Music
Academic music
The cultivation of the
academic music in Spanish America had its main irradiation
centers
in the viceroyalties of
New Spain, Peru and New Granada. The best in the Italian and
Spanish Renaissance
polyphonic repertoire spread through the cathedrals of the
mentioned
viceroyalties.
Simultaneously, inspired by the works of Palestrina, Victoria,
Moral, Warrior
and so many other, the
chapel teachers resided in America or born in her, they begin to
compose then for the
religious occupation in the predominant style in Europe. Of the
polyphonic writing to
capella of the XVI century spends, in the following one and
until
half-filled of the XVIII
one, to the complex and rich Baroque style, characterized by the
use
of the vocal
counterpoint on a continuous first floor. Starting from 1750,
the writing
contrapuntística goes
being supplanted by another homofónica with a simple
accompaniment of 2 or 3
violins and occasionally some other instrument (oboes, flutes,
trumpets) on the
continuous first floor. The old polyphonic carol, for stylistic
influence of
the Baroque cantata
becomes gradually from the XVII century a composition for
soloist,
accompanied with under
continuous and violins in which alternate the refrain with the
ballads in a succession
of Aryan, duets and choirs. In another important gender of
composition like it is
it the opera, America suffers the influence of the pleasure of
the
reining house in Spain,
the dynasty of the Borbones who you/they implant the Baroque
style and the Italian
opera for singer's Carlo Broschi influence, Farinelli in the
XVIII
century. The style
musical European clergyman of ends of the century follows the
prints of
the contemporary Italian
opera, consistent in a succession of accompanied recitatives,
Aryans give boss and
homophonous choirs. The production musical nun of this time
didn't
end up having a defined
style; it oscillated between the lyrical layman's expressions
and the
technical conventions,
between the accompanied monodia and the resources of the
symphony concertante.
These expressions of the late Baroque spread for America and
they
have an unusual bloom in
2 regions: You mine Gerais (Brazil) and Caracas (Venezuela).
Venezuela, county of
mainly agrarian economy, didn't have opportunity to accumulate
wealth like they had it
other colonies, with that which could pay all kinds of artistic
manifestations. In
accordance with the preliminary study of The parochial but old
book of
Caracas, made by
Stephanie Bower Blank, the members of the society from Caracas
of the
colonial period grouped
in 3 very defined categories: the «superior class», the
«common
people» and the
«inferior people». The members of the «superior class» they
were
characterized to belong
to a family of conquerors or settlers, to be proprietors of vast
extensions of lands, to
be regular of one commends and to exercise municipal
occupations.
The «people of the
common one» artisans and modest officials of European origin
integrated it. The
«inferior people» it was constituted by all those that were
not white and
that somehow they had a
dependence bond with the «superior class» or with the
stocking:
they were the Indians,
mulattos, brown, zambo and black slaves. From the social point
of
view this «inferior
people» it was divided in «four main categories: slaves,
commended
Indians, servants and
brown or free mestizos». It is in fact of this category of
those
«brown» and «free
mestizos» that most of the musicians that cover the period that
arrives
until the independence
will arise.
The musical activities
of Venezuela in the colonial period began and they developed the
same as in the other
countries of America, like a necessity of the missionaries «…de
to be
provided of good
collaborators for the best service in the cult…», and
conditioned to the
religious repertoire
practiced in the temples to the service of the liturgy. It is
not of missing
then that they should
begin in the diocese that Clemente VII created in Suramérica:
that of
Choir, by means of the
bull Pro excellenti sent praeeminentia June 21 1531. Of the
musical
activities carried out
in the cathedral of Santa Ana of Choir anything it is known up
to
1580, year in that
brother Juan Manuel Martínez Manzanillo takes charge of the
diocese
and it orders the
writing of «…las first records capitulares of the cathedral
of Choir that still
survive…» however,
outside of the cantor position that carried out from a beginning
Juan
Rodríguez of Grove,
«ecclesiastical …buen, singer contralto and he has natural of
voice…», there were
not other activities that the flat song for the mass and it
saves her, due
to the extreme poverty
of the region. In spite of all the Episcopal efforts, it never
ended up
improving the situation
of the music in chorus. June of 1637, 20 for real identification
the
canonical adjournment
was authorized from the headquarters to Caracas. As consequence
of this resolution «…fue
ascended to the cathedral category the primitive parochial
church
of Santiago from León…»
starting from this date, the cathedral of Caracas will become
the
center of the most
outstanding musical activities in the country gradually. The
professional
concern for the music
really begins with the construction of the cathedral after the
earthquake of 1641. says
José Antonio Calcaño that there were already at the beginning
of
1657, besides the
organist, 6 choir chaplains and a bassoonist. The following year
it is hired
José Fernández
Montesdeoca like tenor and treble. This way it was constituted
with
permanent character a
group of musicians with possibilities of executing the musical
works
that required the most
important ecclesiastical festivities.
The profane music also
completed its part in the society from Caracas of the time. The
captain Francisco
Mijares of Solórzano, «the main characters' of the city …uno,
had in its
house (...) a big key
that, later on, already for the year of 1669, had lent to the
father
brother Felipe Salgado,
of the convent of San Hyacinth….» The existence of such an
important instrument for
the time as it was it the key, it implied the presence of one or
more
performers of the same
one, the practice and popularization of the musical repertoire
written in Europe for
this instrument and a public able to enjoy it. Meanwhile, the
musical
organization of the
cathedral grew in such a way that already in 1671 it became
necessary
to name a chapel
teacher, position that relapsed in the priest's Gonzalo Cordero
person.
Their functions as
chapel teacher consisted on executing the organ, possibly the
key and in
teaching «…a the
singers of the chapter, to the choir children and other
officiating ones of
the cathedral, so much
sings plain as figured music [polyphonic]…» The group of
musicians of the
cathedral integrates it from now on, the «chapel …maestro,
sochantre,
organist, six chaplains
singers [three of those which you/they also play instruments]
and six
children…» In 1687,
Francisco Pérez Camacho enters to act as chapel teacher,
position in
which will be confirmed
by the ecclesiastical Town council in 1693. Three years later,
«…el bishop Baños
and Sotomayor trust the music class recently created in Santa
Rosa's
Colegio Seminario, to
the teacher of chapel of the cathedral….» Refers Héctor
García
Chuecos that in the
constitution octave of those formulated in 1696 for the régime
of the
Real one Associate
Seminar of Caracas that is about the distribution of the hours
of the day
in the mentioned
facility, it is read referring a.m. to that of 10 o'clock: «To
whose hour the
Teacher of Music will go
to give lessons of song plain to the seminars and other that
want,
being governed by
ampolleta in whose lesson will spend half hour (...) This class
for
expressed disposition of
the Bishop, was annexed to the position of Teacher of Chapel of
the cathedral that was
it the presbítero Don Francisco Pérez Camacho for the date.
(...)
Erected the University
of Caracas and solemnly installed August of 1725, 11 the class
of
Music passed to be part
of the plan of studies of the new institute, in charge of the
same
professor that read it
in the Seminar.» Pérez Camacho is this way the first Creole
that
consents then to the
highest existent musical positions. In chapel teacher's position
you
happens respectively:
Silvestre of Half Villa, the father Jacobo Miranda, Ambrosio
Carreño, first of the
musicians Carreño from Caracas who exercises the position
between
1749 and 1778, it dates
in that gives up; in 1789 their brother happens him Alejandro.
So
that, starting from
1771, it dates of the canonical foundation of San Felipe Neri's
oratory,
they existed in Caracas
4 teachers of grateful competition: Ambrosio and Alejandro
Carreño and the
organists Manuel of Sucre and Pedro José of Osío, father.
The well-known musical
movement with the name of School of Chacao is perhaps the most
astonishing that has
been given in America, for the circumstances and projections of
the
same one. Being
contemporary of which took place in Rich Villa (you Mine Gerais,
Brazil), that of Caracas
overcomes it and it is more difficult of to understand and to
explain,
given the form in that
it arose and it was developed. There are 2 fundamental
characters
that are those that
promote the formation of this school here: Juan Manuel Olivares
like
educational, and the
father Pedro Ramón Palacios and Sojo like enthusiast
instigator,
financier and organizer
of this unusual musical company that gave the formation as a
result
of more than 30
composers and more than 150 instrumentalists. The father's
linking Sojo
with the teachers of the
time goes back to several years before the constitution of San
Felipe Neri's oratory.
Already from 1765 «…venía the father Sojo using this
teacher's
services [Ambrosio
Carreño] in the organization of the music for San Felipe Neri's
party
that took place every
year in the Convent of the Monjas Concepciones…» Two
fundamental concerns
disturbed the father Sojo after their ordination like priest in
1762: the
creation of a
congregation nerista and the establishment of a music school.
Both companies
were intimately related
to each other. The real permission to be founded in Caracas the
congregation obtained it
with the help of the marquis of Ustáriz in 1764. In 1769 it
traveled
to Italy to obtain the
authorization of the potato XIV Clemente who granted it to him
for the
bull of December 4 1769.
Of return to Venezuela and in passing for Madrid, took
advantage to acquire
instruments and scores of profane music and nun of the time.
Already
in Caracas, December of
1771, 18 bishop Mariano Martí installs the oratory. It was
summed up this way the
father's aspiration Sojo of founding the congregation in which
with
freedom you can serve to
God using the art and the culture, more concretely the music,
like
half of propagation of
the faith. The father's second concern Sojo was the one of
founding a
music academy to offer
musical education to its protected. To the front of her it put
to Juan
Manuel Olivares. Of this
academy, with the teachings of Olive groves and the father's
orientations Sojo, a
pléyade of composers that constituted the call School of Chacao
arose.
Their name arose for the
place where they met periodically to study and to execute music:
the country properties
the father's Floresta Sojo, near Chacao, the father's San Felipe
José
Antonio García
Mohedano, also in Chacao and Bartolomé Blandín's country
property (or
Blandaín) in what is
today the Country Club. Besides these places, regularly they met
in the
local of San Felipe's
congregation, in the corner of Cypresses. The general Ramón of
the
Square refers mentioning
José Antonio Díaz, The Venezuelan farmer's author that «…el
only musician that there
was then in Caracas of some knowledge was Juan Manuel
Olivares. The father
Sojo took charge him the teaching of several youths that
gathered with
this end, and it took to
its country property of Chacao to pass seasons in that, helped
of
Olive groves, it
directed the teaching; and it was the music so it flourished
among us…» it
Continues Ramón of the
Square later on: «Olive groves, as professor, it ended up
reaching
big knowledge in the
art, those that transmitted to their pupils with ability,
putting into
practice the good
examples, and attracting them with the powerful stimulus of the
competitions». Although
the opposing documentation until the moment doesn't allow to
deduce with who Juan
Manuel Olivares studied, it is not venturous to suppose that he
made
it with Ambrosio
Carreño who had been other musicians' teacher, among them
Beautiful
Bartolomé, or with
Pedro José of Osío who if it didn't end up imparting him the
first music
notions and to guide him
in the art of the instrumental execution and of the composition,
well he could teach him
the art of the production of keys in that which stood out. It
doesn't
fit the smallest doubt
that Olive groves had many pupils, but regrettably the probatory
documentation didn't
appear up to now of which of them they were really it.
