Person
Anglès, Higini (1888-1969)Alternative forms (other languages) Other forms
Maspujols (Tarragona, España) 1888-01-01 - Rome 1969-12-08
Spanish musicologist, priest, historian, and teacher. He was born on the 1st of January 1888 in Maspujols (Tarragona).
At the age of 11, he started his ecclesiastical career and his interest in music. He was ordained priest in 1912 and moved to Barcelona, where he continued his musical training with José María Cogul, Vicente María Gibert, José Barberá, Felipe Pedrell and Gregorio María Suñol. Thanks to a grant he widened his musicology studies in Freiburg with Wilibald Gurlitt. In 1916, in Barcelona, he founded the Schola Cantorum in the parish church of Santa Madrona, he focused on his studies on folk songs and took part in the resurgence of the Gregorian movement. The following year he held the position of head curator in the department of music at the Library of Catalonia. In this position, he changed this department into an exclusive musical library in addition to expanding its ancient music collection. In 1927, he held the chair for History of Music at the Conservatory of Music of the Lyceum of Barcelona, and, between 1933 and 1936 he gave lessons of the same subject at the Central University of Barcelona. During the Spanish Civil War between 196 and 1939, he lived in Germany, where he worked with Rudolf von Ficker among other musicologists. Since 1943 he was founding director of the Spanish Institute of Musicologists, where he developed music historiography. In 1941, he started the collection "Monumentos de la música española" and in 1946 founded the magazine "Anuario Musical" to establish links with other similar institutions. In 1947, he was appointed president and teacher of the Pontificio Istituto di Musica Sacra in Roma, succeeding Gregorio María Suñol. He added musicology as another field of the institute in which he realised great organizational work. He organised several international meetings of sacred music and participated in the creation of the Federación de Asociaciones Cecilianas en la Consociatio Internationales Musicae Sacrae. Furthermore, he directed the "Diccionario de la música Labor" after the death of Joaquín Pena, he succeeds with the work. Apart from the transcription and the cataloguing of writings, he published a great amount of works, for instance: "La música a Catalunya fins al segle XIII" (1931), "Historia de la música española" (1935), "La música española desde la Edad Media hasta nuestros días" (1941) y "La música en la corte de los Reyes Católicos" (1941). There are some studies and transcriptions of great importance such as "El Codex Musical de Las Huelgas" (1928-1931), the edition of the whole work of Cristóbal de Morales; and, he together with Felipe Pedrell the revision of the complete works of Tomás Luis de Victoria and Antonio de Cabezón. He did on 8th December 1969 in Rome.
Date of the event: 1936 - 1939
La Institució Milà i Fontanals-CSIC, en Barcelona, conserva documentación epistolar de Higini Anglés.