A forum for the appreciation of all things related to the classical music of Latin America.
In 1941, two U.S. musicians, Aaron Copland and Nicolas Slonimsky, headed off to Latin America on official missions. The latter, sent out by the Fleisher Music Collection of the Free Library of Philadelphia, was entrusted with three missions, of which the first was to collect orchestral scores that would subsequently be copied under a Works …
Last week, we lost one of our hemisphere’s most important composers, Mario Lavista. Born in Mexico City in 1943, he studied with Carlos Chávez, Héctor Quintanar and Rodolfo Halffter. Later, he received a scholarship to study in Europe. In addition to having composed a vast catalog of works for nearly every genre, as an educator …
Background and Analysis. Composed in Florence, Italy, in July 1901, Henrique Oswald’s Ofelia is a five-song setting of poetry in Italian by Solone Monti.1)The titles of the songs are (in order), *******, “Ofelia,” “Il Genio della Foresta,” “L’Angelo del Cimitero,” and “La Morta.” Except for his association with biographer and writer Dame Iris Margaret Origo—Monti …
Fifty-nine years ago today, on Sunday, April 23, 1961, at 8:30 p.m., the Philadelphia Woodwind Quintet presented a program at the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress that consisted of four works that had been written by Latin American composers. All of the works performed were world premieres, and of the four, two had …
In 1929, opposed to the rise of folkloristic nationalism in Argentinean music (which would later become exemplified in the works of Alberto Ginastera), five composers founded the Grupo Renovación (Renovation Group) in Buenos Aires. Through its concertizing and publishing activities, the group advocated a deep association of that country’s composers with contemporaneous European trends, such …
Although Mackenna’s first work dates from 1909, it is her fourth composition, Lieder (1929), that is particularly significant. This is the first work to ensue from her relationship with German musicologist Hans Mersmann (1891-1971), with whom she had begun to study music composition three years earlier. Second, it also marks the beginning of a period …
Approximately two to three years after composing Chants (1988, for unaccompanied flute), Alfredo del Mónaco met with oboist Jaime Martínez, who provided the composer with specific suggestions about rendering extended techniques, special fingerings and other effects on the oboe.1)Martínez, email to the author, 3 August, 2018. Martínez, who is currently the principal oboist of the …
Born into an aristocratic family in Santiago, Chile, Carmela Mackenna Subercaseaux (1879-1962) showed an early inclination towards creative expression, including painting, writing and music. In 1917, for example, after a piano recital presented by Bindo Paoli’s students, she was lauded in the press for having the “soul of an artist.” Nevertheless, years earlier she had …
Chilean composer René Amengual was born in 1911 in Santiago de Chile. At the age of twelve, in 1923 he entered the National Conservatory, where he studied piano with Rosita Renard (1894-1949) and composition with Pedro Humberto Allende (1885-1959). Upon finishing his studies in 1935, Amengual began a career as an educator in the Conservatory, …
“Latin American & Spanish Masterpieces for Flute & Piano,” Stephanie Jutt, flute; Elena Abend and Pablo Zinger, piano. Albany Records. Stephanie Jutt is a free-lance flutist who lives in New York. Formerly on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, her creative output also includes arrangements that she has published with International Music Company, as …