The first time she heard her name, she was just a little girl. It was her grandfather who pronounced it, remembering that one day he had heard Matilde Escalas play the piano. Over the years, the writer Maria Escalas (Campos, 1969) was surprised to find nowhere this name silenced by history, while she was a prominent composer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Driven by this unjust void, she began to investigate, to search, to ask.
The mysteries surrounding the figure of Matilde Escalas, born in Palma in 1870 and who died shortly before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, are multiple and many, directly, still have no answers. Although she was a woman completely ahead of her time, who lived through the greatest effervescence of modernism in Paris, Mallorca and Barcelona, and who undertook to study musical composition outside the island in 1882, her life and work remain hidden. Where have your compositions gone?
“The problem is that his family was ashamed of his bohemian life and destroyed many of his documents,” says Maria Escalas, whose surname has no connection with the composer. However, it was the artist’s nephews, Teresa and Romà, who later helped to piece together his story. In her recent book “Matilde E.”, the writer explores in a detective style the life and work of the unknown composer, who worked with Isaac Albéniz, Erik Satie and other great musicians of the time.
The problem was that his family was ashamed of his bohemian life and destroyed many of his documents.
Marie Escalas
— Author of “Matilde E.”
“Eight years ago I started receiving information and shortly after I started working. It was a completely clandestine job, where I accessed the scores that his relatives kept, I spoke with musicians and I read many works and biographies of the people around him, such as the painters Santiago Rusiñol, Ramón Casas and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec or the writer Emilia Pardo Bazán,” Escalas explains to elDiario.es a few hours before the presentation of the novel in Barcelona.
Disappeared from public life
After Matilde Escalas’s time in Barcelona and Paris, her trace in public life disappeared. The question that underlies the book is why she did it, why she returned to the domestic sphere. Was it your own free decision or was it influenced by third parties? “The truth is that I don’t know the reasons yet,” confesses the writer, who feels that at some point the emotional and financial support for her career as a composer could have been withdrawn.
“I wonder to what extent one can be free to continue on the path one is on, under these conditions. Matilde did not have it own room“, as Virginia Woolf said, and she had to undergo a moment of ultimatum in which she was forced to make a decision, although it is true that she continued to write music until the end of her days,” explains Maria Escalas.
I wonder to what extent one can be free to continue on the path one is setting for oneself, under these conditions. Matilde did not have her own room, as Virginia Woolf said, and had to endure a moment of ultimatum in which she was forced to make a decision, even if it is true that she continued to write music until the end of her days.
Marie Escalas
— Author of “Matilde E.”
Although many of his compositions were lost during the Civil War, his work is visible throughout the album Mathilde Escalas. unpublished work of 2021 which was presented at the Casmusic Festival that same year. The album, which includes 15 songs for voice and piano, is produced by Eugènia Gallego and counts on the participation of pianist Francesc Blanco and tenor José Manuel Sánchez. Baritone Joan Miquel Muñoz and the musical duo Músiques d’Elles (Mercè Medina and Laura Serra) also collaborate.
Regarding the composer’s love life, who was married to Antoni Rosselló in a marriage that lasted very short, many unknowns remain to be clarified. The main one is his relationship with the modernist painter Santiago Rusiñol. “It seems that they had an unequal and very asymmetrical relationship. I think that only they knew how much they loved each other. When love is mentioned in Matilde Escalas’ biography, only the painter appears, while Matilde does not appear in her biography. They had a relationship for ten years. “Rusiñol was married, he divorced and they went to Montmartre together.”, specifies the writer.
However, there is still reliable evidence of this love affair between the composer and the painter. It is called “Miss Mac Flower”, a portrait by Santiago Rusiñol in which Matilde Escalas has been identified and which belongs to the Col·lecció Santiago Rusiñol. In this oil painting, we can see a young Matilde, dressed in red, with a face full of hope.
The relationship between Matilde Escalas and Santiago Rusiñol was unequal and very asymmetrical. When talking about love in Matilde Escalas’ biography, only the painter appears, while Matilde does not appear in her biography. They had a relationship for ten years. Rusiñol was married, divorced and they went to Montmartre together
Marie Escalas
— Author of “Matilde E.”
“We have lost a lot of talent because of machismo”
“Matilde E”, the fourth novel by Maria Escalas, winner of the Llorenç Villalonga Ciutat de Palma Prize for the novel in Catalan in 2024, is a first approach to the life of an artist forgotten by a history that has not been fair to female creators. “It is a tragedy that we have lost so much talent due to a sexist ideological problem, and many things are still lost,” the author tells elDiario.es. “If Matilde’s work had been written by a man, it would be in all the encyclopedias,” laments the writer who changed her life, leaving her former job as a teacher to fearlessly launch herself into her passion for literature.
Clamille Claudel, Sofonisba Anguissola, Marietta Robusti, Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Leyster, Sonia Delaunay, Maria Anna Mozart, Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Wieck, Maddalena Casulana, Vittoria Aleotti, Lluïsa Bosch, Eugènia Domènech, María Lejárraga, Narcisa Freixas or Lluïsa Vidal are the names taken from a list the writer prepared with the many artists in mind that we will probably never know about, or maybe we will never know. The story of Matilde Escalas is one step closer to getting closer to them.
