Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert

96   Cat. Hist. Rev. 8, 2015 In Memoriam
gime and the dawn of political liberalism, handled him-
self with the same aplomb in sweeping syntheses as in his 
archival work. He is an example of a historian with an 
equal capacity for research as for divulgation, with com-
parable efficiency in a local monograph and a synthesis 
that encompasses an entire country (his), a state (Spain) 
or even all of Western Europe. Proof of this is his contri-
bution to the Història dels Països Catalans (1980), in 
which he wrote everything on the region of Valencia from 
the 18th to 20th centuries, and through this project I am 
personally able to attest to how gratifying it was to work 
with him.
Other subsequent examples of sweeping syntheses 
were his book Agricultura y crecimiento económico en la 
Europa occidental moderna (1992) and the one entitled El 
Siglo de las Luces (2007), an outstanding social history of 
the culture where he examines the culture of both the 
elites and the lower classes in the Enlightenment and 
18th-century superstitious in Spain. His most remarkable 
recent contributions were to the history of the population 
of the city of Valencia and its outlying area, the Horta, in 
the history of this city, which he published in 2009.
Manuel Ardit was a translator of classical texts, includ-
ing several by James Casey and Robert Darnton, as well as 
the biography of the historian Marc Bloch written by Car-
ole Fink. Regarding tributes to the masters of the previous 
generation, we should recall that in 2002 he compiled a 
variety of works by Emili Giralt under the title of Empre-
saris, propietaris i vinyaters: 50 anys de recerca històrica.
Faithful to the language that unites Catalonia and the 
region of Valencia, a historian bowing to an open concept 
of the Catalan-speaking lands, and influenced in his earli-
est works by Joan Fuster, Manuel Ardit was a figure re-
spected by all, a researcher who remained active and pub-
lished until the end, shortly before a cruel illness deprived 
us of his aid and his friendship.
Gregori M. Estrada (1918-2015)*
The 18th of  March 2015 
marked the death of Father 
Gregori M. Estrada i Gamis-
sans, who was born in Manresa 
on the 28th of April 1918. Dur-
ing his early years, he lived in 
Mas Rossinyol in the town of 
Monistrol de Calders, and he 
continued to spend his sum-
mers there until his parents de-
cided to send him to the Boys’ 
Choir of Montserrat, where he 
spent six years, from September 1926 until September 
1932. That was the era of Abbot Antoni M. Marcet, when 
there were serious conflicts between the monastery and 
the Primo de Rivera dictatorship, which accused the Ab-
bot of being a Catalanist. The dictatorship wanted to re-
move him from the monastery, but a new era dawned 
with the proclamation of the Second Republic in April 
1931, which ended tragically in July 1936 with the out-
break of the Civil War. The war could have had much 
more serious consequences for Montserrat had it not kept 
up such outstanding relations with the authorities of the 
Generalitat, which protected the monastery and helped 
the monks escape, some of them seeking refuge abroad.
Francesc Estrada – this was his given name – had two 
outstanding teachers in the Boys’ Choir who cultivated 
his musical talent and set him on a pathway which he 
would never abandon. They were Father Àngel Roda-
* Text prepared by Josep Massot, president of the History-Archaeology 
Section of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans. E-mail: direccio@pamsa.cat
milans, then the prefect of the Boys’ Choir, who would 
later be assassinated in Sabadell in 1936, and Father 
Anselm Ferrer, the director of the school, with whom Fa-
ther Gregori would be close with until the former’s death 
in 1969. He also received musical training from other 
monks who worked with the Boys’ Choir, including Fa-
ther Maur Fàbregas (musical theory), Father Isidor Civil 
(violin), Father Isidor Fonoll (prefect after Àngel Roda-
milans) and Father Plàcid Feliu (also the prefect during 
the last few weeks of Estrada’s stint in the Boys’ Choir).
In 1932, when he stopped being an acolyte, Francesc 
Estrada entered the school for aspiring monks in Mont-
serrat, and in July 1933 he went from being a student to a 
novice at the monastery, where he took the monastic 
name of Gregori Maria. On the 6th of August the follow-
ing year, he took his vows as a monk on Montserrat, and 
he immediately began to further his music studies, which 
he had never abandoned. In 1935 and 1936, he embarked 
upon organ studies at the Conservatory of Barcelona’s Li-
ceu Opera House under the direction of Father Josep 
Muset.
In early July 1936, he was temporarily sent for health 
reasons to the residence that Montserrat had in Andorra 
at that time, and there he was taken by surprise by the 
military uprising on the 17th to 19th of the same month 
and the revolution which sprang up all over Catalonia. 
He and other Catalans immediately travelled to Turin, 
from which, through Genoa and Roma, he joined Abbot 
Marcet and a group of monks from Montserrat at the 
monastery of Subiaco. The entourage from Montserrat 
had had to abandon Barcelona, and along with other 
young monks – accompanied by Emilià Riu, the prefect 
of the juniors of Montserrat – they took refuge in the 
001-200 Catala Historical Review 8.indd   96 30/09/2015   9:06:45
