Covers of the scores of several zarzuelas from the early 20th century, photographed last Wednesday in the SGAE archive. JUAN BARBOSA
Not to be worried.
The President of the Government had been assassinated by an anarchist a couple of years before.
The Philippines and Cuba had just gone from colonies to national trauma.
Not even the crown could provide security, immersed in the regency of María Cristina of Habsburg while waiting for the young Alfonso XIII to grow up.
So one of the few certainties, in the Spain of 1899, had to be sought in the most unexpected place: the theaters.
“They were always packed.
As in all turbulent times,” says Antonio Onetti, current president of the SGAE.
The authors who cooked up so many hits, however, only ate the crumbs: the cake ended up devoured by a small group of businessmen.
Until the comedian Sinesio Delgado and the composer Ruperto Chapí conceived an organization that would unite and protect creators and their rights.
That's what artists have: groundbreaking ideas.
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Chronology of a turbulent decade in the SGAE
The Society of Spanish Authors (SAE) was born on June 16, 1899 with 11 members.
Now he has 132,514, one more G in his name and 125 candles on his birthday cake.
It started when radio was the privilege of few inventors and zarzuela swept away its modernity.
Times when Benito Pérez Galdós was carried on the shoulders of the María Guerrero theater to exalt his
Electra
and the air conditioning was about to come to the rescue of so many performing spaces forced to close in the summer.
Today the entity embraces the internet, makes its works fly through the cloud and looks askance at artificial intelligence.
In between, there was war and dictatorship, machismo and solidarity, solemn symphonies and wild dances.
So a walk through its archive is equivalent to exploring the last 125 years of Spanish culture.
Starting with the very first recorded creation.
The comedy 'La foam', by Sinesio Delgado, the first work registered in the history of the SGAE, in 1899. JUAN BARBOSA
'The foam' and the help
“This work is the property of its author and no one will be able, without his permission, to reprint, perform or translate it, although it is assumed that no one will even try,” writes Sinesio Delgado at the beginning of
La foam
, where he boasts of the pioneering milestone. what a brand
Although he also remembers the furious reaction of the public, between whistles and tantrums.
And he leaves a prophecy that time made accurate: “Behind me others will come, better equipped and with more guts, and the triumph in the end will be of reason and justice.”
In 1903, the SAE already had 103 members.
“The essence remains the same: the defense of authors and their works.
That is also why we are different from so many law firms specialized in intellectual property,” says Onetti.
To do this, he cites another initial chapter in the history of the entity: in 1914 the Montepío of authors was created.
Each businessman had to reserve the price of a seat;
The creators contributed some of their proceeds.
And the accumulated funds served as a piggy bank for artists in difficulty.
Not just for training or advice.
Onetti emphasizes that, over the decades, the SGAE has paid its members for even more serious issues: obstetric analgesia, transfusions, the fight against homelessness or drug addiction and even burials.
Cover of the score of 'Radio-Tele-Fox', by A. Graciani and V. Quirós, in the SGAE archive.
Photo: JUAN BARBOSA.JUAN BARBOSA
Score from 'Cinematograph National', from 1907, libretto by Guillermo Perrín and Miguel Palacios, music by Gerónimo Giménez, in the SGAE archive.
Photo: JUAN BARBOSA.
JUAN BARBOSA
'Radiomanía', other of the old scores kept in the SGAE archive.
Photo: JUAN BARBOSA.
JUAN BARBOSA
Sheet music for 'Katiuska, the Russian Woman', by Pablo Sorozabal, premiered in 1931. Photo: JUAN BARBOSAJUAN BARBOSA
The actress Enriqueta Soriano, wife of Pablo Sorozabal, characterized by her role in 'Katiuska', in an undated image in the SGAE archive.
Photo: JUAN BARBOSAJUAN BARBOSA
'Hymn of the union of Spanish radio listeners', by L. De Castro and J. Lerena, music by P. Marquina, 1928. Photo: JUAN BARBOSAJUAN BARBOSA
'The traveling phonograph' (1899, lyrics by Juan González, music by Chapí).
Photo: JUAN BARBOSAJUAN BARBOSA
Score of 'La radiotele', in the SGAE archive.
Photo: JUAN BARBOSAJUAN BARBOSA
The zarzuela, that is, the avant-garde
Today it may seem like an oxymoron.
But when the SGAE took its first steps, zarzuela filled the halls.
The triumph of
Doloretes,
in 1901, precisely strengthened the strength of the entity: the more powerful and successful its partners were, the stronger their pulse was on the businessmen.
In the thousands of boxes of the archive there is no room for prejudices: there is room for Asturian or Catalan zarzuelas, pieces as daring as
The Borer
(1904, by Federico Chueca) or titles that revealed technologies that were almost futuristic at the time, such as
El fonografo ambulante
(1899, lyrics by Juan González, music by Chapí) or
National Cinematographer
(from 1907, libretto by Guillermo Perrín and Miguel Palacios, music by Gerónimo Giménez).
Such was the bond that later, in 1955, the SGAE even bought the Teatro de la Zarzuela itself, before the risk of it being demolished.
Finally, he resold it to the State.
At the same time, the statistics yearbook published by the same entity tells how that idyll has been broken: in 2022, zarzuela spectators accounted for only 0.5% of the population.
And the similar document published each year by the Ministry of Culture offers another clue: it is one of the very few artistic disciplines more frequented by those over 55 than by young people.
The bookkeeper and the flower
A photo of the first board of directors of the SGAE shows a series of more or less bearded gentlemen around a table.
Not so different from what happens today in many boards of directors of the Ibex 35, one might say.
