazil, after a long legislative process between 1870 and 1886. This declaration mediated the 1868 Declaration of Independence and its official recognition in 1898. In 1869, El lamento del esclavo, a work by the Cuban composer Nicolas Ruiz Espadero, premiered as part of the season of the Sociedad de Conciertos de Madrid (Madrid Concert Society). Fernando Delgado García uses the Madrid performances of this piece to examine the debates concerning slavery in the Spanish Empire. The chapter addresses the shortcomings in transmitting political content through an orchestral piece whose popularity obfuscated its original intention due to its frequent performance. Therefore, entering the free market under liberalism dampened the humanitarian aim of El lamento del esclavo.
This collection strives to give voice to the troubled paths music trod in the Ibero-American world in the long nineteenth century. Its multiple perspectives place liberalism on the main stage of an age of profound transformation. Given this book’s wide geographical and chronological scope, its subjects are as varied as the approaches to study them. The liberalization process took different forms across borders, times, and arts. From political liberalism reflected in the independence of many American colonies and the long road to abolition, to new sociability models, novelty spread at many scales and in many shapes. Liberal ideals promoted and supported the transformation of the musical stage and the rise of the virtuoso as an artistic autonomous subject, while the patronage of the ancient régime withered. Court and Church became smaller players in the unstable panorama of romantic music, profoundly renovated within the framework of a transnational market where music and musicians circulated smoothly across borders and settings. Late Classical pieces, Italian operas and religious works mingled with popular genres like the zarzuela when different canons became established across the West. The printed press embodied liberal tendencies, from periodicals to music publishers, and the new powers aimed to create the liberal and patriotic citizen through the arts, sometimes linked to self-cultivation and public charities.
Alberto Hernández Mateos is a musicology professor at the University of Salamanca. He previously worked at the Fundación Juan March in Madrid. His research explores musical thought and culture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, focusing on the circulation of musicians across the Iberian world, cultural transfers, and musical historiography and criticism. He recently co-edited the volume Eximeno revisitado. Pensamiento y teoría musical en la Europa ilustrada (Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2024).
João Silva researches popular entertainment and its relationships with modernity, nationalism, historiography, technology, and everyday life in the Portuguese Empire. He is the editor of the Journal of World Popular Music and a program annotator for Portuguese concert halls, where he develops music appreciation programs and digital learning platforms. Silva teaches in specialist music schools and participates in the scientific board of Museu Nacional da Música and the artistic direction of the Festival Internacional de Música de Espinho (FIME).
Luísa Cymbron is a professor of music history at NOVA University Lisbon (NOVA FCSH). She has directed CESEM (the center for music studies) since 2023. Her research on nineteenth-century Portuguese music was groundbreaking. Her 2012 book Olhares sobre a música em Portugal no século XIX is the first to provide in-depth analyses of various aspects of nineteenth-century music in Portugal, while Francisco de Sá Noronha’s biography (2019) explores the musical relations between Portugal and Brazil. Since 2020, she has edited two further books, and her current research focuses particularly on the history of music in the Atlantic region.