The Music in Don Quijote by Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)

This study evaluates Music in the novel Don Quixote de La Mancha (1605 and 1615) written by Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) during the Spanish Golden Age. Connecting Music and Literature, we focus on the main character of the novel, Don Quixote de la Mancha. Throughout both parts of the novel, his musical sense gradually evolves, until in the second part of the novel he becomes a fully musical character. Then, Music appears in several attitudes of his, in many different episodes; he makes use of chanting and singing, instrumental music, common knowledge and even dance to show his musical skills. Many researchers have analyzed the relationship between Music and Literature in Don Quixote at length; in this study we offer an overview of their findings with the aim of introducing the Brazilian reader to this topic. According to a survey of the main databases available to both researchers and the general public, no studies on this subject were published in Brazil. We begin with an outline of Cervantes’s life and work, highlighting his literary journey, to shed light on his worldview as an intellectual; then we proceed to analyze the type of relationship Cervantes had with Music and the musical context of his time, as well as the way musical expression was introduced in his works; finally, we focus on some musical aspects exhibited by Don Quixote the musician. The analysis of Don Quixote showed that Music is both in the pastoral and the urban (contemporary to Quixote) landscapes. We found, moreover, that Music unfolds into three modes in the novel, corresponding to Don Quixote’s three exits: In the first one, the musical elements are scant and simple, crudely showing the contrast between what is imagined by the knight and the rural reality; in the second one, the same thing happens, but Quixote, little by little, begins to contemplate reality as it is, whereas the other characters try to convince him that everything is the result of enchantments; in the third one, Don Quixote takes the role of a musician in the knighterrant style.