This eleventh conference organized by the Festival Internacional de Música de Tecla Española (FIMTE), held in Mojácar, Almería, Spain, carried the title ‘New Perspectives on the Keyboard Works of Antonio Soler’. As before, the wonderful energy and presence of the organizer, Luisa Morales, created a concentrated and yet relaxed atmosphere in which the qualities and diversity of the contributions were matched by lively discussions. The task of moderator was taken on by Luisa Morales, Cristina Bordas and myself (Michael Latcham (Valdelarco, Andalucía)). The fact that the timetable gave plenty of space for comment after each talk, and the fact that there were no parallel sessions, gave the symposium a sense of integration and unity. Perhaps this was the reason why all the speakers, and most of the listeners, were present at every lecture despite, in some cases, having travelled from afar or, in others, having difficulties with either Spanish or English, the two languages of the event.

Proceedings began with a description and analysis, by Esteban Mariño Garza (Mexico City), of a small Latin American clavichord in the Museo Nacional del Virreinato, Tepotzotlán, Mexico. Mariño Garza drew attention to the short-octave, C/E to c³ compass of this fretted clavichord, to its construction using wooden trenails and to the twined strings in the bass. He suggested that some features indicated Netherlandish influence. The discussion that followed showed that the clavichord in general meant much to many of those present. The idea that the clavichord was merely for practice and for monks in their cells met with rebuttals from all sides. Not only famous composers but also the son of King Carlos III of Spain, Prince Gabriel (1752–1788), perhaps best known as a pupil of Antonio Soler y Ramos (1729–1783), had been brought up playing the clavichord. (So far, no document has been found that testifies that Soler was the Infante Gabriel's teacher; the relationship seems to have been more informal and complex. Gabriel's official teacher was José de Nebra. Bills relating Soler to Gabriel refer only to payment for the music that Soler composed for him, or concern ‘asistencia al cuarto de SA a las academias de música’, ‘por la diversion al clave’ and so forth. See Juan Martínez Cuesta and Beryl Kenyon de Pascual, ‘El infante Don Gabriel (1752–1788), gran aficionado a la música’, Revista de musicología 11/3 (1988), 767–806.) Prince Gabriel also had a special liking for the clavichord, taking the one he had as a boy to Madrid after owning it for more than twenty years. Other listeners noted that many features of the Mexican clavichord pointed in the direction of Italian rather than Flemish influence, that vernacular instruments such as this one might be of a later date than the models on which it was based and that the twined strings occurred in instruments built in Europe and could therefore be original.

The next speaker, Laura Cuervo (Universidad Complutense, Madrid), discussed the contents of the library of Prince Gabriel at El Escorial, one of the seats of the Spanish royal family. Soler was his music tutor not only for the organ but also for stringed keyboard instruments. He was appointed organist at El Escorial in 1752, at the age of twenty-three; later, in 1757, he became chapel master and then in 1766 began teaching the young Prince Gabriel. Cuervo's research has taken her to the Archivo del Infante don Gabriel de Borbón in the Royal Palace in Madrid. Various documents there allow a reconstruction of his library and show him to have been a competent performing musician, with the library containing works for both harpsichord and piano, the latter including piano trios. Although a precise dating of the various items in the library would have offered a better idea of the use of the piano while Soler was still alive (he died in 1783), the absence of dates for the items left this question open to discussion.

