There were hardly any Christmas’ carols sung in valencian/catalan language. In the 17th Century I’ve only been able to find one from Urbán de Vargas and another by Teodor Ortells. In the 18th Century I identified two (of which one dating 1752) by Josep Pradas and an anonymous one pertaining to the Alcúdia church, dated 1723. In 1758, 1759, 1761 and 1764, Pasqual Fuentes wrote his in either the Valencian or in Spanish as well. Other than that there’s another song devoted to the christening of Saint Vincent Ferrer, undated.
The linguistic replacement in the 18th Century occurs because of the unification as the Borbons, the church and the university wanted it. There were other reasons for the change even though Valencian literature, particularly of a popular nature, prevailed and which was mainly present in processional brochures, riddles, sermons and other academic and linguistic texts. Some of the main authors to be mentioned are Carles Ros, Pere Jacint Morlà, Joan Baptista Escorihuela, the Ortí lineage and the cathedral deacon Teodor Tomàs. The case of the Christmas’ carols, however, has not yet been investigated.
Of the five carols in the Valencian language by our composer, the music of only the two enclosed in this record has been preserved. Nevertheless, we know the lyrics of the other three compositions because the texts published every year at Christmas’ time have been preserved.