From the middle of the 19th century, the composition of music in Catalan for national purposes ran on a parallel course to the writing of literature in Catalan. At that time the predominant musical genre in Catalonia was lyrical music: opera and the first Romantic operettas. While the operas written by Catalan authors at the beginning of the 19th century – Ramón Carnicer’s Adele di Lusignano (1819) and Vicenç Cuyàs’s La Fattucchiera (1838), for example – were based on Italian librettos, the Romantic operettas used Spanish but soon started to be written in Catalan. The change of language and musical model was more difficult in the world of opera.

The theatres in Barcelona – Santa Creu and the Liceu – were among the most dynamic in the Iberian peninsula. The operatic tradition based on Italian models took off with considerable force halfway through the 18th century. Sor, Carnicer and Cuyàs were the leading composers of operas in Catalonia. The first to use plots taken from Catalan history in their operas were Nicolau Manént – with Gualtero de Monsonís (1857) – and Nicolau Guañabens – with Arnaldo di Erill (1859). They were sung in Italian with librettos by Joan Cortada. The force of the Italian tradition, the reluctance of the singers and other social circumstances delayed the composition of operas in Catalan until the end of the 19th century. More popular were genres like choral music, song and operetta; it was here that the Catalan language was used earliest and a repertoire emerged that could be identified as Catalan.

Musical life was transformed by the growth of a choral movement, spearheaded by Josep Clavé, which from 1850 onwards mobilized musical talent and amateur participation, and created demands for a new musical repertoire. The first operetta in Catalan of note (the genre being derived from the Spanish zarzuelas of Barbieri and Gaztambide and from French models) was Clavé’s L’aplec del Remei (1858). In 1861 an important group of composers including, besides Clavé and Manent, Joan Sariols, Gabriel Balart and others, set up a society in Barcelona to encourage the creation of a national opera through the composition of operettas. Throughout the peninsula there was considerable controversy over whether opera or operetta was the more appropriate genre for constructing national identity.

The composition of operettas in Catalan made steady progress in the works of Sariols – L’esquella de la Torratxa (1864) and other pieces were parodies of theatrical dramas or Spanish operettas. In the 1870s Nicolau Manent began to compose much grander three-act operettas, some of which were based on librettos by Frederic Soler – Els estudiants de Cervera (1871), Lo cant de la Marsellesa (1877) – while others provided spectacular performances of Jules Verne’s works adapted to the theatre (De la terra al sol, 1879, based on De la terre à la lune).

The operatic repertoire obtained a fresh lease of life with works by Obiols, Sánchez Gabanyach and Rodoreda. In the 1870s the impact of Wagnerism became noticeable, for instance in the operas of the most influential composer of his generation: Felip Pedrell (1841–1922), also the founder of Catalan musicology. His Los Pirineus (1891, on a libretto by Víctor Balaguer; premiered in 1902) encapsulated the ambition to establish a Catalan opera. This historical moment coincided with the first operas by Isaac Albéniz and Enric Granados; in 1895, Enric Morera debuted with the opera La fada (on a libretto containing references to Catalan legends) by Jaume Massó i Torrents, tinged with echoes of Wagner. The last decade of the century witnessed the most productive period in terms of composition of Catalan operas. Amadeu Vives wrote Euda d’Uriach and Artús, and the first performance of Los Pirineus in 1902 was followed by a flurry of works: Joan Lamote de Grignon’s Hesperia (1907), Joan Manént’s Acté (1903), Morera’s Emporium and Bruniselda (both 1906), Jaume Pahissa’s Canigó (on a dramatic adaptatation, by Josep Carner, of Verdaguer’s poem) and Gaŀla Placídia (1913).

There were also attempts by Morera and his followers to establish a Lyric Theatre along national lines, whose repertoire could challenge the strong influence of the Spanish operetta. With L’alegria que passa, the text of which was written by Rusiñol, Morera initiated a series of works with librettos in Catalan and music entrusted to composers such as Josep Lapeyra and Granados. The particularly Catalan features – popular songs, the sardana, Catalan legends – were showcased in works of varying quality: El comte Arnau, La dona d’aigua, Fra Garí, La santa espina and Flors de cingle. Some of these enjoyed enormous and/or lasting popularity.

Musical revues and vaudeville flourished also, in venues such as the Paraŀlel in Barcelona; the vogue, with Catalan works by Rafael Martínez Valls and Josep Maria Torrents, reached its peak in the 1920s.

What is known as salon repertoire – that is to say, songs with a piano accompaniment – also began to be written in Catalan in the mid-19th century. After initial work by the early generation (Clavé, Guañabens), Pedrell and his followers dropped the Italianizing aesthetics in favour of French models. Of the poetic texts that were used, those by Jacint Verdaguer were particularly popular, running to more than 1200 adaptations. Songs acquired much greater importance in Catalonia than elsewhere in the Iberian peninsula. Practically all composers wrote repertoires of songs and deliberately avoided the picturesque flamenco style so popular with other Spanish composers;  it was for this reason that Pedrell used the term lieder. Numerous public concerts were dedicated to this genre from the end of the century onwards, which further encouraged composition.

As music became an established channel for the expression of Catalan nationalism, composers like Garreta turned to the symphonic repertoire (an early example of his orchestral work being the 1907 Impressions simfòniques). This development was aided by the activities of musical associations (the Chamber Music Association and the Wagner Association), an intense teaching activity (Granados’s piano school) and the emergence of internationally celebrated performers such as Pau Casals, Isaac Albéniz and the pianist Ricard Viñes (to whom De Falla dedicated his Noches en los jardínes de España, 1909).