Reference code

CAT INSPAI 46

Level of description

Collection

Title

Josep Fontbernat Verdaguer Fonds

Date(s)

Dates of creation and addition: 1906-1975

Volume and support

50 black-and-white photographs on paper, in different formats, and 2,074 documents: 53 letters; 1,979 glossaries in paper format; 19 meeting minutes, public calls and decrees; 13 programs and posters for concerts, festivals and tributes, and about a dozen press and magazine articles.

Name of producer(s)

Josep Fontbernat i Verdaguer

Producer history

Josep Fontbernat Verdaguer (Estanyol, May 1, 1896 - Andorra la Vella, March 22, 1977) was a writer, musician and politician from Girona. As a child he, moved to Anglès with his family and went to study in Girona. Later, he studied music in Barcelona with Enric Morera. In the years that followed, he was director of the Orfeó Canigó choir and founded the Llevant choir, both in the Catalan capital. A member of the pro-independence party Estat Català (Catalan State), in late 1918 he went into exile in France to avoid military service. There, under the musical guidance of Déodat de Séverac and Vincent d¿Indy, he became involved in choral singing. He created and directed the Cor Català (Perpignan), the Déodat de Séverac Choir (Toulouse de Languedoc), the Occitan Choir (Paris) and the Bourée d¿Auvergne Choir (Paris). A close friend of Francesc Macià, he participated in the Prats de Molló invasion (1926), as a result of which he was detained and deported to Belgium. He remained in exile until 1930. During the Second Republic he was elected to serve as a member of the Catalan parliament by the political party Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (1932) and named representative of the Government of Catalonia at the Gran Teatre del Liceu opera house (1933) and managing director of the radio broadcast Radiodifusió de Catalunya (1936-1939). In addition, he founded the famous Els Cent Homes choir, was conductor of the Barcelona Philharmonic Orchestra (1935) and established the Government of Catalonia Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra (1936), a union of the orchestras of Ràdio Barcelona and Ràdio Associació of Catalonia. When the Spanish Civil War ended, he took up exile again in France, where he wrote political and musical articles for different publications. In 1952, he moved to Andorra, where he founded the Cors Andorrans choir and collaborated on different programs in Catalan for Ràdio les Valls. The best known was called Glossari andorrà (Andorran Glossary), which began on July 20, 1959 and was heard in Catalonia, Rosselló and the Balearic Islands. He would later become its director when the station was renamed Sud Ràdio. It should be noted that this program promoted the creation of the first daily radio broadcast in Catalan after 1939 in occupied Catalonia: the program L¿Hora de Catalunya, which began on November 1, 1965 and was broadcast from Figueres, was directed by the journalist Emili Casademont, one of Fontbernat¿s first biographers. He lived in Andorra until his death, although occasionally he visited Catalonia to participate in events such as the declaration of Bellpuig (Urgell) as Ciutat Pubilla de la Sardana (1972) and the tribute to the "cobla" La Principal de Peralada orchestra (1974). He published the monographs La batalla de Prats de Molló (1930) and Glossari andorrà (1966).

Archive history

The documentation accompanied Josep Fontbernat throughout his life in Catalonia, France and Andorra. Because of his two periods of exile (1918-1930 and 1939-1977), he did not have a permanent address until 1952, when he arrived in Andorra La Vella and lived in a family home. After his death, his daughter Marylou Fontbernat moved the documents to Perpignan, where she lived. After her sister passed away, she proposed that the Diputació de Girona buy part of the fonds, which the Emili Massanas Burcet Image Archive (now INSPAI) acquired in 1999.

Details of entry

The fonds was acquired by the Diputació de Girona in 1999.

Scope and content

Josep Fontbernat¿s personal fonds is the result of his personal, political, and professional activity, as well as that of members of his family, throughout his life. He was directly linked to the Government of Catalonia throughout his exile. As such, the fonds are interesting in terms of Fontbernat himself and everything that occurred around him. The most important series is the collection of letters (1933-1977), which, although generally of a personal nature, also deal with professional and political matters. Fontbernat corresponded with all kinds of people: politicians (Josep Tarradellas, Lluís Gausachs, Ventura Gassol, Francesc Ferrer Riba, Fernando Valera, Vincent Auriol, Pierre Lefranc, etc.), artists (Pau Casals, Josep Carner, Lluís Maria Millet and Ricard Pichot) and others (Cassià Just, Josep Trueta, Carme Companys, Henri Roig, Joseph Sauvy, Louis Courtois de Viçose, etc.). His correspondence with the president of the Government of Catalonia, Josep Tarradellas, should be highlighted both for the internal affairs of the Catalan government and for personal matters. Political material (1939-1972) includes meeting minutes, public calls, and founding decrees of the Executive Council of Catalonia and the Parliament of Catalonia. The draft of the Statute of Catalonia of 1945 and the declaration of Tarradellas as president of the Government of Catalonia (August 7, 1954) are noteworthy. The graphic material includes posters, programs for concerts, tributes, festivals, etc. An example is a program for the Festival Català music festival, with a performance by the "copla" La Principal de la Bisbal and other orchestras and choirs (Paris, February 12, 1928). Fontbernat compiled press and magazine pieces (1920-1936) from publications such as La Humanitat and La Rambla, from Barcelona, and the French magazine Vu.He used these compilations for his professional activity or to gather information about himself. The glossary scripts (1959-1977) are mostly the originals that Fontbernat wrote and read at Ràdio les Valls (later Sud Ràdio). It also includes a list of titles and broadcasting dates, with a total of 1,979 records. The corresponding reels are in the National Archives of Andorra. Finally, the images (1906-1975) consist of fifty black-and-white photographic prints. They have a vast chronological scope (from Fontbernat¿s childhood to his old age), including a variety of subjects (personal, political, musical, etc.). The authorship of many is unknown, but the ones by Martelli (Figueres) ¿ early 20th century ¿, Josep Brangulí Soler (Barcelona) and Alessandro Merletti Quaglia (Barcelona) have been identified.

Conditions for access

Free and open access.

Related documentation

The Montserrat Tarradellas Macià Archive (AMTM) holds the one hundred letters that Fontbernat wrote to Josep Tarradellas, before and after the latter was named president of the Government of Catalonia. At the Catalan Orfeó Documentation Centre (CEDOC) are several letters sent to the maestro Lluís Millet. There is also documentation kept at the Josep Fontbernat i Verdaguer Library (Bescanó, of the Diputació de Girona) and the National Archives of Andorra (reels with glossaries). His daughter Marylou Fontbernat and grandson Enric Fontbernat still keep some of this documentation.

Author and date(s)

Jordi Algué and Roger Mirabent, August 2022.

Sources

Esculies Serrat, Joan. Josep Fontbernat: Conseller de Tarradellas. Barcelona: Josep Irla Foundation, 2017. 243 p. Gay Frias, Josep Víctor; Casademont Comas, Emili; Fontseré, Carles.Josep Fontbernat i Verdaguer (1896-1977): Imatges i documents. 1st ed. Girona: Diputació de Girona, 2006. (Col·lecció Josep Pla; 17). 216 p. ¿Homenatge a Josep Fontbernat i Verdaguer¿. Àgora Cultural [Andorra la Vella: Societat Andorrana de Ciències, no. 16-17 (March 2022), p. 3-17. Bonaventura, Daniel. [Articles]. Diari de Girona (November 27, 1999), p. 45; 28 (November 1999), p. 28, and 11 (May 1997), p. 18.