Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Date of Degree
6-2026
Document Type
Doctoral Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Program
Music
Advisor
Karen Henson
Advisor
Anne Stone
Committee Members
Scott Burnham
Antoni Piza
Subject Categories
Catholic Studies | Christianity | Intellectual History | Musicology
Keywords
Sacred music reform, Nineteenth-century Spain, Ultramontanism, Gregorian chant revival, Motu proprio (1903), Religious nationalism, Spanish polyphony
Abstract
This dissertation argues that sacred-music reform in Spain between 1850 and 1900 was not a unified movement culminating in the 1903 Motu proprio, but a contest between two distinct and contemporaneous programs. The first, associated with Hilarión Eslava, affirmed musical expression and artistic progress, embraced stylistic eclecticism, and sought to rebuild musical institutions, modernize pedagogy, and forge alliances with civic life. It drew on Romantic thought that attributed to music a distinctive capacity to mediate religious experience. The second, aligned with Roman ultramontanism, held that Gregorian chant and Renaissance polyphony were the only legitimate models for sacred music and that theatrical idioms were incompatible with liturgical decorum.
The dissertation traces how these programs took shape within the political and ecclesiastical conditions of nineteenth-century Spain: secularization, disentailment, and the formation of a civic public sphere that challenged the Church’s primacy in social life. It examines the chant controversies of the 1880s and 1890s, where tensions between local tradition and Roman universalism became especially visible, and reconstructs the 1895 Madrid reform initiative as the moment of most direct confrontation between the two camps. A concluding section analyzes how ultramontanism consolidated its dominance by excluding the Eslavian tradition from the legitimate history of reform, recasting Felipe Pedrell as the patriarch of sacred-music restoration, and aligning church-music reform with the ideals of a Catholic nation.
Throughout, the study reads reform discourse as a series of interventions through which competing positions claimed authority, constructed legitimacy, and secured institutional presence.
Recommended Citation
Legasa, Francisco J., "Contesting the Sacred: Ideology and Church Music Reform in Spain, 1850–1900" (2026). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/6640
Included in
Catholic Studies Commons, Christianity Commons, Intellectual History Commons, Musicology Commons