In Memoriam Cat. Hist. Rev. 8, 2015   97
German Beuron Archabbey (Hohenzollern), where they 
were fraternally welcomed. In academic year 1936-1937, 
he studied philosophy at Maria Llach Abbey (Rhineland), 
which was also Benedictine, where all the monks from 
the Beuron congregation gathered, and he returned to 
Beuron during academic years 1937-1939 to study theol-
ogy. When World War II broke out, he moved to Rome, 
and from 1939 to 1940 he took a theology course at the 
Benedictine university of Saint Anselm. In the meantime, 
in November 1939 he returned to the monastery of Subi-
aco, where Abbot Marcet welcomed him into the official 
monastic profession on the 13th of November and con-
ferred on him four minor orders which prepared him for 
the priesthood. In 1940, while still in Rome, he was or-
dained the deputy deacon of the archbasilica of Saint 
John Lateran.
In 1941, when the academic year ended early because 
of Italy’s entry into the war, Estrada went from Rome to 
Barcelona in hydroplane and rejoined Montserrat. There 
he was immediately ordained presbyter and began to 
serve as the organist, an activity that he kept up until early 
this century, when his progressive deafness started to 
compromise his ability. Meanwhile, he continued his mu-
sic studies: along with his peer, Father Ireneu Segarra – 
with whom he worked hard, even though they often had 
quite disparate opinions on musical issues – he studied 
harmony and counterpoint in Barcelona with the masters 
Josep Barberà (1941-1947) and Cristòfor Taltabull (1947-
1950). Without ever ceasing to hold positions of responsi-
bility within the community, in 1947 he spent a month in 
France’s Solesmes Abbey, along with Father David Pujol, 
to work on the Gregorian music texts from Montserrat, 
and in 1950 he spent a few months in Paris and Hendaye, 
where he studied the fugue with Charles Koechlin and or-
gan with André Marchal. From 1968 to 2002, he was also 
the director of the monks’ choir at Montserrat and offered 
a class on Gregorian chant to the clerics of Montserrat to 
train the young monks, myself among them for several 
years.
He always worked intensely as an organist, as a pro-
moter of organ-building and bell smelting – in Montser-
rat and elsewhere as well – and as a composer of religious 
music. Particularly worth highlighting is his important 
contribution to Catalan liturgical song after Vatican II, 
when Latin was replaced by the vernacular languages in 
both mass and divine office, which is so important to 
Benedictine monasteries and convents. This contribution 
was not limited to the composition of new melodies; in-
stead, it has repercussions around the entire country 
through the Trobades d’Animadors de Cant per a la Litúr-
gia (Gatherings of Promoters of Songs for the Liturgy) 
which he started in 1970 and are still held today, follow-
ing the spirit of the man who founded them.
Along with these intense religious and pastoral activi-
ties, he also performed a study of the ancient musicians of 
the Boys’ Choir of Montserrat, the most important result 
of which was the publication of the works of Father 
Miquel López and Father Joan Cererols in the “Mestres de 
l’Escolania de Montserrat” collection. For many years, he 
tried to find a new interpretation of the 14th-century 
songs and dances in the Llibre Vermell of Montserrat, 
from which he published some advances and promoted 
performances in conjunction with the Boys’ Choir of 
Montserrat and other groups in 1978 and 1979, in Mont-
serrat, Barcelona, France, Germany and Rubí. Shortly be-
fore his death, he had put the finishing touches on the de-
finitive text of the book he was preparing on this topic, 
which will no doubt spark controversies among musicol-
ogists.
Given this background, it should come as no surprise 
that on the 17th of January 1974 he participated in the 
founding session of the Societat Catalana de Musicologia 
(Catalan Musicology Society), a branch of the Institut 
d’Estudis Catalans of which he became the second presi-
dent, a position he occupied until 1991. During those 
years, he published an article and several obituaries in the 
society’s newsletter, which were joined by other studies 
he had published in Catalonia and abroad, mostly briefs 
written in a lay style. On the 18th of December 1992, he 
was elected a full member of the History-Archaeology 
Section of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans with the profes-
sion of musicologist, but a year later he became an emeri-
tus member and never played a prominent role in the In-
stitute’s undertakings, although he did keenly follow its 
activities and always scrupulously voted by post whenever 
needed.
Serious by nature and somewhat rigid in his convic-
tions, he was at once affable and helpful, a fervent patriot 
and indefatigable worker. Late in his life he was gravely 
diminished, not only because of his deafness, as men-
tioned above, but also because his health problems re-
quired him to use a wheelchair and kept him away from 
community life. However, he never lost his good humour 
and worked until the last day of his life. He will always re-
main in the memories of those of us who have known him 
well and esteemed him.
001-200 Catala Historical Review 8.indd   97 30/09/2015   9:06:45


Gregori M. Estrada (1918-2015)

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