Juan Bautista Plaza and Musical Nationalism in Venezuela

Notes

Notes 1. Introduction 1. Francisco Curt Lange, introduction to Compositores venezolanos [desde la colonia hasta nuestros días] by [Numa Tortolero] (Caracas: Fundación Vicente Emilio Sojo, [1993? 1995?]), [vi]. 2. Alfredo Tarre Murzi, El estado y la cultura: La política cultural en Venezuela (Caracas: Monte Avila Editores, 1972), 55. 3. Tarre Murzi, El estado, 56. 4. Lange, introduction to Compositores venezolanos, [iii]. 5. José Antonio Calcaño, La ciudad y su música: Crónica musical de Caracas, [3rd ed.] (Caracas: Monte Avila Editores, 1985), 440. 6. Ibid., 434. 7. For more on this see José Peñín, “Nacionalismo musical,” Enciclopedia de la Música en Venezuela, ed. by José Peñín and Walter Guido (Caracas: Fundación Bigott , 1998), vol. 2, pp. 315–316, and Luis Felipe Ramón y Rivera, La música popular de Venezuela ([Caracas]: Ernesto Armitano Editor, [1976]), 160–168. 8. For more on the cultural environment of Caracas during the 1920s, when Plaza began his professional activities, see Luis Felipe Ramón y Rivera, 50 años de música en Caracas 1930–1980 (Primera parte) (Caracas: Fundación Vicente Emilio Sojo, 1988), 11–15. 9. Calcaño, La ciudad, 444–445. 10. Ibid., 445. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid., 445–446. 14. Eduardo Lira Espejo, Vicente Emilio Sojo ([Caracas]: [Comisión de Educación y Cultura del] Concejo Municipal del Distrito Sucre, [1977]), 88. 2. A Portrait of Plaza 1. Eduardo Plaza, “Apuntes sobre la vida, la persona y la obra de Juan Bautista Plaza,” version translated by Gonzalo Plaza as Life and Work of Juan Bautista Plaza ([Caracas]: Fundación Vicente Emilio Sojo; Congreso de la República, [1989]), 20. 2. For a chronological outline of Plaza’s life events and professional activities see Marie Elizabeth Labonville, “Juan Bautista Plaza: A Documented Chronology of His Life,” Revista Musical de Venezuela 18 no. 38 (September–December 1998): 1–17, or Marie Elizabeth Labonville, “Musical Nationalism in Venezuela: The Work of Juan Bautista Plaza (1898–1965)” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 1999), 107–134. In the latter, the date of Nolita’s return to Venezuela in 1956 should read July, not April 19. 3. Juan Bautista Plaza, Diario de ideas de Juan Bautista Plaza h. (Diary of Ideas of Juan Bautista Plaza Jr.), entry of July 29 [1917], 173 and 180. 4. Ibid., entry of June 12 [1917], 78–79. 5. Ibid., entry of July 14 [1917], 143–144. 6. Ibid., entry of July 23 [1917], 158. A note dated 31 January 1918 in the left margin identifies the book in question: “I believe this deals with ‘Snow on the Footprints ’ of Henri Bordeaux.” The day after the entry of July 23 he continued to bask in the effects of Bordeaux: “Since two or three days ago I have been feeling the purest balm, an infinite religious feeling that overpowers my soul: and I repeat that I believe it is Bordeaux who has indirectly transmitted it to me. May God desire that it increase” (Diario, entry of July 24 [1917], 162). 7. Plaza to Edgar Ganteaume Tovar, Rome, 25 April 1921. 8. Plaza to Edgar Ganteaume Tovar, Rome, 23 May 1921. 9. Plaza to Edgar Ganteaume Tovar, Rome, 14 July 1921. 10. Plaza to Edgar Ganteaume Tovar, Rome, 4 February 1922. Emphasis and suspension points his; ellipsis mine. 11. Gonzalo Plaza, interview by the author, tape recording, Caracas, 14 April 1994. 12. “The Purpose of the Rosicrucian Order,” Rosicrucian Digest [72?], no. 1 (1994): 6. 13. Ibid. 14. [Eduardo Plaza], “Análisis del carácter[:] Juan Bautista Plaza,” Venezuela Grá- fica [Caracas] no. 541 (16 February 1962): 7. The article is not signed, but Juan Bautista Plaza’s daughter Beatriz says it was written by Eduardo Plaza (Beatriz Plaza, conversation with the author, Caracas, 18 June 1996). 15. Eduardo Plaza, Life and Work, 19. 16. Gonzalo Plaza, questionnaire response no. 9 to Miguel Castillo Didier’s thirteen queries about his father, Juan Bautista Plaza, written by Gonzalo in Vienna during November 1984. Castillo Didier had planned to take Gonzalo’s responses into account in the preparation of his book Juan Bautista Plaza: Una vida por la música y por Venezuela (Caracas: Instituto Latinoamericano de Investigaciones y Estudios Musicales Vicente Emilio Sojo, 1985). Gonzalo’s lengthy and detailed questionnaire responses never reached Castillo Didier, however, and thus did not figure in the completed book. Gonzalo later provided his questionnaire responses to me as a courtesy. 17...