Jesús Bal y Gay (23 June 1905 – 3 March 1993) was a Spanish

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

music critic '' The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of m ...

, and

musicologist Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, f ...

. He was a member of

Generation of '27 The Generation of '27 () was an influential group of poets that arose in Spain, Spanish literary circles between 1923 and 1927, essentially out of a shared desire to experience and work with avant-garde forms of art and poetry. Their first form ...

and the Group of Eight, the latter of which also included composers Julián Bautista, Ernesto Halffter and his brother Rodolfo, Juan José Mantecón, Fernando Remacha, Rosa García Ascot, Salvador Bacarisse and Gustavo Pittaluga. He married Ascot in 1933.

Career

Jesús Bal y Gay was born in

Lugo Lugo (, ) is a city in northwestern Spain in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Galicia (Spain), Galicia. It is the capital of the Lugo (province), province of Lugo. The municipality had a population of 100,060 in 2024, ...

, where he began his musical studies. There he established contact with the group from the magazine Ronsel in whose publication he published ''Hacia el ballet gallego'' (Towards the Galician ballet) (1924), an effort which represented his launch into professional literary life. With the collaboration of Eduardo Martinez Torner, he embarked on a project that would see him taking many trips and much time, the Galician Songbook, which would not be completed until 1974. It was his most famous and celebrated work. He moved to

Santiago de Compostela Santiago de Compostela, simply Santiago, or Compostela, in the province of Province of A Coruña, A Coruña, is the capital of the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Galicia (Spain), Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The city ...

to study medicine, but he left everything to go to

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, where, in 1924, he joined the

Residencia de Estudiantes ESO Hotel at Cerro Paranal (or Residencia) is the accommodation for Paranal Observatory in Chile since 2002. It is mainly used for the ESO ( European Southern Observatory) scientists and engineers who work there on a roster system. It has been ...

. He died in Torrelaguna.

Sources

The University of Birmingham - Department of Hispanic Studies

External links

* ttp://www.elpais.es/articulo/20050903elpbabart_10/Tes/elpbabart/ Bal y Gay, voice Galician 27, reporting Babelia journal supplement El Pais ( September 3, 2005)
Silence, Bal and exposition on Jesus Gay in the Residencia de Estudiantes
1905 births 1993 deaths Spanish composers Spanish male composers Spanish music critics 20th-century Spanish composers 20th-century male composers 20th-century Spanish musicians 20th-century Spanish musicologists 20th-century Spanish male musicians {{spain-composer-stub