“Versos and Marches for Processions”: Instrumental Music During Ceremonial Translations at Spanish Ecclesiastic Institutions between ca. 1750 and ca. 1830

Abstract

The integration of music for instrumental ensembles into religious ceremonies during the transition from the eighteenth to the nineteenth centuries is a subject that has gained importance in recent years in Spanish and Spanish-American musicology. This article analyses the inclusion of instrumental music during these ceremonies or religious acts that, like processions, were characterised by the translation of small or large entourages. The analysis of the administrative documentation from sixteen Spanish ecclesiastical institutions shows, on the one hand, the continued existence of minstrels in these ceremonies until well into the nineteenth century, in their traditional role of alternating with the choir or the music chapel. On the other, it reveals the participation of modern instrumental ensembles from fixed locations, replacing the organ or the minstrels themselves, with the objective of solemnising the movement of the processions, the celebrants and/ or the religious authorities. Finally, certain musical repertories, titled versos or marches, illustrate the type of pieces that could be heard during these events.