ABSTRACT
This book tells the stories of several Spanish composers who went into exile as a result of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Most of these stories bear significant family resemblances to widespread tropes and archetypes broadly applicable to any exile. Some of these composers appear to have been cut off from their milieu, from the audiences for which they had written music for several years, from the networks that had supported and nurtured them. In exile, they seemed to languish without realizing their own ambitions or the expectations others had placed on them. Salvador Bacarisse is an example: he had caused outrage as an enfant terrible in 1920s and 1930s Madrid, but apparently became more conservative and uninteresting in exile. Jaume Pahissa was already 57 years old when he left Spain in 1937. He had a solid career in Barcelona behind him, as well as a reputation as a staunch Wagnerite and a pioneer of chromaticism in Catalan music. However, the last decades of his life in Buenos Aires, where he took on a variety of jobs and commissions in order to make a living, were perhaps not as glorious as might have been expected: he found it difficult to have his concert works performed and instead turned to composing for the amateur music-making market. Other stories in this book speak of acculturation – of composers immersing themselves in the new milieu into which they had been transplanted, taking full advantage of the opportunities they found there and building international careers. Indeed, Rodolfo Halffter, Julián Bautista and Julián Orbón became fully integrated into the rich fabric of musical and cultural exchange between the various American nations, while Roberto Gerhard, living and working in Britain, acquired a truly international reputation in the landscape of post-Webernian avant-garde.