What Regina Escalante, the entity's first worker, hired in 1912 as a “bookkeeper” suffered, sounds very current: a salary much lower than that of her male colleagues.
Photogram from 'Flower of Spain or the story of a bullfighter', by Helena Cortesina.
The SGAE remembers that the first member joined just two years after the foundation (the Andalusian playwright Casilda Antón del Olmet) and that the writer Emilia Pardo Bazán signed up in 1905. The archive also contains another milestone in the struggle against the glass ceiling: in 1921 the music score for the film
Flor de España or La historia de un bullfighter
,
by Helena Cortesina, the first woman to direct and perform a film in Spain, was recorded.
At that time, by the way, patriarchal discrimination was accompanied by another, artistic one: the only recognized copyrights of a feature film were musical ones.
It is a fact that today script or direction are also protected by law.
And equality?
That's a matter of opinions.
Two editions of 'Hungarian Romance', by Juan Dotras Vila, which were seized respectively by the CNT and the Falange during the Civil War, in the SGAE archive.
JUAN BARBOSA
An infinite feature film
Under a display case rest two copies of the same score from 1937:
Hungarian Romanza
, by Juan Dotras Vila.
Identical title, layout, letters.
And a minimal but colossal difference: one bears a CNT union seal.
The other, from the Falange.
Both organizations seized works from the SGAE during the Civil War, as Mariluz González Peña, director of the archive, relates.
And the entity itself split in two, just like Spain.
The republican authors remained in Madrid, while the supporters of the rebels organized their own headquarters in A Coruña.
The Joyful Genius,
a film by Fernando Delgado whose music is registered with the entity, contains within itself the entire tragedy of the conflict.
The SGAE, in a note, goes so far as to describe it as “the longest filming in history.”
The truth is that it started before the conflict and ended after.
By then, several performers of the film had gone into exile, which is why their characters appear from behind.
And the archive also attests to Franco's repression.
There is
The Tabernera of the Port
, by Pablo Sorozábal, which premiered without problems in 1931 but was hated by the newborn regime.
Hence, the Falange tried to block its performance in Madrid in 1940 and finally prevented its author from directing it.
Sheet music of songs by Marisol, Joan Manuel Serrat or Víctor Manuel, in the SGAE archive.
JUAN BARBOSA
star gallery
The adventure of the SGAE is dotted with big names in culture.
Galdós presided over it, and in its hallways you can see works by Francisco Barbieri and Pilar Miró.
In 1956, the entity raised more than 100 million pesetas in revenue for the first time.
And it continues to grow, also and above all thanks to its divos.
Among the printed scores of those years (they were still published then) an authentic history of Spanish music appears:
Cuéntame
, from Formula V;
A girl just like everyone else
, by Marisol;
I return to Granada
, by Miguel Ríos;
Rainy Time
, by Joan Manuel Serrat or
La romería,
by Víctor Manuel.
The regulation, in 1966, of the copyright of filmmakers also meant the entry into the SGAE of other famous creators, from José Luis Borau to Antonio Giménez-Rico.
Until, in 1982, the entity added 27,000 members.
One of the thousands of scores kept in the SGAE archive. JUAN BARBOSA
Problems and solutions?
The entry of the SGAE into the 21st century brought a few headaches.
On the one hand, the Internet revolution - the first digital license dates back to 1998 -, the emergence of competitors to the entity's quasi-monopoly and the abandonment of a few prestigious partners.
And, on the other hand, strictly related, the judicial ups and downs, which are not hidden in the chronology that the organization has published for its 125 years.
Asked about the errors, Onetti makes a distinction between the two decades.
The first, in some way, culminated with the arrest in 2011 of the executive president, Eduardo Bautista, and part of the management team, accused of diverting funds.
Although all the accused were acquitted years later.
The current person in charge regrets the massive purchase of theaters, which he put the entity into debt.
And he believes that the new digital actors (especially telephone operators) focused on “discrediting copyright” for their own interest: “The president of the SGAE became society's number one public enemy.
Maybe there were better candidates.”
At the same time, yes, he recognizes poor communication: “We were not able to tell what was done in a more kind and humble way.
Our response was not intelligent.”
But, for Onetti, the real problem came shortly after.
He calls it “distortion of the distribution of rights due to the broadcast of music in the nighttime slot on television.”
The public, and the justice system investigating it, know it more as the
Rueda case
.
That is, an alleged plot between some partners of the SGAE, intermediaries and directors of radio stations that earned millions thanks to the repeated placement of certain topics in the early morning programs.
Despite an almost zero audience, that segment came to account for more than half of the total income that the SGAE received from music on the small screen, thanks to a series of stratagems of dubious ethics and even legality, which will be resolved by the courts.
“A small sector managed to make its interests take precedence over the collective ones.
“He managed to colonize the SGAE and turn it into a battlefield,” admits Onetti.
So much so that it took the threat of sanction from the Ministry of Culture and even a stricter limit approved by Congress, among other things, to slow down or stop the wheel.
It has been just as complicated, or more so, for the SGAE to correct image damage.
At least, in the meantime, the activity seems to return to a certain normality: the expected collection for 2023 is around 344 million, 11 more than in 2022. And in the first half of the year, 183.5 million were distributed among the partners, 18% more than in the same period of the previous year.
The registration figures are also counted in many digits: 4,147,218 new creations (musical, audiovisual and performing arts) and 3,078,245 modified existing works, in 2023 alone. The pioneer Sinesio Delgado could well be proud of that: they did come a few behind him.
And those that remain.
Antonio Onetti, president of the SGAE, last Wednesday at the entity's Madrid headquarters.
JUAN BARBOSA
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