Traditional musicology has tended to see the Spanish eighteenth century as a period of decline, but this volume shows it to be rich in interest and achievement. Covering stage genres, orchestral and instrumental music and vocal music (both sacred and secular), it brings together the results of much recent research on such topics as opera, musical instruments, the secular cantata and the villancico, and challenges received ideas about how Italian and Austrian music of the period influenced (or was opposed by) Spanish composers and theorists. Two final chapters outline the presence of Spanish musical sources in the New World.