Juan José Pastor, PhD

Cervantes and Music: Meaning of Music in His Texts and Musical Reception of His Works 

Every musical adaptation of a literary work has to be considered as an exercise of perception and interpretation that provides additional information on the hermeneutics of a writer’s works. These adaptations allow us to understand and explain how the literary work has been recreated and transformed in each epoch. Once a play or a novel has been put in music, every musical version offers the audience a sort of critical and at the same time musical thought that reflects a new conception —even misconception— of the work. It cannot be denied that Cervantes’s works have provided composers excellent material for their musical compositions and this fact has to be taken into account to describe the process of his musical reception: how the characters and the episodes of his works have been selected by composers and perceived by the audience and what kind of musical treatment —genres, musical patterns, etc— each composer provides.