Indianism in Latin American Art-Music Composition of the 1920s to 1940s: Case Studies from Mexico, Peru, and Brazil

Strictly speaking, the concept of art music is anything but native in Latin America and the Caribbean, if by native we understand a tradition of expressive culture that originated and developed in "New World" territory. Historically, art music in Latin America is a reflection and an extension of the Western European tradition. But one cannot be dogmatic about the matter of definition, since it depends on one's frame of reference. Many people, past and present, consider art music as genuinely Latin American as any other musical tradition. The association of that music with specific nation-states throughout the continent became particularly evident with the advent of the nationalist trend cultivated strongly from the 1920s to the 1950s. In discussing the ideology of musical nationalism as applied to case studies of Mexico, Peru, and Brazil, this essay attempts to analyze the motivation of certain composers for relying on indigenous musical traditions and the potential resulting "national" qualities of these traditions. In the process, questions of representation, misrepresentation, and appropriation will be raised, as one of the main concerns of contemporary ethnomusicology.

It is well known that as a nineteenth-century Romantic trend in Europe, musical nationalism derived originally from art music compositions on the periphery of the Western European tradition, in opposition of sorts to the center represented by Germany, Austria, Italy, and France. Music written in the latter half of the century by Russian, Scandinavian, Bohemian, English, and Spanish composers that incorporated "folk" or "folk-like" materials was labeled nationalist, on the grounds that these materials were identifiable with the national group of the composer and were exotic and novel to the listeners of other Western art music. In the twentieth century, the music of nationalist composers often resulted in the creation of entirely new styles or genres rather than mere incorporation of folkloric music into standard genres, as with the nineteenth-century composers. The definition of nationalism continued to be perceived, however, in terms of geographically defined repertoire.

Little serious attention has been paid to the motivations of a composer for incorporating national elements into his or her music, or to the degree of consciousness of that motivation. In addition, there has been little consideration of the perception of the musical results on the part of the audiences for whom such music was intended, and of numerous other problematic issues related to the ideology of musical nationalism itself. Chief among the latter may well be the socio-political power of music in defining nationality and the ideological position of the "nationalist" composer in that circumscribing process. To be sure, while questions along such lines have been raised, especially in relation to various East European contexts, the perceived difficulty of correlating specific musical styles with national cultural forms have constituted an obstacle to such analysis.

Many have also asserted that works of great composers transcend national boundaries, regardless of their incorporation of folklore, because of an alleged universal character and appeal. The notion of "absolute" music, developed within an idealistic concept of the autonomy of music, has always been opposed to nationalism, viewed as the epitome of a non-autonomous musical philosophy. In the past, most musicologists have placed higher artistic value on those works that were thought to stand on their own intrinsic qualities, assigning (with notable exceptions) a lower value to compositions relying on extra-musical referents. The generally accepted belief among musicologists and ethnomusicologists today that "autonomous art" does not exist, or that all art refers beyond itself, should help us explain and understand the phenomenon of musical nationalism as a socio-cultural and aesthetic movement.

Charles Seeger was one of the first scholars of the Americas to examine the relationship of the oral and written musical traditions in the New World and the importance of the interaction (or "continuous acculturation," as he said) of both over time. In his discussion of folklorism and belletrism, he distinguished between two types of "folkloristic": one the "folk singer" from an oral tradition, the other...