El hombre del rincón: José Subirá y la historia cultural e intelectual de la musicología en España by María Cáceres-Piñuel (review)

In her new book, María Cáceres-Piñuel argues that the career of José Subirá (1882–1980) provides deep insight into a 'contemporary Spanish musical historiography' (p. 2). On the one hand, she provides a clear account based on solid evidence. She explains Subirá's arguments according to new primary sources, which include personal correspondence. On the other, she interprets evidence by shifting between three viewpoints: a review of Subirá's biography, critical reflection on the professionalization of Spanish musicology, and an analysis of the social networks and discourses to which Subirá contributed and responded. Beyond organizing empirical data, she manages to place Subirá and the emergence of twentieth-century Spanish musicology at the heart of political and class conflicts.

First, she probes the valuation of Subirá's research, outlining the reception of his legacy, describing his private archive and library, and reconstructing his family milieu and formative training. Subirádd's was a socialist protected by members of the aristocracy and the Church. Cáceres-Piñuel details his services as a public servant during the first decades of the twentieth century and analyses the consequences of the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath forthe reception of his output. A convinced Catalanist, Subirá's scholarly specialization was castizo ('traditionally authentic') musical genres, focusing above all in the tonadilla, which he identified as the exemplar of local popular culture. Politically, his sympathies lay with the Second World War allies, and he defended music a' la portée de tout le monde, criticizing the elitist and sometimes authoritarian drift of the Second Spanish Republic's musical institutions under the influence of figures such as the critic Adolfo Salazar. Yet Subirá's reverence for German contributions to historical musicology's repertory and methods led him to write the first essay in Spain about Arnold Schoenberg.

Cáceres-Piñuel divides her book into six chapters. She explains in her first two chapters that, under the guidance of the progressive historian Rafael Altamira, Subirá introduced music studies into the field of historical research. He championed reliance on, and analyses of, primary sources as well as the application of hermeneutics to source materials. During the Franco dictatorship, Subirá took up the cataloging and editing of musical sources, working with, and being mentored by, the priest Higini Anglès, who served a reactionary nationalism. In contrast to Altamira, who sought to situate Spanish culture within a global network spanning Europe and America, Anglès claimed 'Spanish' works as part of an essentialist national heritage. The socialist militancy of Subirá prior to Francoism, together with his posts at various ministries, support Cáceres-Piñuel's reading of the political agendas that are woven into Subirá's writings. Yet Cáceres-Piñuel is never lured into simplification. Seemingly contradictory elements shed light not only on the richness and complexity of Subirá's discourse, but also that of contemporary Spanish intellectuals whose achievements, due to the terrible consequences of the propaganda of the Franco regime, have remained hidden until Cáceres-Piñuel's book.

The next three chapters deal with the concepts, practices, and institutions through which Subirá's intellectual work emerged. In the third chapter, Cáceres-Piñuel delves into the Third Congress of the International Society of Musicology held in Barcelona in 1936, where folklore and Catalanism came to be linked. In the fourth chapter, she analyses the historiography that Subirá elaborated from the perspective of nationalism. In chapter 5, she frames Subirá's music criticism as a form of political activism, considering in particular the controversy over neoclassicism. In the sixth chapter she switches her approach, placing Subirá's output within the social and institutional networks through which from 1920 to...