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 Progress Administration program. In addition, he was to notify Latin American composers regarding a composition competition that carried a cash prize for the first and second place winners. Finally, he was to “gather material for a book and for a report on the state of Latin American music for the Pan American Union.”[1]
While on tour, Slonimsky “gave a lecture-recital in each country, featuring modern music … in all its ramifications, including such matters as polytonality, neo-classicism and expressionism.”[2] For example, on September 14, 1941, during the second half of one of these events, in Rio de Janeiro, Slonimsky demonstrated a number of modern techniques at the piano, such as polyrhythms and tetrachords. He ended the program by performing Bach’s “Ach du Lieber Augustin” as if it had been written as an atonal composition.[3] Three months later, in Santiago, Chile, Slonimsky performed a number of contemporary works that had been composed in Russia, Turkey, Iceland and Japan, as well as pieces by Latin American composers.[4] By mid-March of the following year, Slonimsky was in Mexico, on the “last lap of his hemisphere-wide search for new musical talent.”[5]
Published in 1945, and hailed as “the first important work in its field,” even eighty years later, Slonimsky’s Music of Latin America still remains the only work of its kind in this field. Not only because it is written in English, its particular importance is that this book is intended for a general audience.
Furthermore, because it is largely informed by his having met with many of the composers who are discussed in the book, even before embarking on what he describes in its pages as a “Pan American Fishing Trip,” Slonimsky had already developed a substantial association with Latin American composers and their music. In the late 1920s, for example, as the unofficial conductor of the Pan American Association of Composers orchestra, Slonimsky was able “to perform its aggressively modernist repertory in Europe.”[6] Later, Cuban essayist and musicologist Alejo Carpentier credits Slonimsky’s involvement in the performance of Cuban classical music during the 1930s and beyond.[7]
In spite of its age, Music of Latin America has lost very little of its relevance; indeed, whether seeking background information on Latin American music of the mid-20th century, or writing program notes for our chamber orchestra, the Cayambis Sinfonietta, we are constantly referring to this book. Nevertheless, in the intervening years multiple generations of composers have arisen in Latin America.
Hence, our questions: How many more decades must pass before someone pens a book with a purpose similar to Slonimsky’s? What will be the organization that supports such an effort, and, what company will be willing to publish it?
Now more than ever, we must learn, once again, to appreciate the musical and cultural values of our southern neighbors. A new book about Latin America’s composers and musicians, written to appeal to average readers in the U.S., would, in our view, go a long way towards achieving this goal.
John L. Walker
[1] “Two U.S. Musicians on Official Tours of Latin America,” Chicago Tribune, 17 August, 1941.
[2] Nicolas Slonimsky, The Music of Latin America (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1945), 2-3.
[3] “Música,” Gazeta de Noticias, 9 September, 1941.
[4] “Conferencia de Nicolás Slonimsky,” La Nación, 4 December, 1941.
[5] “Musical South of the Border,” Brooklyn Eagle, 15 March, 1942.
[6] Carol A. Hess, Representing the Good Neighbor (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 28.
[7] Alejo Carpentier, La música en Cuba: temas de la lira y del bongo (Havana, Cuba: Ediciones Museo de la Música, 2012), 522-24.