The IFMuC project began in 2001 within the Department of Art and Musicology of the UAB, under the coordination of prof. Josep Maria Gregori i Cifré, and is heir to the work and actions applied to the recovery of the musical heritage of Catalonia that began and developed the UAB Music Documentation Center and the Josep Ricart i Matas Musicology Institute of the UAB and the RACBASJ, under the direction of Francesc Bonastre Bertran.1
The Musical Documentation Center (CDM) from UAB (1973-1979)
The Musical Documentation Center (CDM) was created in 1973 within the UAB Department of Art, thanks to the initiative of professors Francesc Bonastre and Antonio Martín Moreno,2 which together with the students of the Music Area of the Art Department, led to the formation of a research team oriented towards the cataloging and study of the musical collections of Catalonia. Between 1975 and 1978, the following were part of the CDM team: Francesc Bonastre and Antonio Martín Moreno, and the students Juan Bagüés Mayra Hace, Josep Maria Gregori, Esther Griera, Carmen Rumeu, Maria Vila-Coro and Josep M. Vives.
The first investigative work of that team was to undertake the cataloging and subsequent microfilming of the musical collection of the cathedral of Tarragona (1975-1981). The rest of the interventions of the CDM focused on the beginning of the cataloging of the musical collections of Santa Maria del Pi (Barcelona), Santa María de la Geltrú, Sant Esteve d’Olot, Santa Pau dels Arcs, Sant Joan de les Abadeses and Sant Pere i Sant Pau de Canet de Mar (1976 -1980).3 The work of the CDM opened new lines of research in the field of recovering the Catalan musical heritage4 and in the methodology of cataloging musical manuscripts.5
The Josep Ricart i Matas Musicological Research and Documentation Institute from UAB and the RACBASJ (1980-2016)
The work carried out by the CDM was collected and continued by the Josep Ricart i Matas Musicological Research and Documentation Institute (IDIM), created in 1980 with the collaboration of the Real Academia Catalana de Bellas Artes de Sant Jordi (RACBASJ) and the UAB, prior ministerial order of June 6, 1979, under the direction of Professor Francesc Bonastre y Bertran.6 During the 1980s, the IDIM became a pioneering institution in the whole of the Spanish State and the only one dedicated exclusively to the cultivation of Catalan musicology.7
As for the work carried out in the field of musical archiving, the start-up of the IDIM made it possible to complete the microfilming of the collection of musical manuscripts in Tarragona Cathedral and to complete the process of recording and microfilming the collection of Sant Pere i Sant Pau in Canet de Mar, which culminated in 1982.
During December 1982, the IDIM organized and hosted the I National Symposium on Musical Archiving and Documentation at its headquarters. Between 1983 and 1984, through an institutional agreement between the IDIM and the BC, and thanks to a subsidized research project, the first phase of the cataloging of the Joan Carreras y Dagas musical collection of the Library of Catalonia was carried out.
Thanks to the help of two projects subsidized by CIRIT, the cataloging of the collection of Santa María de Vilafranca del Penedès (1986) began, preserved in the Wine Museum (Vinseum), and work began, in a first phase, in the collection of musical manuscripts of the cathedral of Tortosa (1987).8 Since 2002, the IDIMAR changed its old name to the “Josep Ricart i Matas” Institute of Musicology of the RACBASJ, with a specific agreement with the UAB. From that moment on, the tasks of describing the musical collections that the old IDIMAR had developed were assumed by the new IFMuC project, which emerged from within the Institute and connected with the teaching on musical heritage of the Department of Art and Musicology of the UAB.
A year before the transfer of its promoter and director, Francesc Bonastre Bertran (1944-2017), the “Josep Ricart i Matas” Institute of Musicology was closed by order of the RACBASJ. Since 2018 this institution houses the bibliographic and documentary collection of the old IDIM.9
Notes
1 GREGORI I CIFRÉ, Josep Maria. “Francesc Bonastre i Bertran (1944-2017), impulsor de la recuperació del Patrimoni Musical de Catalunya des de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona”, Revista Catalana de Musicologia, XIII (2020), p, 15-41.
2 Profesor del Departamento de Arte de la UAB entre 1973 y 1978.
3 BONASTRE, Francesc. “La labor de documentación musical del IDIM de la UAB”, Anuario Musical, 49 (1994), p. 299-300.
4 One of the first investigations with which Francesc Bonastre inaugurated his contributions to the study of the Baroque ( “La Capella Musical de la Seu de Tarragona a mitjan segle XVIII”, Boletín Arqueológico (1976-77), Ep. IV, fasc . 133-140, p. 259-270) and Josep Maria Gregori’s bachelor’s thesis focused on the study and transcription of the compositional work of a master of the cathedral of Tarragona from the 18th century (La producció musical conservada de Joan Crisòstom Ripollès († 1746): catalogació i transcripció, UAB, junio de 1977).
5 The descriptive methodology used in the preparation of the first catalog of the fund of the cathedral of Tarragona (1977), served as a model for the editions of the first catalogs that were published in Spain during the decade of the 1980s.
6 BONASTRE, Francesc. “L’Institut de Documentació i d’Investigació Musicològiques Josep Ricart i Matas”, Estudis oferts a Josep Ricart i Matas en la commemoració del centenari del seu naixement (1893-1993). Barcelona: Real Academia Catalana de Bellas Artes de Sant Jordi, 1993, p. 85-91.
7 El ICCMU, Instituto Complutense de Ciencias Musicales, se creó en 1989.
8 GREGORI, Josep Maria. “La catalogació dels arxius musicals de Catalunya, una de les línies de recerca de l’IDIM de la UAB”, I Congrés de Música a Catalunya. Barcelona: Consell Català de la Música, 1994, p. 863-865.
9 MILLET I LORAS, Maria Dolors. “La biblioteca del Institut de Documentació i d’Investigació Musicològiques «Josep Ricart i Matas»”, AEDOM. Boletín de la Asociación Española de Documentación Musical, vol. 5, núm. 1 (1998), p. 83-87.