This HISTORY OF SPANISH MUSIC is a remarkable contribution to the knowledge of our rich but little known musical heritage. Each of the seven volumes that compose this ambitious project, aimed at the general public and the generality of music professionals, has been entrusted to a leading specialist in the corresponding period. The purpose of the authors has been to offer the reader, in a clear language, with conceptual rigor and basic documentation, the fundamental keys that allow him to traverse the roads through which Spanish music has developed over time: the most outstanding phenomena Of this process, the musicians who have illustrated it with their compositions and the writers who have dealt with it.

The first volume of the HISTORY OF SPANISH MUSIC deals with the vast period that passes from THE ORIGINS to the «ARS NOVA». The considerable difficulties of studying such a long period have been solved by ISMAEL FERNÁNDEZ DE LA CUESTA through the application of complementary research methods. In the first section, which ranges from the Paleolithic to the Romanization, archeology is supplemented by the scarce historical and literary sources available. The second section includes the birth, formation and development of Hispanic music, traditionally called Visigothic or Mozarabic, and includes a special chapter devoted to Arabic or Andalusian music and Jewish music, as Hispanic as the Christian. The last section begins with the Gregorian chant, whose presence in the Peninsula meant the abrupt transition towards a type of music that had opened up avenues through which the musical composition would be directed to our days.