The integral composers
of the School of Chacao cultivated the repertoire musical
European
religious of the
consistent XVIII century almost exclusively in masses,
deceaseds' masses,
tedéum, save, motetes,
gradual, offertories, psalms, hymns, deceaseds' lessons, lessons
for
the Week Santa,
condolences and tones for the Christmas. Just as it happens to
the
repertoire of the other
countries of Latin America, it is easy to check here, through
the titles
that appear 2 very
defined goods, keeping in mind their character and style: to)
The
properly this religious
music, with text in Latin, dedicated to the liturgical
occupation, and
b) the profane music of
thematic and religious spirit with text in Spanish, inseparable
of the
religious festivities
(carols, Christmas gifts, tones and condolences). The technique
and the
style of the
instrumental music and religious vowel and it profanes
cultivated in Caracas
with evident influence
of Scarlatti, Pergolesi and Sammartini, it improved sensibly
starting
from 1789 with the
knowledge of scores of Pleyel, Haydn and Mozart. The study and
the
influence of these
European teachers was not translated in a menial imitation, but
rather, on
the contrary, the
Venezuelan works accuse a personality and features that you/they
announce the formation
of characteristic national. The connection of the existent
musical
movement in the
cathedral of Caracas toward half-filled of the XVIII century
with the
arisen composers of the
call School of Chacao, took place through Juan Manuel Olivares
work, Beautiful
Bartolomé, José Francisco Velásquez, father, and others.
Simultaneously
with the activities of
these musicians, it was being formed in the academy a numerous
generation of
instrumentalists and composers. Among the better known ones for
the quality
and importance of their
conserved work Cayetano Carreño figures, José Ángel Licks,
Juan
José Landaeta, José
Francisco Velásquez, son, Gallant Linen, Pedro Nolasco Colón,
Juan
Francisco Meserón,
Beautiful Atanasio and José María Isaza. Of this whole group
of
musicians it stands out
the work of José Ángel especially you Lick. It is the only one
of all
them that it is to the
height of the biggest American colonial composers. The poverty
of
human resources, either
as singers or I eat instrumentalists, it ennobles even more the
achievements obtained by
their inspiration in works as their Three lessons for the
occupation of deceaseds,
Regina, Popule Meus, Miserere and Mass in Re Save. Excepting
the Duet for violins of
Juan Manuel Olivares and the Quartets for 2 flutes, violin and
under
of Beautiful Atanasio,
they are the profane works of concert of Juan Francisco Meserón
the
only ones that know each
other and they conserve in appreciable quantity. Toward 1821
Meserón appears resided
with their family in the town of Petare, acting as chapel
teacher
and managing founder of
a music school. In 1824 it published in Tomás Antero's printing
in Caracas, the first
text of teaching musical form in Venezuela whose title is
Explanation
and knowledge of the
general principles of the music. Meserón frequently uses in its
orchestra an or two
flutes, 2 clarinets, sometimes in substitution of the oboes, a
trumpet, a
bassoon and a trombone,
besides the trumpets and strings. The instrumental disposition
used in almost all the
works of the composers of the School of Chacao are similar to
the
one that in Europe
Giovanni Battista Sammartini practiced, Johann Stamitz, Carl
Stamitz,
Christian Cannabich, F.
J. Gossec, A. E. M. Grétry and F. J. Haydn in their first
symphonies.
Deceased the father Sojo
in 1799, stopped the powerful and enthusiastic personality that
there was to exist
cohesive the efforts of all the musicians arisen in that time.
Starting from
then, the musicians were
grouping around the main musical personalities progressively,
and
they began an expansion
movement that had been unprecedented in all America, if they had
not impeded it the
rebellions and the War of Independence, with the unavoidable
consequences of social
and economic uncertainty. The new musical movement left
profiling toward 3 areas
of the country: guide (Cumaná), occident (Merida) and Caracas
that continued
conserving the supremacy of the musical activities. In Cumaná,
Beautiful
Bartolomé and José
María Gómez Cardiel took charge of diffusing the tradition
musical
inhabitant of Caracas;
in Merida, José María Osorio carried out a versatile activity;
in
Caracas, José María
Montero, belonging to a family dedicated traditionally to the
music,
pupil of José Luis
Landaeta, continued with the tradition of religious compositions
and
«tones». Two children
of Cayetano Carreño: John the Baptist and Juan of the Cruz and
José
Lorenzo Montero, among
other, they project until half-filled of the XIX century the
characteristics of the
colonial music of the School of Chacao. In Caracas, with the
beginning of the new
century, the belonging composers in their majority to the
relegated
class of the brown ones,
begin to cultivate a new gender: the «patriotic song». For
they are
inspired it by the
existent popular songs and in the poetries of patriotic
exaltation that
encouraged the
revolution, as the American Carmañola, the American Song (for
the one
that years later Gallant
Linen would write the music) and the American Sonnet. Beautiful
Atanasio and José
María Isaza, among other, they cultivated with enthusiasm the
new
gender of the patriotic
song, with the purpose of encouraging to the town in the
attainment
of the social and
political recoveries that themselves proclaimed. Of Juan José
Landaeta
(according to John the
Baptist Square) or of Gallant Linen (according to José Antonio
Calcaño) it is the
patriotic song Gloria to the brave town, consecrated then as
national hymn
by president Antonio
White Guzmán in 1881.
Toward the decade of
1830 they begin to infiltrate in Venezuela the romantic ideas;
they
made it first through
manifestations of literary order in the press, in the social
life and in the
theatrical
representations. The same as in other countries of the
continent, the social,
political and economic
conditions, the shortage and precariousness of the scenarios of
the
time (to mention some of
the adverse circumstances), they didn't impede that the Italian
opera even given
fragmentarily and without scenic action, was the main one in
charge of
diffusing the musical
romanticism. In front of these shy and sporadic
«representations»
operatic, they are
developed the romantic manifestations quickly «of living room»
bounded
almost exclusively to
the song and the instrumental piece for piano, violin or song
and
piano. The key and the
piano was even cultivated already during the XVIII century, but
it
will be with the spirit
and the ideas of the romanticism that a vigorous musical
movement
will be developed
centered around the piano, the one that initiate by the middle
of the XIX
century, it will
culminate with Teresa Carreño. The living room music evolved
toward
forms and simple and
accessible formulas to all the social classes and technical
conditions
and its farmers'
intellectuals. For that reason the repertoire for piano
especially, is the one
that marks directions in
that sense, propitiating the creation of formulas cadenciales
that
invariably oscillated
among the tonic, the dominant one and some other neighboring
tones;
the melody, and in
consequence the form, came determined by the application of the
number of compasses
dedicated to the same one, those that always consisted on 4 or
multiples of 4. It is
the time of the accompanied melody, of the virtuosity reduced
planístico to their
more infantile expressions as the invariable repetition of
scales quick, in
agreement arpegiados, 3
extensive trill, shakes, repetition of notes, chromatic passages
in
third and sixth and many
other formulas for the style. An interesting example and
developer
of the importance and
popularization that had the piano and other musical instruments,
as
well as the repertoire
used so much in the profane gender as in the religious during
the
romantic period, gives
it to us the following warning of the newspaper The Federalist:
«Music, Music and more
Music. To the great bazaar. Italian operas: pieces of operas;
chosen Overtures for
piano to 2 and 4 hands. Easy pieces and brilliant variations.
Chosen
pieces for alone flute,
flute and violin; for viol, viol. and piano, alone guitar and
guit. and
flute. Trios for piano,
violin, cello. Sacred music for orchestra for Diabelli,
Cherubini,
Ruffuer and Haydn.
Methods and studies for song for García, Panseron, Bordogni and
Rigliani, for piano, for
violin, etc. music Instruments: Piano-fortes, etc.»
In the XIX century it
disappears the hegemony of the temple like center of musical
activities and it begins
to prosper the profane music in the first social living rooms
and then
in the theaters. A
characteristic example of this process was the artistic meetings
in the
house of the Ustáriz,
family of which was member Francisco Javier of Ustáriz, patriot
and
musician. This situation
was prolonged until having entered the XX century, time in that
you/they will begin the
theatrical activities regularly and of concert. The instrumental
groupings, of ephemeral
and incidental life, they had already made their appearance by
the
middle of the XVIII
century. In the XIX century, among the years 1819 and 1820 an
orchestra appears
attributed to the Academy of Music been founded by Gallant
Linen: the
Philharmonic Society.
One year later, a new instrumental grouping that will work up to
1826 under the direction
of Beautiful Atanasio and Luis Jumel arises. Toward 1831 another
Philharmonic Society is
founded on the part of the previously noted ones again, to those
that José María Isaza
was added. In the informations of this society, published in
printed
leaf by Tomás Antero,
it is said about the repertoire that you/they will be executed
in the
concerts «…sublimes
overtures and symphonies, forced concerts of diverse
instruments,
and song pieces, being
offered that everything is the most select thing in their gender….»
In
1893, Celestino Lira
founded the Philharmonic Santa Cecilia in Petare and the
«band» of
the state Miranda. In
these activities their son Germán Ubaldo happened him.
From ends of the XVIII
century, together with the instrumental activities already
mentioned, the
representations of comedies, tonadillas and sketches are
plentiful in The
Count's theater. To
these scenic manifestations sinks from 1808 the performance of a
«company» of French
opera that wakes up the enthusiasm of the inhabitant of Caracas
for
these lyrical
expressions. From 1822, with the visit of artists lyrical
Italians it begins to
prevail in the public's
pleasure the Italian opera whose influence and more and more
wide
repertoire, are of
manifesto in the inauguration of the theater Caracas in 1854
with the
representation of Ernani
of Giuseppe Verdi. In this theater April 26 1873 opened the
opera
the composer's
Venezuelan José Ángel Virginia Montero. This type of lyrical
theater will
continue modeling the
romantic aesthetic pleasure of the town from Caracas being
accentuated with the
inauguration of the theater White Guzmán (today Municipal
theater)
in 1881, with the opera
The minstrel of Verdi. Of all the microforms cultivated in the
romanticism in Europe
and in America: nocturne, preludes, fantasies, rhapsodies,
Poles,
mazurkas, polkas,
quadrilles and gangs, among other, 2 only rooted in the
Venezuelan
town: the song and the
waltz. The romantic repertoire will be enlarged gradually with
the
cultivation of works for
piano and it orchestrates; fantasies, rhapsodies and paraphrase
for
piano, for orchestra and
it stops band, on topics of operettas and of operas, gender with
which the romantic
creation culminates. The romantic song was the expressive bed of
the
maudlin aspects of the
time and it was constituted in the base of the next musical
movement
of nationalist
orientation. But the technique employee in her harmonization, in
the turn of
the melodies, is an
inheritance received directly through the different generations
of the
School of Chacao,
especially of those «condolences» and «tones». Among the
living room
dances, the waltz
adapted, as made it in other South American towns, to the
idiosyncrasy
of the Venezuelan town,
changing its denomination for the one of «it waltzes». This
«it
waltzes» Venezuelan
modified his movement, being made more vivacious; the same thing
happened to his rhythmic
figuration. It also adapted the expressive sense from their
melody
to the musical practices
of the town, by means of the use of the syncopation and of the
setback and of their
formal division in 2, occasionally in 3 parts. The «great
waltz» of
influence vienesa, of
more than 3 parts, it is European or imitation of the European
and
their popularization was
made through the bands of the towns. These musical groupings
were the main agent
utterer without a doubt in the whole country in the musical ways
cultivated during the
XIX century and it leaves of the XX one. On purpose of the
transformations suffered
by the waltz, Calcaño refers: «In Venezuela, like it also
happened
in other Latin American
countries, acquired the one an unknown rhythmic wealth it
waltzes in Europe. (...)
