Calle de Independencia

Calle de Independencia was born of the demolitions ordered by Joseph Bonaparte. In the early 19th century his government tore down blocks around the Royal Palace to open the plaza de Oriente and the plaza de los Caños del Peral, the future plaza de Isabel II. On that cleared ground a new street was traced, running from calle del Espejo to end beside the Teatro Real. Before that, Espinosa’s map (1769) recorded it as calle de San Bartolomé, part of the old Palacio quarter. Once the area was rebuilt, the city christened it Independencia on 11 January 1835, in memory of the war against the invader. There lies the twist: the ground you stroll along was cleared by the French themselves, and the street celebrates those who drove them out. At number 2 died, three years apart, the conductor Joaquín Espín and his father, the composer Joaquín Espín y Guillén, whose daughter Julia was a celebrated soprano and muse of Bécquer’s Rimas. Already in the 21st century, the corner of Independencia and Amnistía became one of the most photographed name pairings in Madrid.

At number 2 died a father and son, both musicians: Joaquín Espín y Pérez de Colbrand (orchestra conductor) on 13 July 1879, and his father Joaquín Espín y Guillén (composer, founder of La Iberia Musical y Literaria) in 1882. The same building was, or had been, the home of Julia Espín, daughter and sister of the deceased, the soprano whom Bécquer immortalized in his Rimas around 1858. Peñasco and Cambronero, and later Répide, record the coincidence of the two deaths in the same doorway.