Murcia, Santiago de

(b ?Madrid, c1682; d ?Mexico, c1740). Spanish composer, theorist

and guitarist. He was almost certainly the son of Gabriel de Murcia
(nephew of the composer Juan Hidalgo) and Juliana de Len, both
of whom belonged to a long line of instrument makers and
composers. There is evidence to suggest that Murcia studied with
Francisco Guerau, music master at the royal choir school from
1693 and at the royal chapel, 16961700. During the first decade
of the 18th century he became guitar teacher to Queen Mara Luisa
Gabriela, the young wife of Felipe V, who also employed Antonio
de Murcia (probably Santiagos brother) as her personal guitar
maker.
Murcia enjoyed the protection of several influential patrons,
including a staunch supporter of Felipe V, Jcome Francisco
Andriani, to whom Murcia dedicated his Resumen de acompaar
la parte con la guitarra; the title-page and preface indicate that
Murcia was under Andrianis protection and residing in his house.
Another Madrid official linked with Murcia was the kings notary,
Joseph lvarez de Saavedra; Murcia dedicated to him his
collection of Passacalles y obras. Several pieces in Murcias guitar
books suggest that he may have collaborated with dramatists and
theatre composers such as Francisco de Castro, Pedro Lanini and
Antonio Zamora, and that he was personally acquainted with other
guitar composers, including Franois Le Cocq. Murcias name
disappears from court documents after 1717; he probably
journeyed first to France, Belgium or Holland and arrived in Mexico
some time between 1718 and 1731. It appears from an ambiguous
burial record that lvarez de Saavedra died in Puebla and was
buried in the parish of Analco in 1737; possibly Murcia was living
there as well.
Murcia is remembered for his treatise Resumen de acompaar la
parte con la guitarra (engraved in Antwerp in 1714 and published in
Madrid in 1717; see Hall, 1980; Russell, 1980; Hall, The Guitar,
1983; Arriaga, 1984) and for two manuscript anthologies of guitar
music. The Resumen is the most comprehensive basso continuo
treatise for the Baroque guitar. It explains how to realize a figured
bass and touches on suspensions, cadences, clefs and implied clef
transposition, modes and metres (both of the modern foreign style
and of the old Spanish style). There follows an extensive
collection of French dances; they bear no attributions, but are
harmonized settings of danses deux, danses de bal and
contredanses from the press of Raoul-Auger Feuillet, Paris,
arranged in chronological order of publication. The Resumen
includes also 26 minuets, a series of variations on popular Spanish
chord progressions and three virtuoso suites. The treatises
considerable influence on Murcias Spanish colleagues and
successors is evident from several manuscript copies and from
extended excerpts from it quoted in later treatises.

The two anthologies are the Saldvar Codex no.4 (owned by the
Saldvar family in Mexico City; see Lorimer, 1987; facs. and ed.
C.H. Russell (Urbana, IL, 1995)) and the Passacalles y obras de
guitarra por todos los tonos naturales y acidentales (GB-Lbl
Add.31640; see Mackmeeken, 1979; ed. in Russell, 1980;
Pennington, 1981; Hall, The Guitar, 1983). These are elegant,
luxurious manuscripts dating from 1732 and originally grouped
together as a single two-volume work. They contain some of the
best music written for the Baroque guitar, and are valuable also for
their left-hand fingerings, which were not usually shown in Baroque
guitar tablatures. They represent the culmination of an era that
favoured the treble-strung five-course guitar and used tablature as
opposed to staff notation. Murcia was among the last to use reentrant tunings, with the lowest string placed in the middle. The
Saldvar Codex includes variations on Spanish dance tunes dating
from the late 16th to the early 18th centuries, such as the jcara,
mariona, gallarda, villano and espaoleta, and it is the earliest
musical source for the fandango, jota and seguidilla, which were to
become an indispensable part of Spains cultural landscape in the
19th century. Also of great interest are the cumbs and
zarambeques, the earliest known examples of notated instrumental
music of African American origin. The volume includes also a
handful of French dances (some of them by Andr Campra or
Louis Guillaume Pcour), 13 minuets and a three-movement
sonata with a slow movement reminiscent of Corelli and a finale in
full sonata form, with thematic differentiation and an extensive
development section a remarkable demonstration that in 1732, at
the latest, Murcia was in the vanguard of developments leading to
the Classical period.
The Passacalles y obras opens with a series of ambitious
passacalles grouped in pairs (the first in quadruple, the second in
triple metre) and arranged in key order according to the Italian
alfabeto system. These are difficult and varied works, carefully
composed and well constructed despite their improvisatory
character. They are followed by an italianate Preludio and Allegro,
a battle piece and 11 suites consisting of from six to 12
movements, including the standard allemande, courante,
sarabande and gigue. Many of the suites are unified by recurring
motifs, and some borrow sections from the works of contemporary
guitar composers.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
M. Mackmeeken: Introduction to Santiago de Murcia: Passacalles
y obras (facs., Monaco, 1979)
M. Hall: Introduction to Santiago de Murcia: Resumen de
acompaar la parte con la guitarra (1714) (facs., Monaco,
1980)
C.H. Russell: Santiago de Murcia, Spanish Theorist and Guitarist
in the Early Eighteenth Century (diss., U. of North Carolina,
1980) [incl. edn of Resumen and Passacalles]

R. Stevenson: Santiago de Murcia: a Review Article, InterAmerican Music Review, iii (198081), 89101
N.D. Pennington: The Spanish Baroque Guitar, with a
Transcription of De Murcias Passacalles y obras (Ann Arbor,
1981)
C.H. Russell: Santiago de Murcia: the French Connection in
Baroque Spain, Lute Society of America Inc.: Journal, xv
(1982), 4051
C.H. Russell and A.K.T. Russell: El arte de recomposicin en la
msica para guitarra barroca, RdMc, v (1982), 523
M. Hall: The Guitar Anthologies of Santiago de Murcia (diss., Open
U., Milton Keynes, 1983) [incl. edn of Resumen and
Passacalles]
M. Hall: Santiago de Murcia and Franois Le Cocq, Lute Society
of America Inc.: Journal, xvi (1983), 37; see also ibid., xvii
xviii (19845), 13941
C.H. Russell: Franois Le Cocqs Influence on Santiago de
Murcia: Problems with Dates, Sources, and Recomposition,
Lute Society of America Inc.: Journal, xvi (1983), 711; see
also ibid., xviixviii (19845), 1412
G. Arriaga: Introduction to Santiago de Murcia: Resumen de
acompaar la parte con la guitarra (1714) (facs., Madrid,
1984)
C. Bordas Ibez: Instrumentos espaoles de los siglos XVII y
XVIII en el Museo del Pueblo espaol de Madrid, RdMc, vii
(1984), 30133
A. Martn Moreno: Historia de la msica espaol, iv: Siglo XVIII
(Madrid, 1985)
E.O.B. de Saldvar: El Cdice Saldvar: una nueva fuente de
msica para guitarra, Espaa en la msica de occidente:
Salamanca 1985, ii, 8792
M. Lorimer: Preface to Santiago de Murcia: Saldvar Codex No.4
(facs., Santa Barbara, CA, 1987)
M. Esses: Dance and Instrumental Diferencias in Spain during
the 17th and Early 18th Centuries (Stuyvesant, NY, 1992)
C.H. Russell: Santiago de Murcias Cdice Saldvar N o4
(Champaign, Illinois, 1995) [incl. facs. and edn of complete
Cdice Saldvar]
N. Treadwell: The Guitar Passacalles of Santiago de Murcia
(c16851740), Musicology Australia, xv (1992), 6776
CRAIG H. RUSSELL