José Zapiola como escritor y los inicios de la crítica musical y de la musicografía en Chile

Abstract

This article deals with the Chilean musician and writer Jose Zapiola Cortés (1802-1885) and his contribution in the beginnings of both musical criticism and musicography in Chile. As a hypothesis it is put forward that Zapiola was not a man of letters but a musician of letters, who, because of family and social reasons, tried to build his personal and professional identity in the Chilean music milieu, at the time when the project of modernity was established in Chile. On the basis of this hypothesis, the ideas that he presents in his books La Sociedad de la Igualdad y sus enemigos, Recuerdos de Treinta Años and his commentaries in the Semanario Musical are analyzed. In these works, Zapiola prepared the ground for both a proper musical criticism and a criticism of musical institutions in Chile, specially in the case of the National Conservatory of Music founded in 1849.