The popular performers, when adopting the one waltz, they were
incorporating him
rhythmic designs of the joropo, elements of the six for eight of
some
Spanish or native
dances, of the type of having tap-danced, and, also, an entire
abundant
series of origin
syncopations perhaps African, and we don't know to what extent
of
indigenous sources.
(...) We end up this way having in the one Creole it waltzes an
overlapping of different
rhythms and until of different compasses that make in our it
waltzes kind of a
counterpoint of rhythms». One of the most important teachers in
the time,
pianist and composer of
waltzes for piano, Salvador Llamozas, when explaining the form
of
the Venezuelan waltz
says that it is usually constituted by 2 parts, exceptionally
for 3:
«First …la ordinarily
written in the smallest way, is melancholic and leisurely; the
melody
waves smoothly. (...)
When beginning the second, the rhythm is vivified and it
inflames,
and makes its explosion
the enthusiasm. (...) comes the third part later to moderate
such
transports of happiness,
to settle down kind of a dialogue, festival and gallant;
although of
ordinary it consists our
it waltzes of only two parts…» The waltz was par excellence
the
musical form of the
period romantic Venezuelan; it was imposed toward the decade of
1870. With the variants
characteristic of each region, you ended up forming a repertoire
that went from the
popular thing to the most refined academic expressions. As long
as the
popular repertoire of
waltzes spread through small instrumental groups and of bands,
the
most sophisticated
waltzes were only written for the piano. While those were based
on an
elementary
harmonization, cadences and all acquaintances' rhythm, to the
point that was
only written the melody
giving the rest of course; the waltzes for piano were printed in
Caracas and in Europe
and they made Gallic of the most exquisite and gleaned technical
procedures in the
composition system for piano of the time. The period of bloom
this way
almost embraces one
century: from half-filled of the XIX one until the first third
of the XX
century, to the point
that Rházes Hernández López intends to call it «period of
the
valsismo». He waltzes
goes accompanied by the peak of the piano, instrument that it
could
not lack home in the
room of all that it was priced of learned and of possessing
certain
social status. On this
Alirio Díaz says: «…nunca like until then it had reached the
piano
bigger acceptance in the
refined society from Caracas, which ended up considering him an
important element in the
feminine spiritual formation. Thanks to this we had, in the
second
half of the XIX century,
a conspicuous group of ladies pianists that you/they stood out
doesn't only eat
brilliant interpreters, but also as excellent composers. (...)
inside that group
who reached universal
fame as interpreter it was Teresa Carreño, inigualable in their
time….» it Existed
more than a hundred of pianists and violinists fond composers
some,
professionals others.
Some of these musicians were formed in Europe, others in United
States and most carried
out their studies in Caracas with Venezuelan professors and
foreigners that taught
in different official and private institutions. Among the
numerous
pianists Venezuelan
composers of that time they highlight: John the Baptist Abreu,
pupil in
turn of José María
Montero, Martín Díaz Peña, Sebastián Díaz Peña, Rafael
María Saumell,
María Saumell, Jesús
María Suárez, Narciso Salicrup and Salvador Llamozas who
during
more than 30 years it
contributed to the formation of several generations of romantic
pianists and the
popularization of the music through their musical printing and
of the
biweekly magazine of
music and literature Venezuelan Lira that was founded in 1882.
The study of the piano
was something fundamental in the education musical Venezuelan of
the XIX century; it
proves of it is it the quantity of official and private music
schools
disseminated by the
whole country, in which preferably this instrument was studied.
Among them it should be
remembered the Academy of fine arts been founded in 1849
especially, the
Conservatory of fine arts directed in 1870 by Felipe
Larrazábal, the National
Academy of fine arts
(1887) and the Institute of fine arts (1897). In all them the
most
important and forced
program of studies was that of the piano. The biggest composers,
authentic
representatives of the romantic musical movement are: Felipe
Larrazábal,
Federico Villena, Ramón
Thin Palaces, Teresa Carreño and José Ángel Montero. Several
of
them, accomplished
pianists, left important works for this instrument. But it was
not only in
that branch of the
creation that you/they stood out, but rather they also
cultivated with
success inside the
romantic aesthetics, the religious music, the vowel, that of
camera and
the opera. The works of
these composers escape to that romanticism of smaller and
decadenter tone that it
liked to cultivate the bourgeois society of the Caracas of the
second
half of the XIX century.
Of Felipe Larrazábal, Rházes Hernández López that is says
«romantic …nuestro
first, as much for its quality as for its historical moment
(...) who was
a pianist of exquisite
pleasure, interpreted the German classic works preferably with a
carried to an extreme
fineness…» The study of those works explains the cultivation
that
made Larrazábal of the
sonata for piano and of the camera music, represented by a
Quartet,
a Quintet and 5 trios
for piano, violin and violonchelo, of which stands out the Op
especially. 138 núm. 2,
«…quizás the most important composition in the whole XIX
century in Venezuela…»
The influence that exercised on him the Italian opera that was
disclosed in Caracas is
noticed in its smaller works. Federico Villena composed more
than
300 works in all the
goods and of each one of them he has left us excellent examples.
To
the style pianístico
«brilliant» of the time, they correspond their Waltzes of
concerts and the
Fantasy for eight
pianos; in the camera music, stands out their varied Air Op. 52
(1887) for
violin and piano; and
their Quintet for piano, violin, violonchelo and contrabass; in
the
religious music a Mass
to 4 voices, mixed choir and it orchestrates and an Ave María
(1881) to 3 voices and
sextet that continue the style of the School of Chacao. Ramón
Thin
Palaces, pianist,
organist and composer, era possessor of an exceptional technique
that
always put to the
service of the musical expression and I don't eat it was habit
of the time,
like half efectista and
of personal splendor. Their more important production
constitutes it
its waltzes for piano,
works written with a national sense but with a discharge
technical
pianística and a
rhythmic one complex. Teresa Carreño was not only the most
outstanding
musical personality as
piano concertista in Venezuela but internationally. The
perennial one
to stroll characteristic
of their artistic activity subtracted him time to be devoted to
the
composition. This is in
fact the great pianist's not very well-known facet. Their
production
keeps it narrows
relationship with the technique and characteristic procedures of
its favorite
instrument and with the
cultivation in the small ways; everything inside a purified
writing,
without concessions to
the pleasure of the time. It composed some incidental works for
soloists, choir and it
orchestrates, but their work summit is undoubtedly its Quartet
of
strings in if smaller
(1896). With José Ángel Montero culminates the series of big
instrumentalists and
composers of the Venezuelan romanticism. For the circumstance of
being son and at the
same time pupil of José María Montero, became the nexus
transmitter
of the style of the
School of Chacao. This way the colonial musical tradition
arrives almost
until beginnings of the
XX century through Juan Manuel Olivares, teacher of José Luis
Landaeta; on the other
hand this belonged it to José María Montero and this, finally,
of its
son José Ángel. This
last one is one of the most fruitful composers that has had the
country.
It faced all the goods
and it was able to stand out equally in the religious music and
in the
vocal and instrumental
layman, of living room, of concerts and in the theatrical one.
The
bring up to date of its
knowledge on the last European composition tendencies, acquired
them through the direct
study of the works of those musicians. Also, for their linking
with
the operetta and the
opera, through their performance like violinist or piper of the
lyrical
companies that visited
Caracas and as the orchestra's of the theater director Caracas,
acquired the enough
technical knowledge as to amalgamate then, in its own operettas,
the
Hispanic turns with the
Creole rhythms and to attempt its biggest ambition: to write an
opera. This was summed
up with the composition of their opera Virginia on Domenico
Bancalari's libretto. It
should be recognized in Montero the effort that meant to pass
more
or less of the
composition stereotyped in the small ways for piano, to a
complex creation
and of vast proportions
as it is it an opera. With these composers closes the properly
this
romantic period and a
cycle of musical productions of great importance brilliantly in
the
history musical
Venezuelan.
Until compliment the
first room of the XX century will be prolonged the late romantic
manifestations in the
lyrical forms and pianísticas. Example of this offers it to us
Pedro
Elías Gutiérrez works
and of Manuel Leoncio Rodríguez. The first of the noted ones
owes
their fame to the joropo
Alma llanera, integral of the homonymous operetta with text of
Rafael Crowned Bolivar
and to a series of waltzes. Manuel Leoncio Rodríguez,
influenced
by the German composers,
was a genuine representative of the late romanticism, especially
with his work Legend,
for violin and piano. Another composer whose work, aesthetic and
stylistically it
corresponds to the period that we are mentioning, is Reinaldo
Hahn.
However, although born
in Caracas, their work doesn't have contact points with the
history
musical Venezuelan,
because from very boy was educated in Paris. There it developed
their
life and their artistic
production. stood out in the orchestral address, it was managing
of the
opera of Paris and I eat
composer it approached with success the most diverse goods. It
achieved special fame
with their songs gray Chansons, their living room pieces and
their
operettas Ciboulette,
1923; Mozart, 1925; Brummel 1931; Malvina, 1935.
The activities musical
inhabitant of Caracas had only been topic of journalistic
comments
up to 1883; in this date
the work of the general Ramón of the Plaza Ensayos on the art
in
Venezuela offers with
historical perspective a panorama of the musical chore and
plastic of
the country until that
date. The work is written in the style of those
«memorialistas» of the
time and although it
suffers of some inaccuracies, has the merit of being the first
history of
the plastic arts and of
the music that appears in the country. Their data, still today,
they are
consultation source and
of forced investigation. Starting from the last decade of the
XIX
century the abrupt
decadence of the musical activities begins, those that are
reduced to its
more elementary
expressions: the same thing happens to the religious music.
The musical activities
that were developed from the colonial period until the romantic
one,
were consequence of a
coherent evolution with the possibilities of the environment
that
didn't impede the
contact with the expressions musical Europeans of their time.
