Sociedad de Cuartetos
They attempted to save chamber music from fading into oblivion since Italian opera and Zarzuela dominated Spanish concert life.
Founded by violinist Jesús de Monasterio and pianist Juan María Guelbenzu Fernández in 1863, this society contributed significantly to the circulation and interest of chamber music in the Iberian Peninsula.
Despite their great perseverance and increasing success, the society's activities concluded on January 5, 1894, due to health problems that troubled Monasterio for several seasons prior.
The idea for this chamber music institution came from Monasterio, who had been a successful pupil of Charles de Bériot at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels.
His distinguished career included the post of honorary violinist of the Capilla Real and the appointment as a professor of the Madrid Conservatory.
Monasterio initially conceived this organization exclusively for strings, but his former tutor Basilio Montoya convinced him to collaborate with the Spanish pianist Guelbenzu.
After his studies in Paris, Guelbenzu became a respected pianist who had befriended Chopin, Liszt, Giacomo Meyerbeer, and Sigismund Thalberg.
The inclusion of Guelbenzu to this organization expanded their repertoire possibilities to include solo and chamber works for piano.
After the death of Guelbenzu (pianist) and Basilio Montoya (treasurer), on October 18, 1884; the society wrote new statutes to their establishment.
Those were the formal distinction the original String Quartet (Monasterio, Pérez, Lestán and Castellanos) and the new conditions for contracts of external musicians and the new rates for the public.
The founding string quartet consisted of members of the Teatro Real, principal violist Tomás Lestán and the concertmaster Rafael Pérez as second violin.
Other performers included pianists Mariano Vázquez Gómez (1863) Adolfo de Quesada (1868), the violist and composer Miguel Carreras (1869), clarinetist Antonio Romero (1875), cellist Agustín Rubio (1881), violinist Enrique Arbós (1882), and several collaborations with faculty from the Conservatory.
This choice of repertoire reflects their educational mission to expose the German models on the chamber music genre, specifically those of First Viennese School.
In their sixth season, they dedicated a concert to works by Spanish composers, including M. Adalid, R. Pérez, M. Allú.
Through the 1870s their repertoire added works by Onslow, Anton Rubinstein, Joseph Mayseder, G. Verdi, Joachim Raff, and even Giuseppe Tartini.
Their concert series concluded with a performance of Tchaikovsky's String Quartet No.1, Op.11, which was applauded with utmost respect and admiration.
[1] The most important source for their repertoire are the concert programs located in the archives of the library of the Royal Superior Conservatory of Music of Madrid.
From the news papers and musical press it is known that advertising circulated in Madrid days before the start of the concert season.
It had chairs and straw benches for the public, a small ticket box with four music stands, and a grand piano made by the Pleyel house.
Therefore, this room was renewed in 1879: The box disappeared, and a parquet floor is installed, which offered a broader space to the interpreters.
The capacity of the venue allowed society to reduce the price of tickets for certain sections of the audience, with the idea of attracting more public and make themselves more accessible to the lower class.
Mariano Soriano Fuertes, described the impact of the society in his publication Calendario Histórico—Musical in 1873 as an example of how, though Germany produced some of the greatest chamber music works, Spain can be proud to be home of great performers of such masterpieces.
We have heard the instrumental music of the aforementioned classic authors, in Germany, Belgium, England and France, and although perfectly interpreted by distinguished professors, we have not heard it so perfectly felt, so masterfully accentuated and with such difficult ease felt, as in the Hall of the National School of Music.
The benefits of utility that have been reported by distinguished professors, creators, and supporters of such great thinking, compared to their work and efforts, are equal to zero.
Hemos oído ejecutar la música instrumental de los antedichos clásicos autores, en Alemania, Bélgica, Inglaterra y Francia, y aunque perfectamente interpretada por profesores distinguidos, no la hemos oído tan perfectamente sentida, tan magistralmente acentuada y con tan dificil facilidad sentida, como en el salón de la Escuela nacional de música.
It was the special circumstances of a political and economic hardship that stopped fifty years of progress in the country's scientific, literary and artistic development.
Casals lived in Madrid for two years where he studied counterpoint with Tomas Breton; and chamber music with Jesus de Monasterio.
In his memoirs, Casals said Monasterio was an excellent teacher that emphasized intonation and proper accentuation in chamber music performance.
According to the criticisms published, the high interpretative quality of all musicians, especially the violinist Jesús de Monasterio, can be confirmed.
As described in texts by his Quartet colleagues, Monasterio often took artistic licenses, especially as regards the choice of tempos and the character and dynamics of certain musical phrases.