In the following paper, I drew a largely speculative picture of the distribution in time and place of the twelve harpsichords and early pianos in the possession of Queen consort Maria Bárbara, the wife of King Fernando VI, who was the half-brother of the next king, Carlos III. Maria Bárbara's tutor, probably from when she was eight years old in 1719 until a year before she died in 1758, was Domenico Scarlatti. I suggested that from 1719 (in Portugal) until 1746 (when Fernando VI was crowned) Maria Bárbara and Scarlatti were mostly, if not exclusively, preoccupied by the early Florentine pianos of Cristofori and Ferrini. Only after the coronation did life brighten up and attention turn to the harpsichord, louder and more incisive than the Florentine pianos, with the order of a harpsichord, probably from the court instrument maker Fernández, and with the fabulous operas put on by Farinelli, previously engaged with comforting the despondent King Felipe. The new harpsichord had sixty-one notes, more than any of the five pianos owned by Maria Bárbara. Surely this was the instrument for which Scarlatti composed most of his sonatas. This large harpsichord was apparently transported from palace to palace as the court moved around. In the autumn the court was at El Escorial. There Soler would have been able to hear Maria Bárbara and Scarlatti play this instrument. Soler's musical career at El Escorial started well after Maria Bárbara and Scarlatti had turned to the harpsichord. Details of the instruments owned by Prince Gabriel and sold after his death suggest that Soler died before the new pianos from England had made an impact on the prince. In other words, Soler came after the change in royal fashion from the Florentine piano to the harpsichord and before the more general interest in the piano reached Spain. Soler must therefore have written for the harpsichord, not the piano.

Stewart Pollens (New York) gave the next lecture. His subject was Soler's undated manuscript entitled ‘Theoria, y Practica del temple para los organos, y claves’, dedicated to Prince Gabriel. This general treatise on tuning advocates Soler's modification of quarter-comma meantone temperament such that the wolf fifth is eliminated and the player can modulate freely from key to key. The treatise also contains two sets of plans for making monochords of Soler's own invention, one with a keyboard and a hammer action, the other plucked using a hand-held feather. These acordantes were to be used for setting the temperament of keyboard instruments. A movable bridge and a scale written next to lines drawn on a strip of paper on the soundboard of the acordante enabled any keyboard instrument to be tuned according to Soler's temperament. Pollens had made the simpler of the two monochords and brought it with him to the seminar. During the conference, Luisa Morales had a harpsichord brought to the hall and had it tuned using Pollens's acordante. Although pleasant in many keys, some of the intervals in some keys proved too wayward to be used, suggesting that Soler had strayed so deeply into theory that he had neglected the practical result of his thoughts.

The first session ended with a brief look at the mention of keyboard instruments in Spanish literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by Maria Trinidad Ibarz (Universidad de Zaragoza). The way in which she commandingly selected some of the wittiest and most suggestive citations from her sheaf of papers indicated that when the proceedings of the symposium are published, her paper will make most interesting reading.

The next session opened with a paper on the musical and liturgical circumstances of El Escorial at the time of Soler by Gustavo Sánchez (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Escolania del Monasterio de El Escorial). Documents referring to instruments used at the monastery, to the choir and to Soler's personal life revealed new and interesting information. In the context of a symposium almost exclusively concerned with Soler as a composer of works for keyboard, Sánchez gave welcome reminders of his prolific output in other fields, including quintets for strings and organ, masses, church hymns, requiems, psalms, Magnificats and many more works, as well as of his rigorous life as a monk at El Escorial. Sánchez presented a title page from one of Soler's works showing a monk, possibly Soler, kneeling and bowing his head in reverence. By showing only the head of the monk, and rotating it, a possible portrait of a happy Soler could be seen.

The following paper, given by Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini (Bologna), was based on the intriguing concertos for two organs written by Soler, no doubt for his young pupil Prince Gabriel and himself. Tagliavini broke his journey from Bologna to Almería to examine the original manuscripts at El Escorial. His lecture started with the origins of double organs, their façades usually facing each other across the nave, mentioning the music for double choirs in the Basilica di San Marco, Venice in the sixteenth century. An array of magnificent pairs of organs were shown, not the least of which comprised the two in the Basilica di San Petronio in Bologna. Others reside in Spain, including those at Granada and Cuenca, recently restored and inaugurated in 2010 in a concert by Tagliavini with his colleague Liuwe Tamminga, both organists at San Petronio. Tagliavini completed the first part of his lecture with a list of composers who wrote for two organs in the eighteenth century. He then focused on the special double organ at El Escorial made for Prince Gabriel with sixty-one notes, G¹ to g³, by José Casas and Manuel Cerella in 1774. This was a portative organ, which also had a swell box, and would have had eight-foot stops on both sides, implying pipes of considerable lengths in the bass. Tagliavini finished by analysing the indications for registration found in Soler's sonatas written for the organ and offered a new interpretation of their meanings, coupled at the same time with an analysis of the stops available on the two sides of Prince Gabriel's vis-à-vis organ.

