Juan Bautista Plaza and Musical Nationalism in Venezuela

5. Rome; Plans for Musical Renewal in Venezuela (1920–1923)

5 Rome; Plans for Musical Renewal in Venezuela (1920–1923) Plaza departed for Rome on July 19, 1920, his twenty-second birthday. Aboard ship, he was pensive. In a letter to a friend he confided that he felt a grave sense of responsibility toward himself and toward the Metropolitan Chapter, with which he had contracted a formal obligation. For the first time in his life, he was completely alone. No one in Rome would look after him, and he would have to become accustomed to that. At the same time he felt that he was finally, fully a man and that the voyage was marking an irrevocable farewell to his youth.1 The Pontificia Scuola Superiore di Musica Sacra, his destination, had been founded ten years earlier at the initiative of the Jesuit priest Angelo De Santi. De Santi was a man of vast culture and extraordinary dynamism who dedicated nearly all of his life to promoting the restoration of genuine liturgical music in Catholic churches. Plaza remarked, in later years, that he considered himself fortunate to have had the opportunity to get to know De Santi during the last two years of his life.2 Plaza arrived in Rome on August 25, 1920. After securing lodging and registering at the school, he began summer courses in organ and harmony. His first triumph was passing the examination for first-year harmony after completing that two-month course. This encouraged him immensely, for although he did not doubt his innate musical ability, he had felt somewhat intimidated by the reality of studying in Rome.3 On November 8 the regular academic year began. Father De Santi had assembled an excellent group of professors, and Plaza developed a warm relationship with several of them. His instructors, and the courses they taught, included Father Paolo Maria Ferretti, Gregorian chant; Monsignor Raffaele Casimiri, polyphony and sacred composition; Father Licinio Refice, harmony, composition, and instrumentation; Mr. Cesare Dobici, counterpoint and fugue; Father Raffaele Manari, organ; and Mr. Edoardo Dagnino, music history. The curriculum that Plaza followed was designed to lead to the title “Master in Sacred Composition.” Accordingly, his professors assigned him to compose settings of sacred Latin texts, many for four voices a cappella. He also composed settings for one voice and accompaniment; it is unclear how many of these were assignments and how many he wrote on his own initiative. He produced a few other religious songs for voice and organ, with non-liturgical French or Italian texts. On his own time, he composed Rome / 53 Figure 5.1. Plaza during his studies in Rome, date unknown (1920–1923). Used by permission of the Fundación Juan Bautista Plaza. at least nineteen secular works. Most were for solo piano or for piano and voice with a text in French, Italian, or Spanish.4 One of these secular works, the piano suite Almas de niños (Souls of Children), is Plaza’s earliest work to be published—although not until after his death. He composed the five movements during August and September of 1922, and his interest in Italian and French poetry may have led him to experiment with titling his suite in those languages. First he called it Piccoli capricci per piano-forte (Italian); then he changed it to Profils d’enfants (French), and finally settled on the Spanish Almas de niños. Each movement bears a proper name, of which several are distinctly Italian: “Giulietta,” “Lolita,”5 “Gino,” “Giustinella,” “Gonzalo.” Among these movements are passages of harmony that is chromatic, or enriched with non-harmonic tones, or dissonant. Example 5.1, from “Gino,” is illustrative . The movement opens with parallel augmented triads in the right hand against rhythmic figures in the bass that outline, in arpeggiated form, chords characteristic of the key of G major. As Zaira García has pointed out, Plaza, in Rome, was experimenting with techniques that were new for him around the same time that his compatriots, back in Caracas, were getting to know works by Debussy, Ravel, Fauré, D’Indy, and others (see chapter 1).6 Plaza’s letters to friends and family in Caracas show that he worked, learned, and lived intensely. His efforts were rewarded, for his progress was evident to himself and to others. Although fascinating and absorbing , his labors were exhausting and threatened the health of his spirit as well as his body. In February 1922 he...