Concertantes, finales y acción en las tonadillas de Jacinto Valledor (1744-1809)

Abstract

The recent tonadilla studies must be included within the renewed attention that since some years are living the Spanish eighteenth-century musical theatre research. In fact, the tonadilla has recently taken a significant revitalization after years carrying a nationalist dead weight. This renewal manifests also the necessity to go in depth into a specially original and rich genre and study without complexes aspects as the integration of operatic elements in its musical dramaturgy. The main purpose of this article is the study of the presence of elements from Italian operatic ensembles within the brief and comical musical dramaturgy of the tonadilla. The starting point is the work by Jacinto Valledor, a Madrilenian composer and also an excellent connoisseur of Italian musical theatre practise in other Spanish cities, above all Barcelona, where the taste of opera had caught strongly on. Although it could seem a very partial study within the enormous repertory of tonadillas, it serves to approach us to different aspects of the genre: the coexistence of the dialogical and active realism of concertati d’azione beside repetitive strophic forms as coplas and seguidillas; or the adaptation of the operatic conventions for finali to announce the truly very end of the work, generally seguidillas.