After the
period guzmancista the
political dysfunctions are happened and an economic decadence is
accentuated that takes
place, among other things, a stagnation in the musical
production
that stayed during
almost 40 years until the decade of 1930. Only starting from
1920, the
young composers of then
they begin to be modernized technical and aesthetically. A new
music related with the
contemporary European tendencies takes place for that
circumstance.
Due to fortuitous
circumstances, toward 1925 they were in Caracas, resided or in
traffic, a
series of fond of the
music coming from different European countries with activities
and
diverse professions; it
only united them the bond common of their passion for the music.
In
the musical meetings
that took place, the scores were studied, the works were
executed for
piano and of the
contemporary composers' camera and the 6 phonographic recordings
of
musicians were listened
until then unknown in Caracas. It was this way that the young
students of that time
music had theopportunity to begin to study César Franck and the
composers belonging to
the Schola Cantorum, to Claude Debussy, Richard Strauss, Darius
Milhaud and Erik Satie.
That renovating group of the Venezuelan music constituted it
initially some few
musicians, with accused differences in age, in the cultural
formation and
in the musical studies:
José Antonio Calcaño, Miguel Ángel Calcaño and Vicente
Emilio
Sojo. To them they were
added John the Baptist Square, Moisés Moleiro, Juan Vicente
Lecuna and performers
and singers like William Werner, Emilio Calcaño Calcaño,
Francisco Esteban
Caballero and Ascanio Negretti Vasconcelos then. Of the old
ones,
according to José
Antonio Calcaño, Manuel Leoncio Rodríguez only met with the
youths
and he was interested in
that they made. Toward 1920, it integrated with José Antonio
Calcaño, Richter and
Francisco Esteban Caballero, the first quartet of strings
dedicated to
study and to disclose
the new European music. It is evident that the diffusion of the
new
tendencies caused a
rupture with the musicians belonging to the old school
«valsística» and
of the «romantic
pianismo». made it a new activity to arise simultaneously: the
musical
critic, exercised mainly
by José Antonio Calcaño with Juan Sebastián's alias and John
the
Baptist Square, from the
press, which was an excellent means to justify, to clarify, to
support and to discuss
the new realizations.
Toward 1925, the camera
music was the only one with possibilities of since execution
orchestral groups and
stable corals they didn't exist. The only artistic-musical
activity that
offered with certain
regularity in the Municipal theater, was especially the Italian,
due
opera seasons to manager
Adolfo Bracale, among the years 1917 and 1932. Rházes
Hernández López says:
«It stops three rooms of shows then they had their hired
Orchestras:
they were the cinemas
Rialto, Capitol, the Teatro Calcaño and, later on, the theater
Ayacucho whose
directors, violinist José Lorenzo Llamozas and Teacher Vicente
Martucci,
they offered good
auditions with pieces of operas and other orchestral fantasies.
Among the
years of 1927 and 1928,
our learned composers met in the School of Music and
Declamation [today
Superior School of Music José Ángel Licks] and there they
changed
ideas on the problems of
the art…» An unexpected event came to incentivate even more
the
enthusiasm of that group
of young musicians. In December of 1927 it acted with great
success in the Municipal
theater of Caracas the group of Choirs and Ukrainian Dances,
integrated by 18 voices.
It provided it the idea to: «…Emilio Calcaño who being
friend of
the Russian grouping
proposed to John the Baptist Square and Vicente Emilio Sojo,
director and subdirector
of the Musical Tribune of the cathedral of Caracas, to make a
procession of Russian
choir for the next carnivals of 1928. (...) Accepted the project
a small
compound choir was
constituted by Sojo, Square, José Antonio Calcaño, Miguel
Ángel
Calcaño, Emilio
Calcaño and William Werner. (...) The musical repertoire was of
about 20
numbers, music composed
by Sojo, Square, José Antonio and Miguel Ángel Calcaño. It
was a firm success…»
For suggestion of Isaac Capriles to Vicente Emilio Sojo, it was
thought then of
organizing a chorus that would take the name of José Ángel you
Lick and
that Vicente Emilio Sojo
would direct. For it, during the years 1928 and 1929, Moisés
Moleiro and the
composers already mentioned they were devoted to write the
repertoire
consistent coral in
songs and madrigals. The presentation of the combined coral
integrated
for more than 80 voices
took place in June of 1930.
To all this, the
orchestral activity began to charge importance and regularity in
its
operation, for the
desire of the jerarquizar musicians and to give professional
character to
its activities, at the
time that you/they constituted them in a half respectable of
life. In 1922
is founded the
Philharmonic Union of Caracas under the direction of Vicente
Martucci,
society that will last
up to 1929. Many of their members will be those that, June of
1930, 24
will intervene in the
National theater in the inaugural concert of the new and
definitive
grouping orchestral
denominated Society Symphonic Venezuela it Orchestrates. Among
them, Vicente Martucci
who directed the first part of the inaugural concert and it
shared
during that year the
address with Vicente Emilio Sojo. It is a happy and symptomatic
coincidence the fact
that, simultaneously with the enthusiasm to study and to
cultivate new
composition formulas was
carried out the creation of a choir and of an orchestra. It was
good it to capture in a
reality all the dreams of those young musicians' musical
creation. It
began to be systematized
and jerarquizarse the musical docencia. In the School of Music
and Declamation, John
the Baptist Square was made position of the classes of Harmony
and Composition from
1924 up to 1928. For their initiative, the Ministry of Education
creó
the class of History of
the Music in 1931.
In 1936 Sojo director of
the School is named, believe new classes and he takes to his
position that of
Composition, of which the first generation of composers will
arise in 1944.
The existence and
development of these 2 fundamental institutions for the
improvement
and diffusion of the
music: the Chorus Licks and the Symphonic Orchestra Venezuela,
they
are due to the effort
and perseverance of Sojo to take them to good term. Without
their
work tesonera to elevate
the musical level of the country, anything had been achieved.
Under their teaching
they were formed 3 generations of composers and well it can be
said
that, from their class
of Composition, it contributed sobremanera to create the modern
school of Venezuelan
music. The other prominent and excellent aspect of its work is
the
summary, harmonization
and arrangement of great quantity of songs, Christmas gifts and
popular dances to the
style of the tradition of the singers and «guitar-makers»
popular.
Their numerous works of
religious character follow the technical limits of the big
Renaissance
polifonistas, inside a strict formal and tonal sense that
connects them, in turn,
with the tradition of
our colonial composers. In all their production a nationalist
feeling that
will take charge of
inculcating to its pupils floats. Of all the composers belonging
to this
century, the most
fruitful was John the Baptist Square. Its music, of nationalist
tendency,
accuses a very personal
style deeply consustanciado with our musical tradition as they
demonstrate it its
réquiem Mass and the symphonic poems The abrupt peak, The
hours,
Escapes Creole and
romantic Flight. Their catalog surpasses the 300 works. stood
out,
also, as teacher of
chapel of the cathedral of Caracas, lecturer, educational and
investigator.
In this sense, their
cataloguing work, study, reconstruction and publication of the
music of
the colonial period that
it embraced the years 1936 at 1944, allowed to save and to
diffuse
one of the most valuable
musical files in the continent. The group founder's of the
modernist movement other
outstanding member was José Antonio Calcaño. Their incessant
work in pro of the
Venezuelan music and for the diffusion of the music in general,
it carried
out it like critical
musical, radio lecturer, television and cultural institutions,
as educational,
instrumentalist,
orchestra's director, of choirs, musicólogo and composer. The
same as their
group partners, on the
different influences of technical character the nationalist
spirit
prevails in its
production. carried out an immense work in uninterrupted form
during more
than 40 years in favor
of the diffusion of the European and national music, through the
docencia and to the
front of the choral Creole that he was founded. Their more
transcendent
work has been the
investigation musicológica, summed up in a publication that
summarizes
all its previous works:
The city and their music (1958), I study on the evolution of the
Venezuelan music from
the Colony up to 1919. Its musical production, framed at the
beginning by the
impressionism, soon intrudes for new courses of the modern
composition
(suppression of
developments, atonalismo, politonalidad, highlight special of
the
instrumental bells), in
works as its extracted Suite of the ballet Miranda in Russia,
inspired
by the hero's from
Caracas life, and integrated for: Overture, Nocturne, Scene and
Final
Dance; their Chose coral
to Andrés' memory White Eloy; In Memoriam, in homage to the
heroes of the battle of
Carabobo and Of Profundis, it works symphonic-coral in homage to
Simón Bolívar, they
constitute clear examples of their transcendent nationalist
sense, of
universal projection.
Moisés Moleiro was integrated at the little time of organized
the group
of those 3 pioneers of
the music modern Venezuelan. Although it composed preferably for
their instrument, the
piano, also approached the composition for orchestra, song and
piano
and mixed choir to
capella. Their works, of clearing nationalist sense, with
estilización of
melodic turns and
folkloric rhythms, always appear framed inside classic or
Baroque forms:
Sonata to the classic
style, for piano and later on orchestrated for orchestra of
strings, Small
suite, 5 sonatinas,
infantile Suite, you Stamp of the plain. Other outstanding
pianist and
composer that was
integrated to the previous group are Juan Vicente Lecuna. Their
production understands
diverse goods, but its creations better achieved they are those
that
thought for its favorite
instrument, the piano. Its music, of a transcendent nationalism,
always went unaware to
the folkloric document and of an advanced harmonic conception,
with regard to the one
practiced by its countrymen. They are an example of it their
Sonatas
of High Grace, their
Quatre pièces pour piano, their Movement for orchestra, the
Dance for
orchestra, the Quartet
of strings and the Sonata for harp.
While this group of
composers and other more, they carried out their creative works,
Sojo,
from its class of
Composition in the School of Music prepared the first promotion
of
composers that
egresaría in 1944. Its educational work in this sense will
extend until the
generation egresada in
1964. This numerous group of young composers begins to create
inside the nationalist
current and of technical and expressive tendencies
characteristic of the
impressionism. Many of
them, as they go securing their own values, they begin to
rehearse
new technical resources.
In the those 20 year-old course they were formed and they
entered
to the life of creation
artistic numerous Venezuelan composers. Among the disclosed
works
in these composers we
select those of: Antonio Estévez: Suite llanera (1942), I
Concert for
orchestra (1950), Creole
Cantata: Florentine the one that sang with the devil (1954).
Innocent Carreño:
Margariteña (1954), Suite symphonic núm. 1 (1955). angel
Sauce:
Jehová reigns, cantata
(1948), Cecilia Mujica, ballet symphonic-coral (1957), king's
Miguel
Romance, ballet, (it
orchestrates and autochthonous instruments, 1961). Blanca
Shatters
(first woman that
obtained in Venezuela composer's title in 1948), Fantasy of
Christmas
(1948), Three stamp
symphonic, María Lionza, symphonic poem (1958). José Clemente
Laya: Venezuelan suite
(1956), Rhapsody (1957), both stop orchestra. Evencio
Castellanos:
I concert for piano and
it orchestrates (1944), The river of the seven stars, symphonic
poem
(1946), Santa Cruz of
Pacairigua, symphonic poem, Suite avileña (1947), The Tirano
Aguirre, profane oratory
(1962). Antonio Lauro: Cantaclaro, profane cantata on the
homonymous novel of
Galician Rómulo (1948), negroid Turns, symphonic suite (1955),
I
Concert for guitar and
it orchestrates (1956). Nelly Mele Lara: Fantasy for piano and
it
orchestrates (1961),
Creole Mass (1966). Andrés Sandoval: Symphony for piano and it
orchestrates (1950),
Rhapsody for piano and it orchestrates (1956), Caracas, concert
for
clarinet and it
orchestrates. Modest Bor: Overture for orchestra (1963), Sonata
for violin
and piano (1963).
