It is frequently and truly said that the indigenous populations of the New World were in many ways exploited by the adventuring conquistadors of the Old World after the momentous event of 1492. Often the Central and South American indigenous populations are portrayed in film and story as helpless, passive victims of a conquering culture. And yet, as I prepared for my first concert of Latin American Baroque music under the baton of Chilean conductor Christine Gevert—and came face to face with music which brilliantly fused European melody, rhythmic structure, and word-painting with indigenous rhythms and languages into a fascinating Baroque “world music” endowed with a unique spirit of joy—I couldn’t help but wonder if the Americans of the New World got the last laugh after all.
Maestra Gevert says that it all began with the missionaries. “The Spanish Jesuit missionaries were highly, highly educated men,” says Gevert, “and they brought with them an extremely sophisticated ecclesial musical culture which they passed on to the new converts to the Christian faith. It’s the dialogue between the musical structure of the old culture and the rhythm of the new that is the basis of Latin American music as we know it today.”
In the great cathedrals of Puebla and Oaxaca, Mexico, were the New World equivalent of Old World kappel-meisters—like Bach and Mozart—whose compositional output is undoubtedly as prolific if not, thus far, as well researched.
It’s an exciting time for new discoveries and research in early music in general, and anyone with an interest in this multifaceted genre should be aware of the formidable body of work of the Latin American Baroque tradition. New discoveries and findings are constantly coming to light. In southern Bolivia, for instance, Polish priest and musicologist Piotr Nawrot has restored 27 volumes of Baroque music scores that he collected from church balconies and local people who had kept them alongside other precious heirlooms.
“Some musicologists believe that some of this Bolivian music was composed by the native Indians, while others doubt this. What we can say is that one of the music scores bears an Indian signature,” says Cecilia Kenning de Mansilla of the Asociación Pro Arte y Cultura of Bolivia in Peter Bruyn’s article “How Latin America Conquered European Classical Music” in the February 2005 issue of The Power of Culture (www.powerofculture.nl/en/current/2005/february/bolivian_baroque.html).
What becomes of this newly uncovered body of work? Fresh, contemporary performances all over the world. Some of the Bolivian works, for instance, are now part of the repertoire of the famed British Baroque ensemble Florilegium, who recorded many of the songs with a quartet of Bolivian vocal soloists on the CD Bolivian Baroque for the Channel Classics label.
Singers interested in incorporating this music into their recital programming should be prepared to do some research, as Latin American Baroque is, for all intents and purposes, new music in the way that all newly discovered early music is new music. The most comprehensive research resource available in the States, says Maestra Gevert, is the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music-based Latin American Music Center, founded by Chilean Juan Orrego-Salas. The center’s website (www.music.indiana.edu/som/lamc/) offers an extremely extensive array of online resources, including information about worldwide sponsoring and presenting organizations, orchestras, ensembles, and performers.
Another excellent resource of special interest to singers is the Latin American Art Song Alliance, whose stated mission is to assist teachers and students of singing to access the published repertoire of all eras of Latin American music and to provide them with tools to teach and perform it. LAASA seeks to “publish, perform, record, and promote solo vocal music by Latin American composers” from all 41 of the Latin American countries.
“Published scores are currently hard to find, and many have been out of print for decades” says the LAASA website (www.laasa.org). “Frequently, the only option left to the serious researcher is to travel to Latin American countries and find these pieces in public and private collections. Several LAASA members have glowing collections of songs collected from years of such research, but the majority of these titles are presently unavailable for purchase.”
To remedy this challenge and make the music more accessible, LAASA is legally editing and distributing Latin American art song both electronically and in print. They are also teaming up with existing music publishers who hold rights to Latin American music to better promote their catalogs. “Publishers who do not have the time to promote their entire catalog,” says LASSA, “find it refreshing to see that at least some of their niche-market holdings are circulated through the global marketplace.”
Some of the few printed resources for singers include The Latin American Art Song: A Critical Anthology and Interpretive Guide for Singers, the most comprehensive anthology of Latin American art song on the market today. Edited by Colombian soprano Patricia Caicedo, the 158-page volume comes complete with translations of the Spanish and Portuguese texts, phonetic transcriptions, and performance notes in Spanish and English. Also noteworthy is The Art Song in Latin America: Selected Works by Twentieth-Century Composers, a pioneering anthology edited by Kathleen L. Wilson with IPA and diction sections by Arden Hopkin. Both of these titles, and a nice selection of discography of this unique genre, are available on the LAASA website.
Happy hunting and enjoy this newly re-emerging genre!
