Histories of modern Europe often present late eighteenth-century Spain as a backward place struggling to keep pace with modernity. During the reign of Charles III (1759-1788), Spain pushed for economic and cultural modernization, but encountered resistance from members of the public and the elite alike. They viewed the modern as a passing fad that would, in time, show its fragility, and believed Spain would withstand the collapse thanks to its firm grounding in the pillars of monarchy, religion, and traditional forms of knowledge. One source of this solid foundation was the long-established musical knowledge based on the rules of counterpoint. In contrast, modernizers argued that Spain could be true to its essence, yet simultaneously modern and cosmopolitan: they favoured cosmopolitan genres, such as Italian opera, and artistic expression over counterpoint rules. At times this led to more creative uses of music, such as reinterpreting pastoral and sentimental topics to accommodate reformist political trends.

Music was considered crucial to the integrity of the Spanish nation by both sides. Whether and how Spain became modern would in many ways be defined and reinforced by the kinds of music that Spaniards composed and witnessed on stage. Through the study of press debates, opera reception, and musical theatre productions, this book shows how music intersected with wider cultural affairs, such as philosophy and criticism, medicine and the human body, civilization, Bourbon policy and sentimentality. Music and Modernity in Enlightenment Spain for the first time connects music and the modern in eighteenth-century Spain within the context of Enlightenment thought.