Eladio Mateos´s research work deals with several unknown or unpublished musical works of the author: three songs of the thirties and the Spanish Civil War; the text of the cantata Salmo de alegría (in commemoration for the new state of Israel) released with Jacobo Ficher´s music in Buenos Aires in 1951; lyrics had not been collected in any of Alberti´s books nor in the two editions of his complete works; the text of his unpublished and unfinished cantata Cantar de Mío Cid, in which Alberti collaborated at the end of the forties in Argentina with the Spanish musician of the ´27 Julián Bautista, also in exile. Likewise the thesis is illustrated with some of the drawings about music and record sleeves that Alberti signed all over his life.
The researcher studies the relationships between the poet, painter and dramatist with the world of music in different aspects: biographical relationships with composers and musical events, works written by Alberti on purpose to be set to music, contributions in musical activities and a panorama of the attraction of his poetry on singers and composers, which includes a catalogue with over 150 musicians who have composed songs in every style, from flamenco to cultured concert halls, from protest song to Andalusian popular songs, on Alberti´s poems.
The author of the thesis holds that this context of musical relationships and activities influenced Alberti, who was considered the most expert of the generation of ´27 in the use of verbal musicality resources.
The main research line of the work is, according to Eladio Mateos, “a musical biography of the author divided in four chapters, from his childhood to his last sonorous contributions at the end of his life. It includes several appendixes: the above mentioned catalogue and the score of the Thaelmann song by Joaquín Villatoro Medina with lyrics by Alberti, the first song on a social subject written in Spain in 1933 to be performed by workers in political speeches and demonstrations, which was not published in its day and unpublished until today”.
This work also emphasizes the outstandins attitude of Alberti as the most opened of the poets of the ´27 to interdisciplinary contributions of music and poetry, since from that date he wrote very often to be “said” in music, and no Spanish poet of the XX century took part in so many concerts, from classical music to protest song.
Reference: Prof. Eladio Mateos Miera. Dpt. of General Linguistics and Theory of Literature. University of Granada.
Phone number: 958- 224398.
E-mail: emateosmiera@tmdigital.es
