Esperanza Rodriguez-Garcia
Lecturer in Music, Faculty of Arts
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Biography
I took a degree in Music Performance from the Conservatorio Superior de Musica 'Joaquín Rodrigo' de Valencia (Spain) and subsequently pursued a career as a performer of classical and popular music. Later on I resumed my studies, obtaining a MA from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain) and further postgraduate degrees in the University of Manchester. My PhD, completed in 2010, was funded by the AHRC and the University of Manchester.
Prior to joining the University of Nottingham in September 2011, I was an Early Career Research Associate at the Institute of Musical Research (University of London), and a researcher for the 'Early Music Online' project at Royal Holloway (University of London) and the British Library.
Expertise Summary
My main area of expertise focuses on sacred music in Spain and Italy in the second half of the sixteenth-century. I am interested in various perspectives including source studies (making, circulation and reception), editing, cultural history (involvement of institutions and individuals in music-making), the motet as a genre, compositional strategies in the late Renaissance and the changing role of composers in that period.
I also have an interest in historiography and music reception, most particularly in the crucial influence of nineteenth-century ideology on modern views on early music
Likewise I am keen on performance practice issues in early and popular music.
Teaching Summary
Renaissance and Medieval music and culture, early notation, music edition, source studies, printing, patronage, musical structures in the Early Modern period, plainchant and liturgy.
Research Summary
I am currently working on a monograph on the composer Sebastián Raval (d. 1604), which carries on from my doctoral dissertation. Raval's peculiar biography (he was a soldier, a monk, and a musician)… read more
Recent Publications
RODRIGUEZ-GARCIA, ESPERANZA, 2011. The Perfect Spanish Chapelmaster: the Depiction of the Composer Ginés Pérez (d. 1600) in Felipe Pedrell’s Hispaniae Schola Musica Sacra. In: FITCH, FABRICE and KIEL, JACOBIJN, eds., Essays on Music in Honour of David Fallows: ‘Bon jour, bon mois, et bonne estrenne’ Boydell and Brewer. 361-69
RODRIGUEZ-GARCIA, ESPERANZA, 2011. On Victoria’s 400th anniversary Early music. 39, 265-67
Current Research
I am currently working on a monograph on the composer Sebastián Raval (d. 1604), which carries on from my doctoral dissertation. Raval's peculiar biography (he was a soldier, a monk, and a musician) shows in his unconstrained approach to composition. Also, his various musical jobs illustrate alternative career paths for composers, far removed from the role of a traditional chapel master. My article assessing the reasons of Raval's absence in the musical canon ('Sebastián Raval and the 'Spanish Arrogance') is in the press. Furthermore I will be giving a presentation on his book of lamentations (1594) at the International Musicological Society in Rome, July 2012.
Past Research
My past research includes cultural history, focusing on Spanish ecclesiastical institutions, their ritual practices and their influence on the shaping of repertories. My book, Un libro de atril del Colegio del Patriarca: el manuscrito de música nº 9 (2006), studies a manuscript with music from the fifteenth and sixteenth century copied at the Colegio del Patriarca in Valencia (Spain) in the seventeenth century. It illuminates the extent to which chant and polyphonic music associated to pre-Reformation rituals survived well beyond the Counter-Reformation. I have also explored the significance of the circulation of sources as a factor determining the transmission not only of the music but also of the ritual practices, both involving national circuits (in my edition Ginés Pérez: set motets inèdits, 2007) and international channels (in my 'El repertorio polifónico de la colegiata de Orihuela según un inventario de mitad del siglo XVI', 2008). Finally, I have explored popular devotional practices in paraliturgical contexts in an article about the medieval play Misteri d'Elx ('A vosaltres venim pregar del canonge Pérez', 2004).
Musical sources (both manuscript and printed) are another key element of my research, with all the above-mentioned publications primarily stemming from them. As a researcher in the British Library project 'Early Music Online' I studied and catalogued a wide range of sixteenth-century prints held in the library. My project as a Research Assistant at the Institute of Musical Research, University of London, dealt with the collection of manuscripts gathered by Edward Paston (1550-1630). The research tackled issues of music transmission and performance practice in context.
A critical context for my research to date has been historiography. I have particularly focused on the influence of ideology in the reception of Renaissance sacred music in the nineteenth century and its relationship with the acceptance of composers into the musical canon. I have dealt with the topic through the figures of the composers Ginés Pérez ('The Perfect Spanish Chapelmaster', 2011) and Sebastián Raval (forthcoming).
Future Research
My next research project will examine the output of different composers from the late-sixteenth century from a commercial perspective, exploring the ways in which they designed and distributed their books in order to make them a viable venture in the growing market for printed music.