The Electric Music and the «Electrocompositor» De Juan García Castillejo (1933-1944)

Abstract

Studies and researches that, starting from the universe of the current sound art, take a look back to locate and recover figures that once showed pioneering attitudes in music, art, literature or any other discipline, would mind the priest and musician Juan García Castillejo. Convinced that the future would be in electricity and electronics, his concerns and research in the 1930s were oriented to the application of the possibilities of these fields to music. This article aims to reveal the still largely unknown work of García Castillejo and his main contribution, the electrocompositor, to justify his consideration as one of the pioneers of sound art in Spain. The methodology focuses on the analysis of a book that the priest modestly wrote, published and distributed in Valencia: La telegrafía rápida, el triteclado y la música eléctrica. Its diffusion was reduced at the time and then quickly forgotten, but the rediscovery of this peculiar book by the sound artist Llorenç Barber is decisive as a starting point for any study. The sound production by non-aacoustic means, the microtonal possibilities, the presence of chance or machinism give credit to his condition of precedent of modern sound art practices. His work, unknown for decades, is not a referent in a strict sense. But thanks to the approach of some authors, to some recovery actions and to the award that bears his name within the framework of the festival Nits d'Aielo i Art, it can be considered that his figure has been erected in a certain paradigm of experimentation, interdisciplinarity, ingenious and even visionary spirit, aspects so present in sound art.