Serguei Prozhoguin (Moscow) was unable to attend the meeting to give his lecture on the two sets of books of Scarlatti's sonatas now held in Venice and Parma and their possible relation to Soler. Cristina Bordas gave a brief summary, leaving the listeners to follow up Prozhoguin's train of thought when the proceedings are published.

The second session and the first day ended with a lecture by Mafalda Nejmeddine (Universidade de Minho, Universidade de Evora) on Portuguese keyboard sonatas written in the second half of the eighteenth century. Earlier in the century the sonata had been used by Carlos Seixas as a genre for teaching purposes. Later, in the 1770s, two collections of sonatas were published, one by Francisco Xavier Baptista (twelve sonatas, variations and minuets), the other by Alberto José Gomes da Silva (six sonatas), both for the harpsichord. The sonatas published in Portugal at the time represent only about a third of those that are known from the period. Nejmeddine examined a number of these to show how the structure of the sonata developed in Portugal over the second half of the century.

Luisa Morales (FIMTE, Almería) opened the first session of the second day by examining the sonata attributed to Soler by Father Samuel Rubio Calzón (1912–1986), in his numbering system r121. She showed clearly that this attribution was not tenable on stylistic grounds. Furthermore, of the three sources known for this sonata, one gives it as anonymous while the other two both attribute it to Juan Moreno y Polo (1711–1776), another Spanish composer who also wrote for the organ.

Next, Enrique Igoa (Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid) presented his edition of 20 Sonatas by Soler. The indefatigable and erudite Rubio, who entered the monastery at El Escorial in 1932 and remained there until his incarceration in Madrid during the Civil War, not only studied theology at El Escorial but also solfeggio, piano and harmony. He was ordained in 1940 and appointed organist at El Escorial. Like Soler, he also served as chapel master, occupying this post from 1943 until 1959. His critical edition of Soler's sonatas was published in batches of twenty starting in 1952, volume 7 (sonatas 100–120) appearing in 1972. Igoa's edition of twenty sonatas brings together those Rubio would have published in his projected volume 8 (including No. 121, the subject of the previous paper), until now only available in various dispersed editions – all difficult to find – as well as a group of sonatas thought to have been lost. Igoa discussed the difficulties encountered in making this edition, not only in recovering the sonatas but also those that face, to a greater or lesser degree, any editor preparing a modern edition from original sources.

Petra Polman (Arnhem) next presented a summary of the standard ideas on Scarlatti's life and work, and finished with a brief comparison of sonatas by Soler and Scarlatti, showing some of the influence the latter may have had on the former. Both composers, she said, exploited the possibilities of the ‘new instrument’, implying that both knew of the sorts of five-octave pianos made in London and Vienna in the era of Mozart and Haydn. It was pointed out from the floor that such five-octave pianos were not generally available in London and Vienna until the 1780s, well after Scarlatti's death in 1757, and furthermore that Soler had died in 1783. Another listener pointed out, though, that a piano of five octaves, G¹ to g³, attributed to Francisco Pérez Mirabal, and dated to about 1750, exists in the Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes in Seville, showing that at least one five-octave piano was made in Spain at about the time that Maria Bárbara ordered her first sixty-one-note harpsichord.

Polman's lecture was followed by another from Enrique Igoa, who, thanks to his publication of the 20 Sonatas, has been able to give a more complete overview of the sonata output; earlier analyses and classifications of the composer's sonatas could now be reviewed and adjusted. The sonatas show a development from the pairing of two single-movement works, often thought typical of Scarlatti, to a different structure in the late sonatas, with more than one movement contained within each single, autonomous work. This process culminates in structures that approach those typically found in Viennese sonatas of the 1780s.

