Spanish musicologist, music critic, composer, and writer.

Additionally, he worked as an auxiliary administrative officer in the Ministerio de Trabajo for three decades. He used several pseudonyms, including: Jesús A. Ribó, Rosa I. Jubés, Mauricio Puig, Ixión, and El bachiller Orfeo.

He was born on August 16, 1882, in Barcelona (Spain). He was the son of Mauricio Subirá, a professor of mathematics at the Instituto in Ciudad Real. At an early age, he moved with his family to Ciudad Real, where he completed his primary and secondary education and began his musical training in solfège and piano with César Martín, the organist of the cathedral.

Once in Madrid, he enrolled at the Universidad Central, where he obtained a law doctorate in 1923 and studied piano and composition at the Conservatorio Superior de Música. There, he was taught by Robustiano Montalbán, Juan Cantó, and Emilio Serrano. He won the extraordinary prize in piano in 1900, in harmony in 1901, and in composition in 1904. He competed for the Premio de Roma in 1905 with his work Rayos de luna, which premiered at the Conservatorio de Madrid on January 7, 1905.

Between 1906 and 1908, he taught at the Universidad Popular de Madrid, where he gave lectures and promoted cultural activities. In 1908, he was appointed secretary of the Consulado General de la República Argentina in Antwerp (Belgium). There, he was a founding member and secretary of the Comité de Voluntarios Españoles and took notes for his publications La Bélgica que yo vi (1919) and Los españoles en la guerra 1914-1918 (1920). In Belgium, he received the Cruz de la Orden de la Corona in the rank of Officer for his work in the restoration of the Biblioteca Universitaria de Lovaina. In September 1917, he replaced Manuel F. Fernández Núñez as the head of the journal Arte Musical until March 1918.

In 1921, he applied for the public examination of Professor of Estética e Historia de la Música at the Conservatorio de Madrid, which he did not pass, for which reason he continued his work as an auxiliary administrative officer in the Ministerio de Trabajo. He wrote to Manuel de Falla from Madrid on March 3, 1927, regarding the visit to Spain of the president of the Aeolian Company; a meeting was convened, and members of the Comité Español para la Difusión de los Estudios Musicales (AudioGraphic Music, via the Duo-Art system) were invited, including Antonio Fernández Bordas as the president, Arturo Saco del Valle, Enrique Fernández Arbós, Bartolomé Pérez Casas, José Tragó Arana, Conrado del Campo, Joaquín Turina, Ricardo Viñes, Víctor Espinós, Manuel de Falla, and Subirá as secretary.

His research works had a significant impact in both national and international musicological circles, including La música en la Casa de Alba (1927), the three volumes of La tonadilla escénica (1928-1930), and Celos, aun del aire matan. Ópera del siglo XVII (1933). He was appointed delegate of the Spanish government to the Congreso de Arte Popular in Prague in October 1928, organized by the League of Nations.

In France, he was named a Knight of the Ordre de la Légion d'Honneur in 1928, and in Czechoslovakia, a Knight of the Orden del León Blanco in 1931. After the Spanish Civil War and after being purged, he became secretary of the Madrid section of the Instituto Español de Musicología in 1944 and took charge of its direction in 1950. He won the Premio Nacional de Musicología in 1945 and 1952, and was elected a full member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, giving a speech titled Un vate filarmónico: don Luciano Comella.

Together with Higinio Anglés, he compiled and published the Catálogo musical de la Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid (1946-1951) in three volumes. In 1957, he was appointed director of the journal Academia and corresponding member of the Hispanic Society of America in New York. He held the vice-presidency of the Instituto de Estudios Madrileños in 1958 and, ten years later, was made an honorary member.

In addition to the aforementioned works, he authored other writings such as Los grandes músicos, Bach, Beethoven, Wagner (1907); Schumann. Vida y obras (1921); Historia de la música teatral en Españ a (1945); La ópera de los teatros de Barcelona (1946); Historia y anecdotario del Teatro Real (1949); El Teatro del Real Palacio (1849-1851) (1950); Compendio de la historia de la música (1954); and La música en la Academia: historia de una sección (1980). Among his articles published in journals,his most notable ones include "El operista español D. Juan Hidalgo. Nuevas noticias biográficas" (1934) in Las Ciencias; "La música en el teatro valenciano. Apuntes históricos" (1938) in Música; and "Un cancionero musical soriano y las tareas folklóricas de Kurt Schindler" (1954) in Celtiberia. He also carried out and reviewed translations such as Teoría general de la música (1945) by Hugo Riemann and Compendio de armonía (translated by Roberto Gerhard, 1946) by Hans Scholz. He passed away at the age of 97 in Madrid in January 1980.

El legado de José Subirá se conserva en la Biblioteca de Cataluña (Barcelona), en la Biblioteca Nacional de España (BNE) y en la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (Madrid).

Investigó en el Archivo Histórico Nacional (AHN) de Madrid en 1945. Adjuntó una carta manuscrita con membrete de la "Biblioteca Nacional" dirigida al director del Archivo y firmada por Pedro Longás, donde presentaba al investigador.