Indigenous, African, and Vernacular Traditions

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Be ready to:

- Analyze selected works of different styles and genres from a broadly representative geographical range to examine how Latin American concert music has been understood in the international musical community.
- Examine the music of select indigenous peoples of South America.
- Analyze the impact by European colonial powers to expunge South American indigenous languages, music, and religious practices.
- Examine the musical impact of African slaves on the music of South America, such as call and response, the use of percussion instruments, and capoeira (an elaborately choreographed martial art), to name a few.
- Identify indigenous composers who were trained by the missionaries, such as the early nineteenth-century composer Manuel Dias de Oliveira (1764-1837), who synthesized European musical styles in music such as the samba, samba-reggae, and bossa nova.
- Examine how Latin American vernacular music, such as the Brazilian bossa nova or the Colombian cumbia, has been used to mark holidays, enliven repetitive or physically demanding work, celebrate national identity, and express other aspects of the human condition.
- Analyze Latin American concert music, the impact of Hollywood on it, and how protest songs, corridos, and operas based on the tumultuous history of Latin America inspired both North and South American composers.

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Indigenous, African, and Vernacular Traditions

Map of Bolivia

As we have seen, Latin American concert music has been influenced by the indigenous, African, and vernacular traditions. This section will deepen our understanding of this phenomenon.

Although many composers found the "culture of imitation" stifling, most were unwilling to completely disregard European techniques and genres. Of course, they also had to be true to their personal styles. Latin American composers have faced other challenges as well.

Since gaining independence in the early nineteenth century, most countries have suffered periodically from crippling poverty, a rigid class structure, unequal distribution of resources, and political instability.Although vernacular musics can certainly flourish under these conditions-often defiantly, as shown in our discussion of protest songs-they are hardly conducive to an active concert life, which depends on education, financial support, and organizations to promote concert music.

Felipe Larrazábal

Shaking off the European influence proved difficult for most Latin American countries. In Venezuela, for example, Gonzalo Cordero and Francisco Pérez Camacho composed traditional religious music for the Caracas Cathedral. Other Venezuelans attempted to establish a national music education system, especially the pianist and composer Felipe Larrazábal (1816-1873); this goal was not realized until the twentieth century, however.

Teresa Carreño

On the other hand, some Venezuelan musicians enjoyed an international reputation, such as the brilliant pianist and composer Teresa Carreño (1853-1917), who toured widely.

Luis Humberto Salgado

Bolivia, initially part of the Viceroyalty of Peru (Alto Perú), had been an important center of church music during the colonial period, especially at the La Plata cathedral (present-day Sucre). Yet after independence in 1825, Bolivian musical life lacked both resources and an educational infrastructure. Pianos began to be imported only in the 1840s and no significant musical organization was established until the first decades of the twentieth century.

Incan Chieftain Atahualpa

In Ecuador, post-independence musical life was also fitful, and several twentieth-century Ecuadorian composers ended up living abroad. Others, such as Luis Humberto Salgado (1903-1977), who honored the slain Incan chieftain Atahualpa in his music, stayed home to improve musical life.

"Your emperor may be a great prince; I do not doubt it, seeing that he has sent his subjects so far across the waters; and I am willing to treat him as a brother. As for your pope of whom you speak, he must be mad to speak of giving away countries that do not belong to him. As for my faith, I will not change it. Your own God, as you tell me, was put to death by the very men He created. But my God still looks down on His children."

-Atahualpa, Inca Chief

"After seeing the ruins at Machu Picchu, the fabulous cultures of antiquity seemed to be made of cardboard, Papier-mâché…"

-Pablo Neruda, 1954

'Anti' is the likely origin of the word 'Andes', Spanish conquerors generalized the term and named all the mountain chain as 'Andes', instead of only the eastern region, as it was the case in Inca era.