Eulogio Gallego Martínez, the Guitarist from Xinzo Who Enthralled Compostela

Eulogio Gallego Martínez was born in Xinzo de Limia on 2 September 1880 and died on a date that the sources do not record. He was a guitarist, and his story was reconstructed by the teacher and guitarist Isabel Rei Samartim in her doctoral thesis, which Historia de Xinzo reproduced in 2017 ^[1].

A family of innkeepers

He was the son of Santos Gallego Ballesteros (c. 1851–1919), from Boia (Aliste), and Leonarda Martínez Sánchez (c. 1858–1941), from Terroso (Seabra), who ran an inn, the «Hotel Moderno», on what is now Avenida de Ourense. Eulogio was one of thirteen siblings. Between 1901 and 1918 Santos appears as the owner of an inn and grocery in Xinzo; from 1922 the business appears in the widow’s name ^[1]. The siblings were part of the town’s social life and, as in other families, they were found on both sides of the politics of the time: Aurelio was president of the Recreo de Artesanos (1919), district prosecutor in 1931 and later a member of the Falange; Celso emigrated to Argentina, was treasurer of the Sociedad Filarmónica Antelana (1929), a member of the Republican caretaker committee of 1931 and third deputy mayor ^[1].

Studies

The family planned an ecclesiastical career for him. At 11 he entered the school of the Vincentian Fathers in Baños de Molgas (four years of Latin and Humanities); at 15 he moved to the Major Seminary in Ourense, where he studied three years of Philosophy and four of Theology (1895-1902), and then to that of Compostela (1902-1905), with fifth-year Theology, Greek and Canon Law ^[1]. After so many years, with reports of good conduct and four applications, he did not obtain ordination to minor orders and the subdiaconate, which changed the course of his life ^[1].

The musical life of Xinzo

The thesis describes A Limia as a land of spontaneous music: the Catastro de la Ensenada (1753) records a bagpiper in Xinzo and brass bands were already born in the first half of the 19th century. In Parada de Ribeira, Manuel Olmos, a self-taught trombonist, taught his family and a small ensemble formed in the 1880s; in 1924 one of his sons founded the Unión Musical de Parada de Ribeira. Xosé Pena Fuentes directed the Xinzo band and by 1930 there were two, the Lira Antelana (Xosé Álvarez) and the Lira de Parada (Xosé Pena) ^[1]. The first documented Carnival comparsa is the Tuna Antelana, of 1904, with guitars, plectrums and violins, and the guitar played a prominent part in those festivities ^[1]. The societies with a hall were the Casino Antelano (1903), the Círculo Recreativo de Artesanos (1919) and the Sociedad Filarmónica Antelana (1929) ^[1].

Triumph in Compostela

In Compostela his fame arose around the Círculo Católico de Obreros, where he performed with Manuel Valverde, Enrique Lens and other musicians. At a Carnival recital on 22 February 1903 he played the «diana», the «retreta» and the Marcha de Luís XVI, with harmonics, and the audience, according to the Gaceta de Galicia, asked for repeats again and again; the reporter highlighted «more tuning, more mastery, more intelligence, more sentiment» ^[1]. He also played on 21 May and 6 December 1903, on the latter date his own compositions, the muiñeira «Aturuxos» and «Remembranzas», and in August he stood in for Valverde directing the plectrum group. When in May 1904 he took leave of the Círculo, believing he was about to be ordained, the reporter José María Moar praised his skill with harmonics and told how he played a chordal piece with the guitar over his head and behind his back ^[1].

The ordination never came. The rest of Eulogio Gallego’s life remains to be reconstructed; the title of the thesis itself leaves the date of death open ^[1].

Links

• Parish: Xinzo de Limia
• People of A Limia
• Xinzo de Limia
• Francisco Seijo Iglesias, lyricist of the Xinzo band’s pasodoble

Sources

1. Isabel Rei Samartim, «O guitarrista limião Eulogio Gallego Martínez (Ginzo de Límia, 02-09-1880 – ?)» (quote), extract from the doctoral thesis, in Historia de Xinzo, 21/07/2017. https://historiadexinzo.wordpress.com/2017/07/21/o-guitarrista-e-musico-eulogio-gallego-martinez-ginco-de-lima-02-09-1880/