A forum for the appreciation of all things related to the classical music of Latin America.
“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 …
Teresa Carreño finished the composition of her Serenade for String Orchestra on September 13, 1895 during a summer stay in Pertisau, a small village located on the Archensee Lake of the Austrian Tyrol. She visited Pertisau for the purpose of resting from her busy concert touring engagements while meeting with a group of piano students …
Parnassianism was a French poetry movement that developed during the second half of the 19th century. It’s located chronologically after Romanticism and before Symbolism. Theophile Gautier, Leconte de Lisle and José María de Heredia were Parnassian poets; also, Stephane Mallarme and Charles Baudelaire wrote some Parnassian poetry before becoming Symbolists. Parnassians declared art for art’s …
With the notable exception of a few early examples, the era of Latin American chamber music for wind instruments began with a smattering of compositions around the period of the First World War. One of the first of these, Villa-Lobos’s Sextuor mystique (1917), for flute, oboe, saxophone, celeste, harp and guitar, was followed with a …
Alcides Lanza (1929-) is an Argentinean composer who has been living in Canada since 1971, when he joined the music faculty of McGill University in Montreal. His extensive catalog includes works for conventional instruments as well as for electronic media of various types. I am familiar with only one of his compositions, his Tres piezas …
Although chamber music composition in the Americas is still a field largely populated by men, there are nevertheless encouraging signs that this tendency is changing; indeed, since about the 1990s there are increasingly more Latin American women who are gaining prominence and recognition as composers. In this article, I would like to review the contributions …
Within the context of Latin American chamber music there is a small subset of compositions that are distinguished by their use of percussion. However, when percussion is added to smaller ensembles its purpose—rather than mainly rhythmic or dynamic—is to create or suggest a particular soundscape or dramatic element. Perhaps the first work in this category …
The were few, if any, string quartets composed in Latin America during the 19th century; rather, the earliest examples of music of this type and from this period were composed by Latin Americans in Europe. For example, in 1888 Brazilian composer Alberto Nepomuceno (1864-1920) left his country for Italy, and later moved to Berlin where …