Biography
Around 1682 Santiago de Murcia probably first saw light in Madrid, where he would rise to prominence as one of Spain’s foremost composers while also ranking among its most accomplished guitarists and instructors. Every surviving piece he produced was scored for the five-course Baroque guitar, whose nine strings consist of a single course on the top and double courses on the remaining four.
A brother named Antonio is thought to have worked as a guitar maker. By roughly age ten, Santiago appears to have begun lessons with the master guitarist and pedagogue Francisco Guerau, whose appointments as director of the royal choir school and royal chapel in the 1690s placed him at the center of court patronage.
Early in the 1700s Murcia himself obtained a court appointment as guitar instructor to the Queen. Antonio de Murcia likewise served the same monarch, María Luisa Gabriela, in the role of her guitar maker.
Before 1714 he completed the treatise Resumen de acompañar la parte con la guitarra and dedicated it to his patron Jácome Francisco Andriani, the Dutch ambassador to the Court. The volume treats numerous questions of guitar performance and also includes a selection of French dances. While preparing the book, Murcia resided in Andriani’s household and was probably handsomely compensated. Another influential supporter, Joseph Álvarez de Saavedra, notary to King Felipe V, would later figure in the composer’s Mexican years.
Murcia’s compositions circulated widely during the early eighteenth century, and some may have originated as theatrical collaborations with leading contemporaries such as Pedro Lanini and Francisco de Castro.
About 1718 he left Spain. After traveling first through parts of Europe, possibly visiting France and Holland, he settled in Mexico in what appears to have been a court-arranged relocation timed with Álvarez de Saavedra’s own move there.
Little documentation survives of his Mexican period, although he may have lived in Puebla, the city where Saavedra died. During those years he prepared at least two manuscripts, one of them the celebrated guitar collection Passacalles y obras, inscribed to Saavedra. The volume gathers fourteen passacaglias, each elaborated through numerous variations, and eleven substantial suites that themselves contain multiple pieces. Murcia is believed to have died in Mexico around 1740.
A brother named Antonio is thought to have worked as a guitar maker. By roughly age ten, Santiago appears to have begun lessons with the master guitarist and pedagogue Francisco Guerau, whose appointments as director of the royal choir school and royal chapel in the 1690s placed him at the center of court patronage.
Early in the 1700s Murcia himself obtained a court appointment as guitar instructor to the Queen. Antonio de Murcia likewise served the same monarch, María Luisa Gabriela, in the role of her guitar maker.
Before 1714 he completed the treatise Resumen de acompañar la parte con la guitarra and dedicated it to his patron Jácome Francisco Andriani, the Dutch ambassador to the Court. The volume treats numerous questions of guitar performance and also includes a selection of French dances. While preparing the book, Murcia resided in Andriani’s household and was probably handsomely compensated. Another influential supporter, Joseph Álvarez de Saavedra, notary to King Felipe V, would later figure in the composer’s Mexican years.
Murcia’s compositions circulated widely during the early eighteenth century, and some may have originated as theatrical collaborations with leading contemporaries such as Pedro Lanini and Francisco de Castro.
About 1718 he left Spain. After traveling first through parts of Europe, possibly visiting France and Holland, he settled in Mexico in what appears to have been a court-arranged relocation timed with Álvarez de Saavedra’s own move there.
Little documentation survives of his Mexican period, although he may have lived in Puebla, the city where Saavedra died. During those years he prepared at least two manuscripts, one of them the celebrated guitar collection Passacalles y obras, inscribed to Saavedra. The volume gathers fourteen passacaglias, each elaborated through numerous variations, and eleven substantial suites that themselves contain multiple pieces. Murcia is believed to have died in Mexico around 1740.