El compositor Josep Pons i el llenguatge musical per a la litúrgia de l'ordinarium"Missa a 4 ÿ a 8 con oboes, violines ÿ trompas sobre l'antífona Ecce Sacerdos Magnus" (1786)

Resum

The author divides this thesis into two large areas: the first one looks into the historical aspects, comprising the character object of study, and the second one deals only with the pure technical aspects of his musical language through the study of the rescued work. The first part is an approach to Master Ponss person starting from the reconstruction of his life, from his birth in Girona in 1770 to his death in Valencia, in August 1818. To do this, a painstaking field work has been developed, based mainly upon the chapterhouse documents and other records in the cathedrals of Girona, Salamanca, Cordoba, Tuy and Valencia, and the comprehensive search of musical files in countless religious sees that contain his works, a provisional catalogue of all of Josep Ponss compositions has been set up and shown in the annexes. We can find there a detailed study of the musical atmosphere both religious and profane of Valencia, at that time of historic transition in which events took place in fast succession underlining the Chapels activities; and placing a special emphasis upon the musical noons. This first part ends with the diagram of the cathedral chapel and the people who were there when Josep Pons was in charge, without forgetting the pedagogical aspect that was to be developed later by his best disciples. The second part implies a close analysis of his work 4 and 8 voice Mass for oboes, violins and French horns on the antiphon Ecce sacerdos magnus -a youthful work composed at the age of 16 - through which he discovers the composition tools and the stylistic resources that Master Pons would develop all along his life: rhythm, melody, harmony, textures, continuity, coherence, resources, rhetorics, etc. that will be shown in examples, graphics and explanatory tables. To all this we add a comparative study of the mentioned work with others of the same composer and other compositions both of his inner circle and of others like Nebra, Corselli, Haydn or Mozart. With all this we obtain as a result the essence of what might be considered the aesthetic paradigm of his musical language, specifically dedicated to the Ordinary of the Mass. The conclusions of the author show us a man of the Church ,a valued composer who enjoyed in his time a great prestige because of the fact that he composed - in his life timemore than three hundred works found throughout the most important archives of religious music in our country. All this took place in a crucial moment of transition and a aesthetic definition. Pons will purposefully retain certain stylistic resources from earlier periods but without feeling constricted by them nor avoiding a certain, shy restlessness in the search for new harmonic and formal possibilities.