Gonzalo Castellanos: Suite symphonic inhabitant of Caracas
(1947),
Advance and fleeting
imitation (1954), Fantasy for piano and it orchestrates (1957).
Raimundo Pereira:
Symphonic movement, Song. José Luis Muñoz: Classic sonata
(1954),
symphonic Prelude
(1958). Alba Quintanilla: Cycle of songs for soprano and piano
(1966),
Three songs for
mezzo-soprano and it orchestrates (1967). José Antonio Abreu:
It
concerted grosso for
piano and strings, Sinfonietta neoclassicist, two Symphonies.
Federico
Ruiz: Sonata for
accordion (1971), The santiguao, prelude and flight vowel on a
negroid
topic (1976), Dispersion
(1976); Evocation (1976), poem symphonic-coral, Quartet of
strings (1976), intimate
Page (1979), piano, violin and violonchelo, Concert for piano
and it
orchestrates (1979),
Travel (1981, recitante, quintet of mixed voices or choir, organ
and it
orchestrates), Byte
(1983).
Of the persevering
effort of those 3 founders: Calcaño, Sojo and Square, were an
artistic
movement of great span.
That awakening of the consciences toward the new artistic
orientations accelerates
in the decade of 1960. It corresponds mainly Rházes Hernández
López, composer, piper,
educational, musicólogo and critical musical, to break up with
the
traditional molds and to
attempt new roads through the atonalismo and of the
dodecafonismo. Their
incessant prédica encouraging the young composers and
instrumentalists to
assimilate and to practice the expressive modalities of the new
music, it
is finally understood
and accepted. Together with Alejandro Planchart and José Luis
Muñoz, it tries to
implant the dodecafonismo. Hernández López's musical
production
understands more than 50
titles for orchestra, camera music, piano, song and piano, flute
and piano, violin and
piano and works corals. Of them we select: Casualismo, for wood,
strings and percussion
(1960), Casualismo, for forced piano and small orchestra (1967),
Three dimensions, for
orchestra of strings (1967), Three structures for piano (1970),
The
patios of the sun
(1978), cycle of 7 atonal songs for soprano and piano,
Casualismo for
flute (1990). Meanwhile,
another group of composers of diverse aesthetic tendencies,
formed outside of the
class of Sojo impels the renovation and they contribute variety
of
tendencies to the
musical creation. Among them Luis Calcaño Díaz, María Luisa
Escobar,
Eduardo Plaza, Carlos
Teppa, Alexis Rago, Alfredo of the Mónaco, Luis Morales Bance
and Eric Colón, among
others.
The prédica of Rházes
Hernández López to achieve a renovation of the thought and the
technique musical
Venezuelan is supported by a series of favorable events; among
the most
important, the festivals
of Latin American music that, organized by Innocent Palaces they
began in 1954, they
continued in 1957 and they culminated in 1966, allowing the
exchange
of ideas and the
knowledge and comparison with what was made in other countries
of Latin
America. It also
contributed the enthusiasm and support toasted by
instrumentalists, singers
and the own Symphonic
Orchestra Venezuela under the direction of their regular Pedro
Antonio Ríos Reyna,
always willing to use for the first time new works. In 1965 the
creation of the
Institute of Musical Phonology gave the opportunity to
experience with the
sound to restless minds,
as that of Alfredo of the Mónaco who composed Cromofonías I
there (1966-1967) and
electronic Study I (1966-1968), first rehearsals
electroacústicos
carried out in the
country. This pianist, composer, lawyer, doctor in music of the
University
of Columbia (United
States), it has experienced with formulas that you/they go from
the
use of instruments and
camera groups and orchestral in their traditional form, until
the
music electroacústica,
going by the treatment of the human voice. Luis Morales Bance
prefers the classic
forms and the traditional rhythmic and expressive turns,
although
expressed in a current
language, among his compositions they are: Berruecos (1981) and
Páez (1990). Eric
Colón, guitarist, composer and educational, has written for
diverse
goods: Motete, for mixed
choir (1971), Quartet of strings (1973), before Columbus Vision,
symphonic poem (1975),
Studies for guitar (1975), The horse of Ledesma, opera (1979).
This last one
constitutes one of the efforts more valuable facts inside the
gender in the
history musical
Venezuelan, with text in Spanish and national matter. Venezuela
has today
a numerous group of
young composers many of which already have an appreciable
quantity
of compound works,
published some of them and recorded; Sergio Tulio Marín: Poem
for
orchestra (1977),
musical Theater (1978), Paix dans them brisements (1980); Emilio
Mendoza: Dawn, Study
tímbrico, Reading, The human orbit, Secrets; Alfredo Roars
them:
Suite for piano (1972),
Mutations (1974), Pollution (1976), Points and lines, we are
nine
(1979), The decline of a
hero (1983); Juan Carlos Núñez: Symphonic Toccata (1972),
Homage to Carlos Chávez
(1975), the man's More music in another history, I Move away
Carpentier, 1930 (1983),
Réquiem to Don Simón Bolivar's memory (1983); Ricardo Teruel:
Our culture vegetates
(1975), Flash 5 (1978), Reencuentro number 1, Breathes to your
natural rhythm;
Francisco Rodrigo: chose (1973), Seven impressions inhabitant of
Caracas
for piano (1977), The
epic poem of the spike (1979), mystic Itinerary of Santa Teresa
of
Jesus (1983), I Concert
for mandolin and it orchestrates (1984), Tropikalia (1988), I
Concert for harp and it
orchestrates (1990), Tríptico agustiniano (1992); María
Guinand:
Miniatures (1975), AND
they stayed the birds singing (1980); Álvaro Lamb: Réquiem
(1979), Children of the
future, night Circus for oboe and it orchestrates (1980);
Alfredo
Marcano: Cidencias
(1983); Mauro Cremisini: I concert for percussion and it
orchestrates
(1983); Beatríz Bilbao:
Be of madness (1983); Eduardo Kusnir: Gags-Kags, below the
terror (1984), How Lily
is (1985), spring Orchids, Toast, The history of Blancanieves,
Miranda in France,
Simple; Adina Izarra: Until the time (1981), Oshunmare (1982,
Plumismo (1986),
Pitangus sulphuratus (1987), Reverón (1989), through some
transparencies (1990),
Two movements for quintet (1990); Juan of Dios López: Modal
suite
(1988), Triludio (1989),
Isomeric (1990), Punta Araya (1991); Arcángel Castillo: chose
for
strings (1989),
Aphorisms for symphonic orchestra (1990); Alfonso
Tenreiro-Vidal: Guri
(1989), Memoirs of the
centaur (1990), Images of light (1991); Juan Andrés Sanz:
Offering
(1981), Margarita
(1984), Serpentine, Coral and Celedonia (1987), Miniatures of
the tarot
(1988); Juan Francisco
Sanz: Impromptu (1987), Lasciatemi will die (1988), I Sing the
infinite children
(1989), Of the liberation in the ways (1990); Miguel Astor:
Spiritual song
(1986), Ballad (1987),
Pasacaglia and escapes (1989), popular Suite (1988); Victor
Beaches her: Binomial I
(1984), Quartet (1987), The song of Kronos (1987), Intersection
5
(1990); Mercedes Otero:
Siamodue (1983), Gravitation (1985), Thresholds of the imaginary
thing (1993), In
memoriam Alexander (1993). Among the foreign composers resided
in
Venezuela that you/they
followed the tendencies aesthetic contemporaries we mention:
Eduardo Kusnir, Luis
Zubillaga, Antonio Mastrogiovanni, Beatríz Lockhart,
JoséPeñín,
Mabel Mambretti. Of the
youngest generation in Venezuelan composers that you/they are
offering their first
creations, we will mention: Diego Rafael Silva, Roberto Cedeño,
Julio
d'Escriván, Miguel
Noya, Jorge Castillo, Pedro Simón Rincón, Gustavo Matamoros,
Alonso Toro, León
Zapata, Francisco Zapata, Rodrigo Segnini, Simón Álvarez, Erin
Vargas, Ricardo Lorenz,
Roberto Chacón, Fidel Rodríguez, César Iván Lara, Miguel
Ángel
Mieres, Jacky Schreiber,
Josefina Benedetti, Juan Cristóbal Palacios, Jesús Calderón,
Renata Cedeño, Juan Red
Mateo, Numa Tortolero, Efraín Amaya, Pedro Mauricio
González, Andrés
Barrios, Omar Acosta, Icli Zitella, Bárbara Pérez, Luis Felipe
Barnola,
César Alejandro
Carrillo, Paul Desenne.
Regarding musical
institutions and symphonic orchestras the increment is
exceptional. To
the traditional
Symphonic Orchestra Venezuela been founded in 1930 is added: the
Symphonic Orchestra
Maracaibo (1958); the Juvenile National Orchestra Juan José
Landaeta created in 1975
by their current managing José Antonio Abreu; the Infantile
National Orchestra and
the Venezuelan Youth's Simón Bolívar National Symphonic
Orchestra, both been
founded in 1978; the created Philharmonic Orchestra and directed
by
Aldemaro Romero in 1979
and the Philharmonic Orchestra from Merida been founded in
1981 under the direction
of Hugo López; the Municipal Orchestra directed by Carlos
Riazuelo created in
Caracas in 1980. From the first half of the XX century special
interest
existed to study and to
disclose the music of European camera and for such ends they
were
organized different
groups: Quintet Ávila (1926), Cuarteto Ríos (1931), Cuarteto
Caracas
(1932), Quartet Santa
Cecilia (1947), Cuarteto Galzio (1947) of excellent performance
in
the country and abroad.
In 1958 in the Central University of Venezuela is founded the
Orchestra of Camera and
the Instrumental Grouping of Camera. Later on they are founded
the Agrupación Música
Antigua (1960), the Orchestra of Camera of the University of the
Zulia (1963), the Trío
Inciba (1965), the Trío Méscoli-Sternic-Casale (1965), Duet of
Pianos Gerty Haas-Olga
Mondolfi (1965), Quinteto Glamar (1965), Orchestra of
Metropolitan Camera of
Caracas (1970), Baroque Group of Camera (1970), it Orchestrates
Juvenile of Camera of
Trujillo (1972), Trio and Orchestra of Camera of the University
of
you Walk Them (1973),
Camerata of Caracas (1978), Instrumental Group of Cámara
Multifonía (1981). They
were also constituted: the Cuarteto Caracas, the Cuarteto
Giovanni, the Cuarteto
Pro-Arte of Caracas, Cañas Pro-art's Trio, the Trío Gay,
Vientos
Venezuela's Quintet and
the grouping instrumental Soloists of Venezuela. From 1980 it
dates the creation of
the Group New Music dedicated to the execution and
popularization of
the contemporary music.
