The Music Played After Rizal's Execution

After a Spanish officer delivered the tiro de gracia, a final inspection confirmed that José Rizal lay lifeless. At that moment, the Spanish regimental band—the Banda del Batallón de Voluntarios—struck up the Marcha de Cádiz, also known as the Himno de Cádiz. León Ma. Guerrero, in The First Filipino, records the scene with piercing irony:

"But as the last Spaniards gave their ragged cheer, and the band of the battalion of volunteers struck up, with unconscious irony, that hymn to human rights and constitutional liberties, the Marcha de Cádiz, the quiet Filipinos broke through the square, to make sure, said the Spanish correspondent, that the mythical, the godlike Rizal was really dead, or, according to others, to snatch a relic and keepsake and dip their handkerchiefs in a hero’s blood."

MARCHA DE CADIZ

The Marcha de Cádiz is deeply rooted in Spain’s historical memory, drawing inspiration from the Peninsular War, when Spain resisted Napoleonic France. That conflict not only inspired patriotic fervor but also gave rise to the Cádiz Constitution of 1812, a landmark document proclaiming the sovereignty of the people, constitutional rule, and civil liberties. Composed in mid-1886 to honor the heroes of that war, the march embodies a dual legacy of musical and political nationalism. Listening closely—especially to the choral sections—it is difficult not to hear operatic contours in its structure. This is no coincidence: its composers, Federico Chueca (1846–1908) and Tomás Valverde (1817–1898), were leading figures in the zarzuela scene. Zarzuela, Spain’s distinctive operatic-popular hybrid, fused sung passages with spoken dialogue, dance rhythms, and local idioms. In the late 19th century, it played a central role in shaping musical nationalism, blending historical memory, popular sentiment, and political consciousness.

The Marcha de Cádiz exemplifies this synthesis. Its operatic and zarzuela-inspired features reveal its theatrical origins, yet its rhythmic vitality and melodic accessibility allowed it to leave the theater behind, entering the public and ceremonial sphere. By the late 19th century, it had become a staple of military bands and civic celebrations, including Spanish colonial regiments—a cruel irony, as music that celebrated Spain’s resistance to foreign domination was now absorbed into instruments of imperial authority.

OUR FINEST MOMENT

Yet history, in its own moral economy, allows us to invert the frame. What if that music, conceived as a hymn to liberty, did not mock Rizal but unknowingly crowned him? What if, at that precise moment in Luneta, it ceased to belong to empire and passed—irrevocably—into the moral possession of the Filipino people? If the Marcha de Cádiz once celebrated a nation’s struggle against tyranny, then its sound that morning did not sanctify Spanish authority. Instead, it exposed its contradiction. The ideals the march proclaimed had already crossed the square and stood unarmed before the firing squad.

In that sense, it was not Spain’s triumph. It was Rizal’s. It was the Philippines’. It was, in every tragic and defiant sense of the word, our finest moment.