José Martínez de Arce
José Martínez de Arce
Genres: spanish, 18th century, 17th century
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About José Martínez de Arce
José Martínez de Arce (Orense, c. 1662 - Valladolid, December 1721) was a Spanish composer and chapel master. It is likely that he was the son of Diego Martínez de Arce, a royal scribe, and Benita de Feijoo, residents of Ourense. The Martínez de Arce family came from the Liendo valley, in Cantabria, having been the grandparents, Pedro Martínez de Arce and María de la Portilla y Arce, neighbors of the municipality. Three brothers and a sister are known: Diego (1653), Pedro (1656), Josefa (1660) and Tomás (c. 1664). Both José and Tomás were infants of the Cathedral of Orense, where they received their musical education with the teacher Martín de San Román. José probably entered on January 4, 1672; although the inscription does not detail the name, the data coincides with an entry of January 19, 1681 that claimed that José had been in the choir of infants for eight years. The first explicit mention of José is from January 15, 1675, when he was paid 50 reais as a Christmas bonus for singing caroles. A few months later he received another 50 reais for being "very bad in bed and in need." It is likely that the Jusepillo to which half a ration was granted in November 1676 was José Martínez del Arce. On April 23, 1677, when he was granted 100 reais as a coast aid as "respecting serving in music with all punctuality and being poor." Until that moment, Tomás had not been mentioned in the minutes, being the first mention of January 11, 1678, when they received 6 ducats for having "worked a lot on this Easter." In August 1679 José asked the council for alms for being sick and he was only granted 24 reais because "it has been a short time since his brother was given help." The economic problems continued and in 1680 it was decided to pay a salary of 100 reais a year to each one "to be used to protect them, because they have no reason to support themselves." A year later it was decided to add 60 reais to the salary, "which are thirty duchies," and in 1682 sixty duchies were added. That same year there are indications that he began to work as a musician of the cathedral and was granted a long habit, since "he is very large in body to serve in the exercise he has, that he will serve as a musician, that the Cabildo orders him to give him a long habit." The last mention of José is from July 12, 1683, in which he was excluded as an opponent of a chaplaincy that had become vacant because he was a secular: "José Martínez, acolyte, since the foundation must be a priestlyric. The exact date on which he left for Madrid to expand his musical knowledge is not known, but it had to be towards the end of 1683 or the beginning of the next one; it is certain that in April 1684 he was already there. Its teacher during this time would be Cristóbal Galán, master of chapel of the Royal Chapel of Madrid. He stayed one year until mid-1685 to return to Lugo, where in August he applied for the competitions for a chapel master without success. At the end of July, the teacher of Ourense, Martín de San Román, had died, so the Martínez del Arce brothers went to Orense, to be interested in the position. During the time necessary to organize the oppositions, José composed the necessary works for the feasts of St. Martin: [...] since José Martínez, an opponent of the chapel magisterium, had attended some time before the election [...] to the music regime, he was given two hundred and fifty reais from the factory, more than what was given to him by the opposition to the magisterium. He was unsuccessful in the oppositions of December 12, 1685, to which only José Martínez de Arce and Antonio Rodríguez de Vega presented themselves, who got the position on the 14th of that month. Later he returned to Madrid for another year, of which there is no more news - Cristobal Galán had already died - although it is known from the compositions that he was hired to compose in more varied festivities and less modest staff. His stay in Madrid finally had a lot of importance, both because of the contacts he was able to make, and because of the music he could listen to, which even caused a change of style. The magisterium of the Cathedral of Segovia had become vacant on December 2, 1686, when the teacher Juan Bonet de Paredes was expelled for "a broken words he said to a canon in Sunday's procession." The first news of Martínez del Arce's stay in Segovia is in the chapter acts on February 17, 1687, when they named José Martínez de Arce, who resides in Madrid [...] of those proposed for it, "master of the chapel, and so that they had written about different churches to be one," provided that it was ordered within a year. He got the position without having previously been a chapel master, without being ordered, without previous oppositions, or blood purity file, contrary to the custom of the time, which indicates the esteem in which the composer was held. It is very likely that his time and contacts in Madrid were related to this fact. It would be ordered a year later, in July 1688, after a warning from the council. By then, his brother Tomás was already in Segovia to play the violin, which his brother José had introduced in his compositions possibly to facilitate the hiring of Tomás. Tomás was admitted to Segovia on June 2, 1688, after a hypothetical passage through Madrid, where he would learn to play the instrument. What is certain is that he bought a violin in Madrid that he took to Segovia, since he had to ask the Segovian council for help to finish paying for it. The council granted him 200 reais, which gives an idea of the price of such an instrument. It seems that Thomas had been fired in 1689, although he was still playing with the chapel, so the council repaid him with 50 duchies, but "he stopped of course and that he goes to seek his conveniences." It seems that Tomás did not manage to find another position, since in 1690 "Thomas Martínez de Arce is received again to play the violin." On June 7, 1690, the Martínez de Arce brothers requested permission to go on a pilgrimage to "Santiago de Galicia, where they have made a promise," for which they were granted 40 days. It is possible that in those 40 days they approached Valladolid, where the metropolitan teaching was vacant. José left Segovia definitively after three and a half years in office, leaving with his brother for Valladolid on October 6, 1690. José Martínez de Arce was appointed chapel master on November 6, 1690 and, once he arrived in Valladolid, he received the entire portion of the position of chapel master, and his brother Tomás was granted "fifty ducats every year and part in the chapel." The transfer inaugurated a period of stability of thirty years for the brothers, who would already remain in Valladolid until their death.1 During his Valladolid period, he was involved in the controversy of the Scala Aretina Mass in favor of Francisco Valls. On October 12, 1717, José Martínez de Arce sent a letter explaining his opinion:2 [...] And these assumptions are without question, and consequently there is no lack of precepts and good sound. And I am not opposed to the fact that dissonant species are not very appropriate for the variety and harmony of our music, nor that many primors can be made under their rules, as can be seen in the distinguished masters who have been and are in these times. Valladolid, and October 12, 1717. In total, about 880 compositions of the master of Valladolid are preserved, a majority of them Christmas carols in romance. Martínez de Arce, at a time when the new Bourbon monarchy brought Italian and French music and musicians to Spain, knew how to incorporate both influences in a personal and original style, which made him "bilingual." The first compositions of Martínez del Arce are from 1683 and are preserved in the Cathedral of Valladolid. It is very likely that he made them for the festivities of the Cathedral of Orense, after learning composition with the master Martín de San Román. They are two Christmas carols in Spanish and two other works in Latin: a miserere and a lamentation. They are kept copied in games of partichelas. From his first stay in Madrid, three Christmas carols are preserved: one dedicated to San Francisco with eight voices, Attention, attention, which leaves the procession, and another two Christmas with four and three voices, Al Niño who is born naked in Belén and Canta jilguerillo respectively. Both these works and the Ourenses are simple, with few pretensions and very functional. About 36 compositions are preserved in the archive of his stay in the Cathedral of Segovia, which give a first sample of what Martínez de Arce's compositional style would be without the supervision of his teachers. Four bound manuscripts containing more than 300 compositions made by Martínez de Arce are preserved in the Cathedral of Valladolid.
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