Few years later the Orchestra of Latin American Instruments
directed by Emilio
Mendoza and the Group of Music Antigua Andrea Gabrieli of the
Juvenile National
Orchestra directed by Alessandro Zara were created.
In the interpretation
coral, José A. Calcaño is founded in 1940 the Polyphonic
Choral of
Venezuela. Antonio
Estévez believes the University Chorus (1943), institution that
has
served as guide and
stimulus for the creation of other similar ones in the country.
The
University Chorus has
also been directed, by Evencio Castellanos who is the author of
the
hymn of the Chorus,
together with Luis Pastori and L. Alfaro Calatrava, authors of
the
letter. Between 1954 and
1976 Vinicio Adames directs it. In 1952 José Antonio Calcaño
is
founded and it directs
the Coral Creole, and the following year believes a polyphonic
group
of 8 voices: The
Madrigalistas. Later on they arise: the Quinteto Contrapunto
(1963), the
Schola Cantorum of
Caracas directed by Alberto Grau (1967), Alberto Grau's
Cantoría
under the direction of
María Guinand, the Philharmonic Choral of Caracas under the
conduction of Serbian
Tulio Marín, the Cantoría of founded Merida and directed in
their
beginnings by Rubén
Rivas, the Philharmonic Choral Carabobo driven by Federico
Núñez
Crowns, the Movimiento
Coral Sings been founded in 1973 by Alberto Grau, the
Fundación Niños
Cantores of the founded Zulia and directed by the father Gustavo
Ocando
Yamarte. These and other
groupings corals intervened in 1983 in the VII Festival National
Coral in Caracas and in
the First Festival Vinicio Adames (I Find National of Choirs in
Barquisimeto, state
Lara). From 1952, year in that Ugly Eduardo Calcaño and Cousin
Marry him they organized
the National School of opera, the singers egresados of the same
one has intervened in
the setting in scene of numerous operas of the universal
repertoire
under the baton of the
second of the noted ones. On the other hand, the Metropolitan
opera
jointly with being
FOUNDED they organized an opera season annually. Starting from
1975
a new institution
dedicated to promote the operatic shows appears: the Fundación
Teresa
Carreño.
Among the numerous
official and private institutions that collaborate in the
diffusion of the
Venezuelan music through
the disk we will mention among other, to those that make it
regularly and in
accordance with a plan traced ahead of time: the Foundation
Mito-Juan Pro
Música that in 1970 it
began the edition of the series youths Venezuelan soloists, the
Association Vicente
Emilio Sojo and the Latin American Institute of Investigations
and
Musical Studies Vicente
Emilio Sojo. The musical education is imparted through the
dependent music schools
of the Ministry of Education, of the National Council of the
Culture, of the
Venezuelan Institute of Música Simón Bolívar, of the
Foundation of the
State for the Juvenile
Orchestra from Venezuela and of numerous private institutions,
among others: Italian
conservatory, Colegio Emil Friedman and at university level, in
the
School of Art of the
Ability of Humanities and Education of the Central University of
Venezuela. Starting from
1970 they multiply in the country the possibilities of bring up
to
date of the composition
studies. We highlight: the teacher's of Greek origin Yannis
Ioannidis course,
technical modern and contemporary of composition; the courses
dictated
in the Institute of
Phonology by Thin Raúl Estévez and Serbian Tulio Marín; the
dictations
in the School of Music
José Ángel Lick for William Banchs; those that some foreign
composers dictated as
Luis Zubillaga, Eduardo Kusnir, Héctor Tosar and Antonio
Mastrogiovanni. In 1983
the Venezuelan Society of Musical Education was constituted.
The related with the
study, edition and publication of the music academic Venezuelan
is
carried out through the
departments corresponding of the Foundation Vicente Emilio Sojo.
Their organ divulgativo
is the Musical Magazine of Venezuela. In the Congress of
Musicología carried out
in the city of Lima (Peru) in 1982, declared it to him organ
representative difusor
of the Latin American musicología. The same institute, in 1983,
copatrocinó with the
Organization of the American States (OAS), I SAW it
Interamerican
Conference of Musical
Education and carried out the First Latin American Encounter of
Composers, Musicólogos
and Critical. In 1992 it was inaugurated the Center of
Documentation and
Acoustic-musical Investigations (CEDIAM) of the UCV.
The existent composition
prizes in Venezuela at the present time are: I compete National
of
Composition; I Reward
Municipal of Music; Competition of Composition of the
Universidad Simón
Bolívar; I Reward Bianual of Innocent Musical Composition
Carreño,
organized by the Latin
American Institute of Investigations and Musical Studies Vicente
Emilio Sojo. As for the
competitions for interpreters stand out: Latin American of Canto
Carmen Teresa of having
Stolen; Latin American of Piano Teresa Carreño; International
of
Guitarra Alirio Díaz,
all organized ones for the Latin American Institute of
Investigations
and Musical Studies
Vicente Emilio Sojo. The list of interpreters Venezuelan or
foreign
residents that you/they
triumph at the moment in the country and abroad has come being
increased more and more.
A decisive factor in the impulse and diffusion that have reached
the musical
manifestations, constitutes it the inauguration in 1983, of the
theater of the
Fundación Teresa
Carreño. This complex, with its diverse rooms, doesn't only
allow the
simultaneous realization
of different shows, but rather it facilitates the concentration
of
rehearsals and shows you
tune to each other as they are it the symphonic orchestras, the
camera groups, the opera
and the dance. Another excellent aspect constitutes it the
massive
extension of the
pleasure for the study of the more diverse activities related
with the music,
still of those that lack
tradition in the country like the luthería and the
musicología. In
summary, the musical
activities observe a constant development, so much in the aspect
of
the diffusion like in
the field of the docencia at university level.
Folkloric music
The music of oral
tradition in Venezuela is the result of a long one and complex
process
whose main components
are the following ones: The Hispanic music: From the XVI
century to the XIX one
the music and the transplanted Spanish culture exercise an
almost
absolute prevalence,
that which is easy to understand for the following reasons: to)
The
prestige of a culture
and the might of a nation that it was center irradiante in
Europe in the
XVI century and in
America; b) the language; c) the traditional poetry (ballads,
romances,
tenth) that almost
constitute the entirety of the wealth folkloric Venezuelan, and
d) the
Christian religion. The
music and European dances: From the Colony they were practiced
in the cities. The music
and dances of African origin arrived with the contingents of
slaves,
contributing a great
wealth in rhythmic turns, danzarios and in musical instruments.
The
indigenous music of the
groups that you/they inhabited and they inhabit these
territories; it
is maybe it is the one
that less influence had due to the prohibitions that imposed
them the
ecclesiastical
authorities from the first years of the Colony, with the purpose
of avoiding its
manifestations
«pagans».
It is certain the origin
of these elements in the music folkloric Venezuelan, those that
conscious or
unconsciously they show. The geographical localization of the
groups human
residents of the
different regions of Venezuela, contributes to offer a
significant panorama
of the great diversity
in ways and styles that were adapting for transculturación
reasons. So
in you pierce them
Spaniards, Andean and central region, the music of Hispanic
tradition
prevails; in the coastal
areas, the rhythms and African dances and in the areas wild,
last
haven of the indigenous
groups, its own musical manifestations prevail.
Music with religious
function: Wakes: The traditions musical Hispanics linked with
the
religion have given in
Venezuela a polyphony form, undoubtedly learned vocally in the
songs of the church and
also transmitted vocally, denominated «wake tones». Luis
Felipe
Ramón and expressed
Rivera: «…son songs that execute to three voices and
according to
different ways. There
are them, for example, according to the parallel form of the
fabordón,
and also, of aspect
contrapuntístico (...) They are executed «to capella» and
also with
accompaniment of four…»
The verses can be mainly tenth and ballads. They are sung in
those «cross wakes»
that are carried out in May, in those «saint's wakes», in any
time of the
year, and sometimes in
those «angelito wakes». This ceremony is carried out in front
of an
altar where is the cross
adorned with flowers and lit candles; also in front of those
«calvaries»,
neighboring hills to the population in whose part superior the
cross is placed,
or in the squares of the
towns. The song of those «tones» it is the most important
manifestation from this
cult to the cross. The 3 voices that intervene take each one a
name
and they come in the
following way: the main voice «it guides» or «alante» or
«it prevails»,
it begins the song and
it is the one in charge of intoning, alone, the melodies; the
other 2
voices are united in the
cadences. The one that sings the sharpest part calls you
«false»,
«contralto» or «
mediates false»; the serious voice is denominated «tenor» or
«tenorete». It
is frequent that when
meeting the voices in the cadences they intone extensive ayes.
The
fulía is another song
that is carried out in those «wakes of cross of May» in the
area of
Windward, in which
you/they are evident the Hispanic and African turns; the
accompaniment is made
with four, tambora, charrasca and maracas. It is a song of style
responsorial generally
intoned by a woman and a choir integrated by present people.
This
alternating song repeats
varying the letter until a person of the present gives the voice
of:
until there! begins a
recited of tenth then varied in charge of different men until
another of
the present screams an
allusive sentence to the one recited, beginning the song of the
then
«fulía». This
alternating activity with others of religious character (I pray
of the rosary, of
sentences, etc.), during
the whole night in that it is carried out the «cross wake».
The
galerón is another
species that is sung in celebration of the «cross of May». In
this respect
Ramón and Rivera says:
«Their melody and accompaniment (harmony and instruments)
they are part of an
archaic song book extended by the whole area that takes a bath
the sea
Caribbean». The
accompanying instruments are the bandolín, the guitar and the
four. These
instruments begin kind
of an instrumental prelude and they execute an interlude among
each tenth intoned by
different singers. This tenth are almost always of thematic «to
the
divine thing» and
frequently glossed.
San Juan's parties and
San Pedro are opportunity of important manifestations you would
musician-dance in
Venezuela, especially in the coastal and central states. Juan
Liscano says
that Saint John the
Baptist devotion and those «drum dances», they are bound, in a
vast
geographical area of
Venezuela, from the Colony. They were parties of
economic-agrarian
character linked to the
crop of the cocoa whose functionality has decayed at the present
time, although the party
persists with its «Christian aspect hybrid half and African
half».
