Santiago de Murcia

Santiago de Murcia (25 July 1673 – 25 April 1739) was a Spanish guitarist and composer.

Until new research was published in 2008, few details about the life of Santiago de Murcia were known. However it is now known that he was born in Madrid and that his parents were Juan de Murcia and Magdalena Hernandez. He married Josefa Garcia in May 1695.

In his printed collection of guitar music, Resumen de acompañar, Murcia describes himself as Master of Guitar to the Spanish Queen Maria Luisa of Savoy. She was the first wife of the first Bourbon king of Spain, Philip (Felipe) V, a grandson of Louis XIV of France who succeeded to the Spanish throne on the death of Carlos II in November 1700. The marriage took place by proxy in Turin on 11 September 1701. On 3 November the marriage was re-celebrated in Figueras in Catalunya. In April 1702, Felipe V left on a tour of his Italian possessions appointing Maria Luisa as regent in his absence. There is no reason to suppose that Murcia travelled with him to Naples, Italy, or met the composers Arcangelo Corelli and Alessandro Scarlatti. Maria Luisa arrived in Madrid on 30 June and Murcia is not likely to have been appointed as her Master of Guitar before this date. It is assumed that he held the post until her death in 1714. Antonio de Murcia was appointed instrument maker to the Queen in 1704..

In 1714 Murcia dedicated a guitar treatise to Jácome Francisco Andriani, a special envoy to the Catholic cantons of the Netherlands for the King of Spain. (Andriani, born in northern Italy, moved to Spain where he was admitted to the Order of the Knights of Santiago in 1712.) Andriani made it possible for Murcia to publish his guitar treatise by sponsoring the engraving of the work on copper plates.

Although two of the surviving manuscript collections of Murcia's music – "Passacalles y obras" and "Codice Saldivar no. 4" – came to light in Mexico in modern times, they were most probably taken there at a later date by subsequent owners. It now seems unlikely that Santiago de Murcia actually travelled to Mexico himself. "Passacalles y obras" is dedicated to a certain Joseph Alvarez de Saavedra, but it is not known whether this is the same "Joseph Alvarez" who died in Puebla in 1737.

Apparently Andriani had trading links with Latin America, especially with Chile and Mexico. The most likely scenario is that Murcia made manuscript copies of his music for patrons which were exported to the New World.

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Wikipedia