The earliest music in the New World, post-conquest, was more likely to sound European than anything else. The arrival of the Jesuits and other church musicians exported to Guatemala, Mexico and much of South America, brought their own music and set about training the indigenous peoples to sing that music, or at least to gather around the religious messaging of the masses and other sacred numbers.
The musically inclined of the indigenous converts were trained to be musicians copying the European models. As European musicians who had trained outside of the church arrived, it was again a European-style music which they brought to or wrote in the New World.
The Argentinian musician Alberto Williams was born in Buenos Aires in 1862. At a young age, Williams was awarded a stipend to study in Paris, where he fell under the spell of Cesar Franck. On returning to Argentina, Williams was regarded by some as the Argentinian Franck. However, by 1890, Williams shifted his attention to the forms, melodies and rhythms of Argentinian folk music. Those who followed Williams walked the same path, creating music not European, not truly indigenous, but music which we readily identify today as Argentinian.
The accompaniment to "Quena" has a modal, indigenous quality to it. The opening lines are a lament to the Incan flute, to quena. The soprano sings, "Quena, dear, how sad the light of day dies. The shadows come down like curtains from the sky." Such a beautiful song, not fully indigenous, but certainly taking the sound of folk music under its wing in a most poetic manner.
in speaking to Carlos Franzetti, born and raised in Argentina, about the connections between the indigenous and the western influences in Latin American music, the name Alberto Ginastera comes up, but also the most Incan of wind instruments, the quena, we find that it's not just Alberto Williams or Carlos Franzetti, who equate the quena with the musical folklore of Argentina.
When Ginastera began to undergo a transition similar to that of Williams, both turning their attentions to the music around them, and in the case of Ginastera, listening to and following Williams' lead, Ginastera wrote "Impressions de la Puna," an impressionistic work which describes a high plateau in the Andes where solitary herders might be heard sounding the haunting melodies of the quena.
As the mid-20th century came and went, Ginastera became increasingly bold in his music. However, he skated around the extremities of modernism while never totally rejecting it. In 1960 he wrote the "Cantata para America magica," a work scored for large percussion ensemble and soprano. This set of highly dramatic pre Columbian texts and rituals combined with indigenous mythology is a prime example of the modern meeting the ancient, not in a head on crash, but as a way of creating something new.
We go out with Los Folkloristas, the Mexican ensemble that's been reviving the folkloric music of Latin America since 1965. The contemporary Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz is the daughter of two of the founding members of Folkloristas.
PLAYLIST:
Juan Lazaro Mendolas: Rollano
Juan Lazaro Mendolas, Geri Allen, Charlie Haden, Paul Motian
JMT Productions 027-1
Williams: Canciones Incaias (No 1 Quena)
Maria Teresa Uribe, Balazs Szokolay
Hungariton 32044
Ginastera: Impresiones de la Puna
Angela Koregelos, San Francisco Camerata America
Klavier 11093
Ginastera: Cantata para America magica, 0p. 27
Signe Asmussen, Thomas Bangalter, Chiroptera (percussion ensemble)
NAX
Trad: Viva Jujuy (Bailecito) [Argentina]
Los Folkloristas
45 Anos
Fonarte Latino