The calls «drum
dances» with those that takes place the party, they are many
and they are
made in the state
Miranda to the they are of the «battery of round drums» and of
2 big
drums: the «it mines»
and the «curbata». Party of San Benito: Another party in which
you/they occur very
marked the Hispanic and African influences, it is that of San
Benito
that is carried out at
the end of the month of December in the states Falcon, Zulia,
Trujillo
and Merida. In this
party they are carried out processions with San Benito's image;
songs
are intoned and it is
danced to the touch of instruments that you/they vary according
to the
region: «drums
chimbangles» or «chimbángueles», in the area of the lake of
Maracaibo,
and of rope instruments,
in the Andean areas. Party of San Francisco of Yare: For Corpus
Christi's celebration in
the town of San Francisco of Yare, in the state Miranda,
especially,
but also in other
regions of the states Cojedes, Guárico, Carabobo, Aragua and
Federal
District, take place the
«wake of the Sacred Sacramento». During the night they
alternate
the prayers with the
song of those «fulías»; these take accompaniment of four,
charrasca,
tambora and maracas and
tenth are also recited. The following day the group of «dancing
devils», dances to the
compass of the «redoblante», of the chiming of the bells of
the
church and of the
maracas.
Party of San Antonio:
San Antonio is celebrated in the state Lara June 13 with the
dance of
the «tamunangue»,
integrated by 7 dances, species of suite that you/they are
executed to the
they are of the four,
five, drum «cumaco», sticks and maracas. The parts are all
sung by the
musicians to alone or to
duet. Before the dance or at their end, according to the
religious or
festival circumstances,
it is sung the it Saves whose music is of religious-popular
origin and
it is intoned to two
voices; then San Antonio's Joys also to duet; the continues
«tone», also
to two voices. It
continues him the «blow» that one sings to duet: the cuarteta
and the
refrain sing it each one
in alternating form. Next, the dance begins with the denominated
game of sticks «it
battles» and subsequently the dances are executed that take the
names of:
The beautiful one, The
yeyevamos, The juruminga, The perrendenga, The little by little,
The six figuriao and The
galerón. In this musician-choreographic expression they mix the
drum rhythm, the sticks
that hit the drum, soloist's alternation and choir, the dances
of
African origin, with the
melodies of the cordófonos of European character, as most of
their
verses.
The music and the
folkloric dances are intimately bound to religious functions,
although
with running of the
time, this function is substituted by that of amusement and
recreation. It
happens this way to
great part of manifestations that you/they had an origin linked
to
religious or sacred
commemorations, as cries Her in The Victoria in the state
Aragua, in
commemoration of the day
of the deads. This consisted on a series of dances with own
music in which the
instruments intervened: contrabass, bandolín, guitar, four,
maracas and
«carángano». The
turas, celebration of indigenous character related with the
cultivation of
the corn, takes place in
the state Falcon, September 24. Their music is executed by
indigenous instruments:
two called flutes «male tura» and «female tura», 2 whistles
of deer
skull and a maraca.
keeps their indigenous, related musical and choreographic
characters
«…en forms direct
with the dances that you/they went common to the area of the
Caribbean…», Miguel
Acosta Saignes says.
The music in religious
function is very abundant in Venezuela and it is impossible to
point
out, in so brief space,
the multiple forms and styles adopted to celebrate a saint
especially
or the modalities that
those forms acquire in the diverse regions in that you/they take
place.
Christmas Festejos: The
music and the songs accompany the Christmas parties that in
Venezuela traditionally
extend from December 16 until the party of the Candlemas's
Virgin, February 2.
Those «Christmas gifts», descending of the oldest songs
traditional
conserved Spaniards: the
carols of the XV centuries to XVII (song of villainous or
peasant),
they present a less
complicated outline. They adopt the form of a romancillo of 6
syllables
and they sometimes
decrease to the form of a cuarteta, the one that constitutes the
refrain
when repeating. These
traditional songs are accompanied with a special instrumental
group:
four, «furruco»,
tambora, «tambourine», «chineco» and occasionally violin or
bandolín.
The Christmas gifts are
also sung in many festejos, among them the «paradura, robbery
and
search of the Boy» that
takes place in the states Táchira, Merida and Trujillo; San
Joaquín's
Shepherds in the state
Carabobo and San Miguel's Shepherds in the state Trujillo.
Ramón
and expressed Rivera
that: «The Venezuelan Christmas gift that is sung above all,
accepts
the use of numerous
instruments however as much singers as companions». This way
for
example, it can be part
of the instrumental group the violin, the clarinet or the
bandolín
(mandolin), and until
the accordion like instruments singers, which take charge of the
preludes and interludes,
and also of duplicating the melody of the song if they want it.
The
accompaniment is however
the richest aspect, because it includes different idiófonos
types
and such membranófonos
as the charrasca, the chineco, the triangle, a rustic baby
rattle
called tambourine (it
consists from a chart to which metallic covers are nailed of
those that
are used to cover
bottles), and as for membranófonos, drums are used of one and
two
patches, small panderos
and the furruco, membranófono of rub of the type called in
Spain
drum. Lastly, they serve
as accompaniment diverse cordófonos that you/they give the
harmony: the four, the
five (sometimes the guitar), the treble». The bagpipes are
songs in
diverse saints' honor,
they are the calls bagpipes devocionales that are not danced and
the
bagpipes parranderas or
bagpipe zuliana (already extended to great part of the country)
that
they are danced and they
make happy the Christmas parties. In the songs the alternation
of
a voice soloist and a
choir formed by men and women takes place. The musical
instruments
are: four, maracas,
tambora, charrasca and furruco. The dance is very simple, in
wheel,
alternate men and women.
Work songs: They
accompany the man and the Venezuelan woman in their multiple
tasks;
they are a means of to
alleviate and to distract the fatigue and the routine; there are
as much
variety as works. Those
«trapping songs» of livestock they are intoned by the
«cabrestero»
to appease the
livestock; with same purpose the peon that carries out the I
milk sings their
ballads and flame the
cows one to a singing; in the trapiche the one in charge of
putting the
cane among the wheels
also sings ballads. The laundrymen intoned songs, as well as the
recolectores of coffee
while they picked up of the branches the fruit; the women that
pilaban the corn had
special songs for this task that was carried out in general
among 2, and
the street proclaimers
also had their tunes. Many of these songs have already
disappeared
and others are in
extinction roads by reason of the economic-labor transformation.
Infantile songs and of
cooing: The cooing songs, beats and infantile games don't
largely
differ of those of other
regions of Spanish America, for the reasons already pointed out
at
the beginning of this
brief panorama. The repertoire of cooing songs and of beats with
romance, or with other
forms estróficas, introduced in Venezuela from the XVI century,
it
is very abundant. Among
the many cooing songs there is one that one sings from Falcon
until the Federal
District, central and diverse states of east that coincides with
the melody
from Gloria to the brave
town and whose verses say: «This boy wants / that I sleep him;
/
that his mother sleeps
him / that you/he/she was that she took charge it». As well
wonders
Ramón and Rivera: «Did
the author of our National Hymn take the topic of the first
compasses of this hymn,
of the national tradition?» do The infantile games in that
girls and
children in ring clap,
sing and do they dance many happily they are: The young lady,
Mrs.
Ana, Rice with coconut,
Thread of gold, Alé lemon, Materilerilerón, The dove, The
chickens of my pan,
Mambrú, My cat, The boat, TO the wheel, rotates, etc. All they
can
present variants on its
behalves and in the text according to the regions of the
country. In
general they spread to
disappear of the activity lúdica of the citizens, but they are
still
conserved in the towns
and in the fields.
Entertainment music.
Amusements: So much the lyrical popular nun as the layman
possesses a great
rhythmic, melodic and textual wealth that you/they indicate an
intense
literary-musical
cultivation. Integrating the music that has the function of
having a good
time a series of
manifestations that you/they are commonly known with the name of
paschal amusements
exists. At the present time this type of amusements goes going
away
more and more of its
contact with the religion and of the period of the Easter of
Christmas
in that corresponds its
celebration, to move to the profane party of the carnival. In
this
intermediate stadium
between the religious-popular thing and the profane thing the
paschal
amusements of east are
located that, sometimes, they take place in other regions of the
western coast. On a
rhythmic accompaniment of the type of the meringue, in charge of
the
four and maracas,
melodies are developed easy and catching to the hearing taken
place in
the bandolín. To these
instruments they sometimes sink, the accordion, the tambora, the
charrasca and the
furruco. In these amusements they take place representations
animalísticas like in
«The burriquita», «The bird guarandol», «The carite» or
representation
of situations and daily
works as in the dance of the «sebucán». These groups form
species
of street processions
that you/they sing and they dance to the they are of oneself
melody.
The main character of
«The burriquita» it is had of a frame with she-ass form and
moves
and brays as the animal
that represents. «The bird guarandol» escenifica the hunt of a
bird
and their resurrection
for the sorcerer. «The carite» it represents the task of the
fishing. In
the dance of the
«sebucán» men and women dance alternated around one of the
members
that sustains a long
stick, of the one that you/they loll tapes of colors that the
dancers when
rotating, knit and they
unweave to the compass of the music and of the allusive songs.
Another amusement of
this type constitutes it the call «mare-mare» Creole of clear
indigenous origin. It is
danced and it is sung in some areas of the oriental region of
the
country. In the
execution of the music of this folkloric expression the reed
flutes or flutes of
Bread intervene («it
prevails», «male» and «female»), pieces, four, maracas and
drums of 2
patches. Many times made
a mistakes the «mare-mare» Creole with the native. This last
one consisted on a dance
that was executed to commemorate the death of a cacique. Then
the natives gave him the
name of «mare» to the flutes of Bread, ending up being
designated
with that name to the
music, to the song and the dance. The joropo: It is the most
extended
dance in Venezuela and
considered national dance; their name indicates the meeting
where
the joropo is danced and
it involves the music, the poetry and the dance. The music with
which one sings and the
joropo is danced it can group in 4 categories: the «Mexican
ballad», the
«galerón», the «passage» and the «blow». Although the
music of the «Mexican
ballad» it has been
used preferably to relate some event to the concurrence, it was
also used
to dance. This music had
the characteristic of offering 2 different rhythms
simultaneously:
while the melody went in
binary compass (2-4), the accompaniment made it in ternary
compass (3-4). In the
Mexican ballad the bandolín, the four and the maracas
intervene. The
joropo also uses the
music of the «galerón», the one that one sings in the
oriental area with
guitar accompaniment,
four and maracas, being reserved the bandolín the execution of
preludes and interludes.
Their main characteristic is the freedom with which the melody
moves on the
accompaniment. The «passage» understands 2 forms: the
«aragüeño» (states
Aragua, Miranda and
Carabobo) and the «apureño» (states Hurry, Guárico,
Portuguese).
Both coincide in the
form of singing; the sentences are outlined by the harp and
recaptured
then by the voice that
develops them. In the passage aragüeño variations are used,
counterpoint, abundance
of modulations and their form is very free. The «blow» it is
the
type of simpler and more
modern music with which one dances the joropo. Their melodies
are very varied;
sometimes, while sings, the singer goes modifying the melody,
lengthening the topics,
what calls you taking place then «repercussion». Another
variant
constitutes it the blows
larenses, sung to 2 voices and the blow practiced in the states
Aragua, Miranda and
Carabobo in which the singer repeats the same topic, but varying
it
every time and adding
him «repercussions» to his pleasure, reason why this blow
lacks
fixed form. They
accompany him the harp and the maracas that the own singer
executes.
