Évora Soundscape in the Seventeenth Century: Perspectives from the Musical Activity of the City’s Religious Institutions

Abstract

The idea of an historical soundscape of the urban space was one of the many areas that developed from a wider idea of what is now called as cultural landscape. This idea of mapping urban sounds from an historical perspective was pioneered in the Iberian Peninsula with a project that involved the Andalusian cities of Seville and Granada and other projects are in development for Spanish cities like Barcelona. The main objectives behind these projects are, besides the mapping of the biggest possible number of events, the organization of these events through various interactive platforms (websites, apps, etc.) that allow the user to follow various musical experiences that no longer exist or that were transformed during time. In Évora a project of this kind is under development, integrated in the wider project “Sacred Music in Évora during the Eighteenth Century”, which focuses in the city’s sacred music archives, notably the Cathedral and the Public Library, that houses musical sources from the city’s and nearby convents and monasteries. This paper examines the Évora historical soundscape in the seventeenth century, with an overview of the city’s religious institutions from a perspective of their musical activity, which were by far the most numerous musical centres in the city during this period. This soundscape includes the sounds of the churches’ bells, the musical instruments (most notably the organs) and the singing of the Hours, which leads to the idea of “disembodied voices” that could not be seen but could be heard on the streets.