Description
The subscription concert held in domestic settings has recently emerged in scholarly research as a key component of elite leisure in late eighteenth-century Spain. In response to the scarcity of public concerts and the institutional control of theatres, domestic concerts appear to have constituted a primary site for musical and cultural negotiation—albeit one that remains relatively understudied. Drawing on the exceptional richness of certain local sources, this study explores domestic concerts in Barcelona between 1760 and 1808. A defining feature of these gatherings was their diversity—of repertoires, participants, and attitudes. As a site of contact among representatives of opposing—and even incompatible—spheres, including singers from opera companies, ecclesiastical musicians, amateur performers, itinerant virtuosi, and both local and foreign audiences, the domestic concert gave rise to numerous conflicts. Examining these conflicts offers insight into the challenges of articulating musical culture in a Mediterranean city at the end of the Ancien Régime. These events involved the negotiation of competing concert formats—public versus private—; the legitimacy of emerging repertoires, often tested in domestic settings before reaching churches or theatres; the evolving roles of women, situated between social ritual and the emergence of celebrity; and, after 1789, the very viability of a shared cultural framework within elite leisure practices amidst growing ideological tensions. Though concealed behind the solid walls of urban palaces, the domestic concert can hardly be seen as a private phenomenon in the modern sense; rather, it served as the very site where the orientation of urban—and even regional—musical culture was actively negotiated.
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