Cristina Bordas (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) next presented an account of instruments advertised in Madrid newspapers between 1770 and 1800, based on the acknowledged research of Beryl Kenyon de Pascual. Bordas's conclusions indicated that in the field of keyboard instruments, the period showed a gradual change towards the piano. One listener noted that with respect to violins such advertisements often indicated that the instruments in question were offered for sale because they were old-fashioned; the advertisements could thus give a misleading impression of the latest fashion. Bordas replied that while this was true, many of the advertisements for harpsichords and pianos were for new instruments. She also gave an account of the numbers of musical instruments imported from abroad in a number of specific years around the turn of the eighteenth century. In 1804, for instance, one hundred and one ‘Forte pianos’ were imported, eighty-eight of them from England, five from France, four from Switzerland and two each from the Netherlands and Germany. By contrast, only nine ‘claves’ were imported, three from France, two from England and four from Germany. It was suggested from the floor that the term ‘Forte piano’ could have meant square piano and ‘clave’ a grand piano (rather than harpsichord) by 1804. The small number of grand pianos and the large number of square pianos was in keeping with the fashion for the latter in England and France a few years earlier. Bordas also compared the Spanish production of musical instruments towards the end of the eighteenth century and noted that keyboard instrument makers followed trends from the north, involving themselves in competitive, commercial and innovative piano building in an atmosphere free of royal patronage. While the same applied to wind-instrument makers, guitar makers kept to a guild-based, traditional, craftsman's approach, maintaining well-tried standards.

Pedro Luengo (Seville) continued the session with a report of his research into the life and work of the organ maker Francisco Pérez de Valladolid, during which information regarding the organ, harpsichord and piano maker Francisco Pérez de Mirabal has come to light. Both makers appear together in numerous documents, both originated in Antequera and both moved to Seville in the first half of the eighteenth century. The research showed that the craft of harpsichord making could not be dissociated from that of organ making, underlined by the fact that Pérez de Mirabal made organs before making claviorgans. The interlinking of the two crafts was maintained for some decades in Seville, and this provides a rich source for future research.

The final session of the symposium opened with a particularly well-presented lecture by Patricia Rejas Suárez (Conservatorio Superior de Música, Vigo) on the influence of Soler on keyboard music at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. Rejas Suárez introduced a sonata by the relatively unknown Basilio de Sessé y Beltrán (1756–1816) and a set of variations by José Pacheco (1784–1865). As became clear, Soler's influence could readily be traced in the musical language of both composers.

The penultimate paper was given by two speakers, Miguel Huertas and Gorka Rubiales (Universidad Complutense, Madrid). They unravelled the identity of a piece of music shown in a portrait of about 1820 by Vicente López Portaña of Félix Máximo López Crespo (1742–1821), organist at the Chapel Royal. In the portrait, now in the Prado, Madrid, López Crespo holds a piece of music in his hand on which the words ‘Obra de los Locos, primera parte’ can be read. Through their tenacious research, the speakers were able to identify this work by López Crespo as his zarzuela ‘Los Locos’, composed in the last years of his life. Not only that, they were able to reconstruct the piece using musical and documentary sources. This research is part of an extensive programme being undertaken by a group of musicologists at the Universidad Complutense involved in musical iconography. Their plan is to catalogue sources of musical iconography in Spanish institutions. In this context, the work of the most recent years has been an investigation into the collections of the Museo Nacional del Prado to identify works with contents related to dance and music. Six hundred such works have been catalogued, a considerable proportion of the more than eight thousand works in the catalogue of the Prado.

The last paper, given by Emma Virginia García Gutiérrez (Universidad Complutense, Madrid) concerned the revival of Scarlatti and Soler in Spain in the twentieth century. She first discussed the enthusiastic Spanish claim for Scarlatti as a Spaniard, rather than a Neapolitan, as an indicator of the nationalist atmosphere of the time, then continued with statistics on the appearance of editions of the two composers' works and on concerts that included their music, and finally considered new twentieth-century compositions that had been inspired by it. While the interest in both composers in these respects reached a high point in the 1920s, the interest in Scarlatti far exceeded that in Soler. Soler proved none the less to have been a source of inspiration to the new generations of the twentieth century.