Privilegio y precariedad en la música eclesiàstica de Barcelona en el siglo XVIII

Historically, in the art promoted by the Church, the institution's financial capacity and economic interest have determined both the compositional elements of this expression and, ultimately, its very existence. In the field of ecclesiastical music, expenditure on salaries and functions was a decisive factor in the size, quality, and longevity of music chapels. Despite this crucial relationship, few studies delve into the economic aspects of ecclesiastical chapels, and only a handful provide data, which are often inconsistent and address the topic tangentially.
This proposal analyzes the economic evolution of the music chapel of Santa Maria del Pi in Barcelona between 1700 and 1900. To achieve this objective, a method is presented that, based on the documentation preserved in the institution's archive and historical economic statistics on Spain, systematically addresses this issue. On the one hand, it details the annual income of musicians according to their professional category, and on the other, it compares these earnings with the cost of living.
The results show that, during this period, there were two categories of ecclesiastical musicians. Priests, who lived in a privileged situation thanks to additional distributions on top of their musical income, and non-priest musicians, whose stagnant earnings throughout the period led to a loss of purchasing power. By the mid-19th century, these musicians were forced to abandon their permanent positions in music chapels, ultimately contributing to their dissolution.