Los horizontes de Aita Donostia: paisaje, música e identidad nacional en los Preludios [Aita Donostia’s horizons: landscape, music and national identity in Basque Preludesa]

Abstract

By analyzing the artistic and political horizons that shaped the compositional strategy of Basque music composer Aita Donostia in his Basque Preludes, the purpose of this article is to identify the ideological basis that held his Basque musical nationalism paradigm; an ideal narrowly linked to musical evocations of the natural landscape of Navarre. His public conferences, press articles and private correspondence will constitute the main source of information in order to detect the international and local influences that affected his musical thought. An artistic ideal sustained by nationalist claims, modernizing longings and emotional projections of Basque-Navarrese folklore and landscape.