The urban soundscape in 18th-century Barcelona through the University of Barcelona’s music collection

This article provides previously unpublished information and new evidence on the printed libretto section (operas, oratorios and «villancicos») in the music collection at the University of Barcelona (UB). Moreover, it links this collection to the musical activity in 18^th-century Barcelona. Thus, for the first time in 18^th-century Barcelona, the urban soundscape is mapped. On the one hand, it shows the intense movement of musical chapels through a wide network of religious places in the city and a number of non-religious venues for performing oratorios and «villancicos». On the other hand, it reveals that these two genres enjoyed widespread social dissemination and reception amidst a very diverse audience, all of which points to the city’s prolific musical activity. Finally, the opera librettos in the UB collection are linked to a number of opera librettos in Italian libraries with a view to reconstructing the opera circuits through which singers, entrepreneurs and repertoires circulated between Barcelona and Italian theatres between 1750 and 1770. Barcelona’s Santa Creu theatre therefore became yet another Italian theatre, located on the periphery of the Italian peninsula.