«Réquiem a la memoria de Salvador Espriu» (Xavier Benguerel, 1989): Hermeneutics and Musical Symbolism in the Poetical Reference of a Mass for the Dead

Abstract

The premiere of Rèquiem a la memoria de Salvador Espriu, on October 5th, 1990 at the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, ​​allows Xavier Benguerel to face the composition of a religious funeral model. The commemorative nature of this work, which is dedicated to Salvador Espriu’s memory, justifies an approach that is characterized by the coexistence of the ritual structure of the Tridentine mass with the seven Catalan writer’s poems. This personalization of the genre integrates the poetic symbolism with the religious argument and exposes a set of musical elements that are intended to particularize the profane component as a meditative rupture in the liturgical structure of the requiem. This article aims to study the musical aesthetics of the poetic movements. In addition to this, an initial methodology is focused on the examination of the texts and their reflection on the death, to later try to justify the musical resources that Benguerel develops in them. The assessment of their adequacy to the text, as well as the composer’s musical proximity to Espriu’s dramatic purpose, constitutes the final concluding section. Its resolution seeks the ratification of the funeral nature of the work, as well as the identification of its constructive peculiarities as a model of the Benguerel compositional style.