Dos Españas y una sola música: Henri Collet, entre el federalismo y el centralismo

Abstract

As a consequence of the awakening of political regionalisms and the foundation of academic Hispanism in France, Henri Collet (1885-1951), the French music critic, composer and Hispanist-musicologist, tried to overcome the predominance andalusianism exerted on Spain’s image abroad during the nineteenth century, offering an image of Spain sensitive to its cultural and regional diversity. In his articles and criticism, Collet puts forward the idea of an initially federalist, and progressively centralist, Spain, whose variability reflects the agency of transversal discourses of a political and cultural nature, expressed by the intellectuals implicated in the construction of an idea of Spain, as were the Regenerationists and the members of the Generation of 98. Based on the symbolic value of the canon, this article analyses the comparison Collet set up between the composers Felipe Pedrell and Federico Olmeda, representing two contrasting ideas of Spain, namely, one in which Catalonia represents the advance party of national regeneration, and the other, in which Castile forms the essence and synthesis of Spain’s identity.