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 as modernism, neoclassicism and expressionism. Honorio Siccardi (1897-1963), who studied composition in Italy with Gian Francesco Malipiero, joined the Renovation Group in 1932.
Beginning in October 1929, the group began to organize as many as fifteen concerts during a season in collaboration with various locales in Buenos Aires, such as the Amigos del Arte and the Asociación Wagneriana. However, from near the end of 1938 to about mid 1944 (shortly before its disbandment) the group presented its concerts in the large hall of the Teatro del Pueblo in Buenos Aires. Nicolas Slominsky, who visited Argentina during the early 1940s, noted that by being managed as a cooperative the concerts at the aforementioned theater were “arranged at the smallest cost,” thereby keeping the price of admission at one-half peso.
Siccardi’s works began appearing on Renovation programs during November, 1932, and were regularly performed through 1943. His work for unaccompanied flute, Deseo (1939), was premiered by Angel S. Martucci, who was one of South America’s most preeminent flutists during the early to mid 20th century, on August 17, 1939, at the Teatro del Pueblo on a program on which Martucci also performed Debussy’s Syrinx and Honegger’s Danse de la Chèvre. Subsequent performances of Siccardi’s work occurred in 1941 by Estéban Eitler (1913-1960) and again in 1943 by Martucci. In addition, in 1943 Martucci recorded Deseo as part of a five-disk set of 78 rpm records titled, Album O. 109. More recently, Deseo was performed by Lucas Di Genares on September 10, 2013, in Dolores, Argentina, as part of an homage commemorating the fifty years since Siccardi’s death.
Although Deseo is a relatively short composition—taking about one minute to perform—it is nevertheless significant because it is perhaps the second earliest composition for unaccompanied flute by a Latin American composer (Hans-Joachim Koellreutter’s Improviso was composed in 1938). In spite of its short length, however, there is some disagreement with respect to its musical style.
Writing in Revista Argentina de Musicología on 1930s neoclassicism in Argentinean music, Omar Corrado argues that the unaccompanied instrumental music of this period is characterized by a return to the style of Bach, such as in his partitas for violin or his suites for cello. Indeed, he goes on to specifically cite Siccardi’s Deseo as one of the few examples of Argentinean music that can be “clearly assigned to dodecaphonic neoclassicism.”1)Omar Corrado, “Neoclasicismo y objetividad en la música argentina de la década de 1930,” Revista Argentina de Musicología 8 (2007): 44. However, if indeed a twelve-tone composition, what is the tone row upon which it is based? Rather, within the first twelve notes of this work not only are there several instances in which notes are repeated (see example 1), this melodic characteristic occurs throughout the piece in a way that belies the presence of an inversion or retrograde version of a tone-row.
On the other hand, although each of its three sections is too dissimilar one to the other to be represented by the letters ABA, nevertheless the end of each lands either on a long-held pitch or a repeated sequence of the same pitch (see example 2), as if each section has simply run out its course. In other words, not unlike an oxymoron, this work is rather like an organized improvisation.
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