Festival of Contemporary Latin American Music

Tempo ◽  
1955 ◽  
pp. 4-5
Author(s):  
Aaron Copland
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
American Music ◽  
Latin American Music ◽  
American Composers ◽  
Historical Significance ◽  
Orchestral Works ◽  
The Moment ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Town ◽  
Latin American Countries

Caracas, Venezuela, unlike Paris, France, is a newcomer in the field of present day music. Nevertheless it recently succeeded in putting itself on the contemporary musical map—and with a bang. No one, not even Paris, had ever before thought of organising a festival of orchestral works by contemporary Latin American composers. This happened for the first time anywhere in Caracas, which is full of vitality at the moment, thanks to an oil-engendered prosperity. The town boasts of a good orchestra, a brand new open-air amphitheatre seating six thousand people, and a lively cultural organisation, the Institución José Angel Lamas, headed by Dr. Inocente Palacios. This musically minded enthusiast is the kind of Maecenas composers dream about. By enlisting the aid of the Venezuelan government and other private sources he managed to put on an event that will have historical significance in the annals of Ibero-American music. Within the space of two and a half weeks forty symphonic compositions originating in seven Latin American countries were performed in a series of eight concerts. This was a major effort for all concerned, especially for the courageous musicians of the Orquesta Sinfonica Venezuela and the Festival's principal conductors: Heitor Villa Lobos, Carlos Chávez, Juan José Castro, and Rios Reyna.

Copland in Argentina

2013 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 191-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol A. Hess
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Music ◽  
Aaron Copland ◽  
Latin American Music ◽  
American Composers ◽  
American Experience ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Late Twentieth

Abstract Perhaps more than any other US composer, Aaron Copland is associated with Pan Americanism, a contradictory and often unbalanced set of practices promoting North-South economic and affective ties since the nineteenth century. Copland visited Latin America on behalf of the US government four times over the course of his career. He also befriended and taught Latin American composers, wrote about Latin American music, and composed several Latin-American—themed works, including the well-known El salón México. Focusing on one such encounter—Copland's three visits to Argentina (1941, 1947, 1963)—this article examines in detail Latin American opinion on Copland's cultural diplomacy, thus challenging the prevalent one-sided and largely US perspective. My analysis of these Spanish-language sources yields new biographical data on Copland while questioning recent assessments of his Latin American experience. I also illuminate the composer's conflicted approach to modernism, intimately connected to his desire to communicate with a broad public and to assert national identity. The crisis of modernism not only played itself out in some surprising ways in Argentina but also informed Copland's profoundly antimodernist vision of Latin American music, one rooted in essentialism and folkloric nationalism and which ultimately prevailed in the United States throughout the late twentieth century.

scholarly journals The language of jazz into the instrumental suite of XX century (on the material of Suite for piano „1922ˮ by P. Hindemith and „Suite of sentimentsˮ by Y. Chugunov)

2019 ◽  
pp. 171-185
Author(s):  
Н. Ю. Тарасова ◽  
Б. Ю, Москальов
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Latin American ◽  
American Music ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Latin American Music ◽  
Jazz Music ◽  
Harmonic Means ◽  
First Time ◽  
Simple Sequence

The purpose of this article is revealing the main methods of synthesizing jazz stylistics with the means of expressiveness of music of the twentieth century in the genre context of the suite. The research methods are based on the use of musical-cultural, comparative-historical, theoretical-analytical and textual approaches. Scientific novelty. For the first time, a camera analysis of suite „1922” by P. Hindemith and „Suite of Sentimentsˮ by Y. Chugunov 1) in the context of genre updating of the suite by elements of jazz style and jazz performances, 2) in the aspect of the interaction of harmonious, accord-tonal, form-forming means of expressiveness of jazz and music of the twentieth century. Conclusions. The interaction of the jazz language with the academic tradition essentially influenced the renovations of the genre in the suites „1922ˮ by P. Hyndemith and „Suite Sentimentsˮ by Y. Chugunov. Jazz influence has contributed to: 1) individualization of the musical decision of the suite, increase of unique expressiveness (skepticism about dance in Hindemith, rich and dynamic palette of lyrical feelings, with contrast of contemplation and mobility in Chugunov); 2) release of the genre character and structure of the cycle from Baroque-classical genre-structural normativity (in the first work, the dance genres of music of the twentieth century, in the second – different emotional states, become decisive); 3) combining the form of a suite cycle (not a simple sequence of plays based on theestablished tempo principle, but a plastic improvisational transition, with the loss of the boundaries of the parts) (in „Suite of Sentiments” by Chugunov), with a through metro rhythm and internal unification with ironic author overtones expressed by harmonic, textured and rhythmic means (in the Suite „1922ˮ by Hindemith); 4) the formative role of rhythm formulas of jazz music (emphasizing weak parts, syncopation, rhythmic brokenness of melody, triple rhythm formulas and unstable formulas with small rhythmic meters), typical jazz performing techniques (fermat, „hangs”, discontinued melodies) and Latin American music of harmonic means (movement by parallel chords, active use of trio sounds, seventh chords, non-chords with alterations), jazz features of intonation (false fingering); 5) application of compositional features of ragtime, swing (cadences, improvisations, repetitions).

The Piano Music

Tempo ◽  
1971 ◽  
pp. 15-22
Author(s):  
Douglas Young
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Piano Music ◽  
Economic Factor ◽  
American Music ◽  
American Composers ◽  
Piano Works ◽  
Orchestral Works ◽  
Piano Literature

With the exceptions of Bartók and Messiaen, modern European composers have not shown a particular preference for the piano as the natural vehicle for major works. It has been left to American composers to continue writing works for the piano with the same confidence as the nineteenth-century masters. The list is impressive, ranging from Ives's extraordinary sonatas to Elliott Carter's fine Concerto, via Piston, Sessions, Barber, Cowell, Foss and Copland. The reasons for this American dominance in modern piano literature are complex, although the purely economic factor, that it is cheaper to perform a piano work than an orchestral one, probably influenced Ives's and Copland's generations. To this must be added the use of the piano in jazz, that peculiarly American phenomenon. Indeed the piano, in its more percussive vein, seems to be the quintessential sonority of American music. Looking at Copland's work we can see that piano sound clearly influences the nature of his orchestrations, as it did Ravel's. Some works began life as piano scores (the ballet Billy the Kid for instance), most of the orchestral works include a piano, and many use typical piano gestures—the opening of El Salón México for example. Conversely Copland's piano writing, like that of Beethoven, is influenced by the sounds of the orchestra, although never to such an extent that it prevents truly pianistic writing. The piano works are brilliantly realized in terms of the instrument and are virtuoso pieces, particularly in their rhythmic and sonorous subtleties.

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