MUSIC FROM MEXICO

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 487, 22 October 1948, Page 7

MUSIC FROM MEXICO

Astec Reconstruction Piece Included

HEN the American Museum of Modern Art was planning its 1940 exhibition of Mexican art, it asked the Mexican composer and conductor Carlos Chavez to prepare a programme of characteristic music of his country to be performed in conjunction with the exhibition. From the concert which resulted, six works were chosen for recording and these will be played from 1YC at 10 p.m. on Saturday, October 30, The first recording, Sones Mariachi, arranged by Blas Galindo, will give listeners some idea of the music native to the central Pacific states of Mexico. The title means musical pieces played by a mariachi of ensemble consisting, classically, of two violins, a large five-stringed guitar, a small guitar, and a five-octave harp to which are now added a clarinet and trumpet. The men making up a mariachi play, dance, and sing (often in a falsetto ‘and usually with the voices a third apart). This work will be followed by a love song La Paloma Azul, arranged by Chavez. Its origins are disputed, one theory being that it is the Mexicanised version of a Spanish song and the other that it is descended from Italian operatic music, which was highly popular; in Mexico in the 19th Century. The words of the recurring refrain, freely translated, are, "What a lovely blue dove, which flies on its wings where it wishes! What a lovely blue dove! Do not have much to do with anyone. Open your wings. I am the keeper of your love." After the last climactic singing of this refrain, the

arrangement continues with a four-line verse saying, "And with this I bid you good-bye, my dear, by tipping the brim of my sombrero. And here I stop singing, my love, the little verses of Laredo." The lover is about to depart for Texas and the arrangement ends with the refrain "I come to tell you good-bye." — In the third work, which has the for-midable-title of Xochipili-Macuilxochitl, after the Aztec god of music, dance, flowers and love, Chavez has attempted to reconstruct thé general sound of a pre-Conquest Aztec instrumental ensemble, the instruments used being A A AA ee ee

copies of Aztec instruments discovered by archeologists or their nearest modern equivalents. The ensemble includes flutes, which play only the notes that can be produced on surviving archeological flutes, a trombone (taking the place of a sea snail’s shell instrument), two types of primitive drums, wooden and bone rasps, and various rattles. No record of pre-Conquest music survives, but study of instruments discovered by archeologists and of pictorial representations of musicians playing provides a reliable basis for both the scale used--pentatonic -and the make-up of the orchestra. Dance to Centeotl, a ritual adoration of the goddess of maize, which is the fourth item in the series, is from a ballet with chorus by Chavez based on a legendary Mexican explanation of pre-history. For Dance to Centeot]l Ck vez used ancient Indian melodies while the words are those of a traditional hymn to the goddess and are sung in Aztec. Probably the least Europeanisgd music surviving into contemporary times in Mexico is that of the Yaquis, who have for centuries lived on the east shore of the Gulf of Lower California, and this with the music of their neighbours, the fast-disappearing Seris, has been used for the: fifth recording, which contains both instrumental and vocal music arranged by Luis Sandi. Another group again-found in the Gulf Coast Mexican states — has been drawn upon for the final number, the music being arranged by Gerdénimo Baqueiro Foster. Violins and large ‘guitars are used to provide this rhythmic music which had its origin in communal fiestas native to this part of Mexico. A similarity with Cuban dance music will probably be noted and this is not surprising for the tropical clinmmate and Negro influence are as important factors in the ‘art of -these Mexican states as they are in Cuba. / Besides providing three of the works heard in this programme, Chavez conducts the orchestra and chorus, the former consisting of American and Mexican musicians, and the chorus being a specially trained group from the National Music League. | ‘Chavez was born near Mexico City in, 1899 | and therefore grew from youth to during the prolonged Mexican ‘Revolution. His early compositions were of conventional European style, but the spirit of Mexican renaissance which first manifested itself in painting and literature, soon affected him and he learnt to draw upon the folk material of his own country for inspiration. For a time he was director of the Mexican National Conservatory of Music and chief of the Department of Fine Arts of the Secretariat of Public Education, and in 1928 he became conductor of the Orchestra of the Mexico City Musicians’ Union, which was later re-named the Orquesta Sinfonia de Mexico, He*has paid a number of visits to the United States and has been guest conductor of most of the leading symphony orchestras in that country.