From the Oriamendi to the March of don Carlos: Music and hymns in the construction of the Carlist political universe

Abstract

In the increasingly numerous works on Carlist political culture, a specific treatment of the role played by music in its construction is missing. It has been highlighted that the making of hymns served to boost morale among the militias supporting Charles V and his successors during the discontinuous civil conflicts of the nineteenth century. The purpose of this article is, on the one hand, to delve into the different musical manifestations in the repertoire of Carlist collective action beyond the warlike attitudes, that is, in the conquest of the public space experienced in the period that includes the Six-year Democratic and the outbreak of the Civil War, marked by the appropriation of modern tools by Carlism. In this sense, it is convenient to address the musical evenings and the formation of choirs in the spaces of Carlist and Integrist sociability and the confrontations between the counterrevolutionaries and the Republicans, with music appearing in the middle. On the other hand, this study intends to analyze, starting from an interdisciplinary methodological conjunction, a sample of the large scores and hymns that the traditionalists have been compiling in compendia that came to light since the Civil War, highlighting scores of the famous Oriamendi, the March of don Carlos or the Hymn of the margaritas. In all of them it is worth highlighting the significance that the figure of the king-pretender acquired in the context of progressive erosion of legitimism.