Throughout this current season of Momentous Musicales, we have sought out things indigenous. By that I mean languages, social customs and musical instruments, to name just a few of the elements of what UNESCO calls "intangible cultural heritage." Our attention has been on the many centuries, pre-Columbian and pre-conquest.
After all, there were millions of people already populating what today we call Mexico, Central and South America, before Christopher Columbus convinced Queen Isabella, the first and King Ferdinand the second, to underwrite his sailing ships that numbered three, and his theory that by sailing west, you would eventually get to India. Thus on landing, Columbus's hasty labeling of those whom he found on this not so new continent, "Indians."
There were already many different indigenous cultures in place, and among them, thousands of different languages. Over the past three weeks, we have sought out some of the dominant of the old tongues, including Nahuatl, Mayan, Aymara, Quechua and Guarani. Vocalist Lila Downs has made it her business to sing in a number of these early languages. She writes of the Zapotec poet Ta Rey Baza as a legendary character from Oaxaca. His thoughts and songs were only in Zapotec because he never learned the Spanish language. According to the Zapotec writer Macario Matus, his sense of verse and rhythm was perfect, and his profound emotion, expressing an intimate sadness, is lived by a whole society. "Xquenda," a cancion Zapateca, can be translated "soul." It is sung here by Lila Downs.
In 1988, the Argentine composer Lalo Schifrin wrote a large work for solo voices, a chorus of 150 and a large orchestra, which he called "Cantos Aztecas." The work is true to the title for the poetry he sets to music is from the 15th century Aztec scholar, architect and ruler Nezahualcoyotl. Further, Schifrin didn't use translations to Spanish in his work. Rather, he insisted that all of the singers learn to sing Nahuatl. Though I do not speak Nahuatl, the diction in this live outdoor performance sounds true to my ear. Placido Domingo is joined by the Orquesta Philharmonica de la Ciudad de Mexico, conducted by the composer Lalo Schifrin. The performance attracted an audience in the thousands to the Pyramid of the Moon in the Teotihuacan archeological zone.
As with Carlos Chávez when he wrote "Xochipilli, An Imagined Aztec music," Schifrin, and anyone else writing Aztec or Mayan or Incan music, has to realize the music itself must be invented using the best of your imagination. "Cantos Aztecas," to my ear, is one of the best efforts to write an imagined Aztec music. You may wonder why the music that goes with these Nahuatl texts can't just be arranged for modern instruments. The problem is, well, I'll let composer Gabriela Ortiz explain:
"We don't know how the music sounded like," Ortiz says. "We have some elements. We have instruments, but what we have in our folklore is already mixed with European music. So the indigenous pre-music, really, we don't know exactly how how it sounded. So basically, when I'm using this name, it's because conceptually I'm trying to explain something, but not because I have a clear reference of [what] the music was like because... actually, we don't know."
PLAYLIST
Trad: Male Nendiskita (Piercua Mexico)
Los Folkloristas
Fiesta y Tradicion
Fonarte Latino
Trad: El Quitiplas
Los Folkloristas
Fiesta y Tradicion
Fonarte Latino
Trad: Cueca Larga
Markama
RCA Records
Manuel Reyes Cabrera: Xquenda (pron. Skwin-duh) (cancion Zapoteca)
Lila Downs
Narada 8497982
Lalo Schifrin: Cantos Aztecas (Ye tocuic Toxochiuh - Life is a Dream)
Placido Domingo, Schifrin, OFCM
ProArte 494
Trad: El Quitiplas (Venezuela)
Los Folkloristas
Fiesta y Tradicion
Fonarte Latino
