La música instrumental de José Castel (1737-1807)

Abstract

This article studies for the first time the instrumental music by José Castel (1737-1807), born in Tudela (Navarre), who was also a prolific composer of theatrical music, chapelmaster at the Cathedral of Tudela, and who even came to publish some of his chamber compositions in Paris. The article consists of three sections which tackle the composer’s life (providing a number of new details), the sources of his instrumental music (chamber, symphonic, musical repertoire for the theatre and compositions for keyboard) and the stylistic and formal characteristics of his instrumental music (which reveal significant knowledge of the composition techniques of European Classicism). The article includes several musical examples of instrumental works by Castel, featuring two movements belonging to Six duets pour...