"El público aumentó la gritería y llegaron algunos á amenazar á los músicos". Estudi dels balls de màscares de carnaval al gran teatre del Liceu (1863-1936)

The Historical Archive of the Society of the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona preserves a wide variety of documents about the daily life of the Catalan opera house from its founding in 1837 up to the present. The archive has an enormous collection of dance music scores, written for the most part in the last half of the 19th century. This music was composed ex profeso for the masked balls held at Carnival time at this theatre.The main purpose of this paper is to shed light on a forgotten orchestral repertoire – that of dance music – which was of great importance in 19th­ and 20th­century Catalan society. The study of this archive contributes to our knowledge of the composers and of the different types and the instrumentation of this dance music.