The called blow «six»
it admits the «six Mexican ballad» executed with bandolín or
without him, with four
and maracas; the «six numerao» and the «six for right», they
have
the harp like main
instrument companion. These last ones participate of the
«Mexican
ballad» and of the
«blow». The Venezuelan pole of Hispanic root is sung from New
Esparta
until the state Falcon
and musically it is characterized «like a melody of eight
compasses of
the singer's free
invention». Literarily offers the possibility of varied loving,
lyrical topics,
etc. The song it can be
practiced as a story referred by a single singer or a
«insistence» or it
disputes among 2 singers
about an outlined topic. It is accompanied with four and maracas
and sometimes with
guitar.
Starting from 1830, the
influence musical Antillean begins to exercise its influence in
Venezuela through the
companies of Spanish operettas. Ramón and Rivera consider that
of
the whole old disclosed
repertoire they prevailed in our country 3 forms: the
song-Havanan
one, the waltz-song and
the song-aria (influenced by the Italian operatic repertoire).
It also
exists a relatively
modern music with traditional root as the meringues, waltzes and
bambucos that it is
located in an intermediate area between the folkloric music and
the
modern popular music.
Music of indigenous
origin: Among the indigenous groups it is where the
commemorative
and symbolic function of
the music lasts and of the dances that accompany its ritual
ceremonies. At the
present time these manifestations are documented and recorded,
but
they have not still been
carried out analysis studies and synthesis, reason for which
there is
not an appropriate
bibliography that allows the knowledge of these facts. However,
one can
say that there is a
certain homogeneity in the use of musical instruments in the
Venezuelan
indigenous groups that
maintain their cultural features with more authenticity. Among
those
instruments we will
mention: maracas, rattles, bells and canes. Snail trumpet,
trumpet of
bark of 2 m of long used
by the piaroas and the sálivas; flutes, nasal flutes, reed
hooters,
flutes of lukewarm of
deer, mirlitones, clarinets used by the waraos and the goajiros
and
diverse types of drums.
Folkloric musical
instruments: The four: the national instrument is considered.
Their name
derives of the number of
strings that possesses and its origin is to look for it in the
old
family of small Spanish
guitars. It executes it to him alone or like accompanying
instrument
of the voice and of
other instruments except in the batteries of drums. It usually
executes it
to him raking the
strings, although it is also alternated with the I dot. With the
popular
name of tambora a double
membranófono is designated it patches and of longer box that
its
diameter that is
executed with the hands and more commonly, with a stick and a
mallet. It
is built with the
materials that are plentiful in the area and the patches are
held in diverse
ways (nailed, for
tensile subject to a hoop, etc.). They are executed in her
varied rhythms
and it accompanies,
besides the Christmas gift, fulías, canterías, the meringue
and the
tamunangue. Charrasca:
It is a rub idiófono that receives multiple names in Venezuela,
among them those of
«old crock», «piece rayao», «güiro» and «guacharaca».
Their
dispersion area embraces
the whole country except the Andean area, where it is very
scarce
its use. It builds it to
him indistinctly with wood, cane or metal. The rasper is also of
varied
materials. Although it
is used mainly to accompany the Christmas gifts and the bagpipes
during the navidadeses,
it is also used with the same purpose in jests and fulías.
Maracas: Together with
the harp and the four, the maracas is the most popular
instruments
in Venezuela. They are
built with the fruit of the denominated totumo it covered or
totuma.
Contrary to the
indigenous maracas that you/they usually go feathered and that
they are
used individually, the
same as in the dances of African origin, the Creole maracas
doesn't
take decorations, they
are used for even, and generally, the same singer plays them.
They
are good to invariably
accompany songs and dances. As for the learning and way of
playing
the maracas, José
Antonio Calcaño refers: «according to explanations picked up
in the flat
first floor of the
Guárico, in the handling of the maracas there are two points in
those that
the biggest difficulty
rests to get master like performer; these are: first, to obtain
that the
baskets don't continue
rotating inside it covered it, when they should not make it,
that is to
say: to achieve that the
baskets give a dry blow when it is necessary, because once they
begin to run it is
difficult to stop them. The other difficult point is to acquire
ease and I get
rid of in the game of
the dolls, condition this that is indispensable of all point.
When it is to
learn how to play
maracas, among us, the pupil sits down in front of the teacher,
and it
begins to support on the
thigh the whole forearm, seizing a maraca in each hand, and then
it
begins, very slowly, to
make them sound alternatingly, only using the doll. The dry blow
memorizes then, and its
learning begins to lift the forearm and to discharge it on the
thigh;
the movement is this way
cut abruptly, and the baskets stop. These practices that
constitute
the foundation of the
technique of a good maraquero, undoubtedly have been perpetuated
by tradition, and be not
maybe venturous to suppose that this same way the piache began
to
begin the neophyte in
the handling of the sacred maracas». Bandolín: This instrument
as for
its construction is an
adaptation of the Neapolitan mandolin. Their box has form of
flattened pear. It takes
four double orders of strings generally tuned by fifth and it is
played
with a plectrum. Their
use is very diffused by the whole country. Battery of round
drums:
This battery also call
«ass `e goads», it is constituted by a group of 3 drums
bimembranofónos that
you/they are struck only with a stick and a hand, in the
superior
membrane. The performer,
of foot, places it bowed among her legs, holding it with the
thighs. They are
executed in simultaneous form. «…Tienen variations in
diameter and in
longitude to produce
different sounds. has each one two names: the corrío or cousin
that it
is the one that the
touch, the cruzao begins (or half) and the pujao (male)…»
they are
manufactured wooden very
light: lano or raft. The tie system is that of patch with patch
by
means of «guarales»
that pass for holes or ovillos made in the same border of the
patches. It
is the direct tie. To
tune the leathers they crowd together those «guarales». These
drums,
Juan Liscano sustains,
they are of origin congolés. Their touches are carried out in
the area
barloventeña among May
3 (day of the Cruz) and September 24 (day of the Mercedes). It
mines: The drum mines it
is of African origin and the biggest of those used in Venezuela.
is distinguished for the
system of mooring of their only patch, and in that in general,
to play
it they support him on
two crossed sticks in equis form. The patch is subject to wooden
pegs that are also
adjusted with tacos wooden. It is executed with a stick and with
blows of
fist of the free hand.
Also, one or several performers supplement the execution with
touches
carried out on the body
of the drum with a couple of sticks that you/they call
«laures».
During San Juan's party
it accompanies to the call «dance of big drum». Curbata: This
membranófono of a
single patch leans on in the floor on 3 paws clipped in the same
inferior
body of the drum. It is
played with 2 sticks and their membrane is usually subject for a
rope
to wooden wedges
incrusted in the trunk. Together with the drum it mines it forms
the
«battery of big drums»
and when maracas is added and song integrates the call «dance
of
big drum». Drums
chimbángueles: With the name of «chimbangles battery» or
«chimbángueles
battery» or «drums of San Benito», it is known in the states
Trujillo,
Merida and Zulia a group
of 6 tubular drums, something conical, of a single patch that
they
receive the following
names: the one that the touch begins: «muleteer» or
«bigger»;
«second bigger drum»;
«half blow»; 2 drums «half requinta» and «whole requinta».
Each
one has a special touch
and a patch of different skins of animals. The performers hang
the
drums of the shoulder
and 5 of them execute them simultaneously during the processions
in
honor to San Benito.
Redoblante: calls this way himself to a cylindrical drum to
which
have been removed the
strings of resonance; other times calls this way himself to a
cylindrical drum to
which are tied one of the patches some small called wood
«admirals» so
that they work of
resonators. Five: It is a little a rope instrument bigger than
the four, of
similar execution to
this. Their origin is also Spanish, of the family of the guitar.
It
possesses 5 strings of
which the fourth only goes paired. Cumaco: It is a drum of
African
origin manufactured with
a quite big section of a tree. It is placed put to bed on the
floor
and the performer to
astride on the drum, it strikes it with both hands. Other
performers in
squatting strike the
body of the drum with 2 sticks. In the state Lara, with occasion
of San
Antonio's party for the
tamunangue, this same instrument is used, now under the name of
«tamunango».
Carángano: Also known with the names of «marimba» or
«Syrian», it is a
cordófono hit with
sticks and with a resonator separated from the instrument. has
spread
for the whole country
but with variants through the time and of the regions. In
general, it is
of a single rope made of
wire; a tape is also used made of palm leaf or of bamboo bark.
This rope is struck with
2 toothpicks. The vibrations of the rope are transmitted to a
dry
bladder of animal, full
with stones, or to a totuma full with grains of corn that
sustains and
it displaces on the
rope, another person. can also have, box of resonance or not.
Turas:
During the celebration
of the crop of the corn in the state Falcon, the descendants of
the
ayomanes and of the
jiraharas they carry out the ritual of the tura. The instruments
used in
this ritual are:
whistles made with skulls of deer, maracas and denominated
flutes «turas»,
belonging to the family
of the quenas. They are executed in 2 couples of size different
and
different number of
holes. The turas big female and male and the male small turas
and
female exist. Furruco:
It is a rub membranófono, of universal dispersion whose name
varies
of agreement with the
region. We received the one used in Venezuela through Spain and
their employment
responds to exclusively European customs. Their construction
admits
variants according to
the time and the regions, but essentially it is an instrument
from a
single membrane to which
is adjusted by varied procedures a stick or «verada». When
slipping the performer
their hand friccionando the bar covered with wax, this offers
resistance and
originates a vibration that is transmitted to the patch, that
which the sonority
that characterizes to
this instrument takes place. Tambourine: It is also known with
the
name of «pandero».
They were very used by the women in the countries semíticos to
be
accompanied in the song
and the dance. To Venezuela it arrived through Spain and only
differs in the execution
way. Here, the town usually anoints «…el center of the patch
with
wax quarter note and
friccionando this place is played with the half finger…» Only
«…al to
finish the song the
musicians usually shakes it to request the Christmas gift…»
it is Also
known with the
tambourine name kind of a built very simple baby rattle with a
chart to
which you/they are held
by means of nails flattened metallic tapas of bottles. Chineco:
It is
an instrument classified
suddenly as idiófono indirect coming from the Central Asia. It
is
ignored when it passed
America. Their original dispersion embraced from China to
Turkey.
The high dignitaries of
this country in Europe used it as badge, of there the attaché
of the
stocking moon to other
decorations and bells and baby rattles of metal of diverse
types,
fellows in the superior
end of a long stick. When hitting the stick against the floor,
those
sound and at the same
time the stick marks the compass.
Harp: It arrives in
America together with the settlers and comes preceded of a high
so
much recognition in the
palatine spheres as in the popular environment. In Venezuela,
from
the XVII century
abundant documentation referred to the introduction of harps
appears. So
much the harp cultivated
in Europe like the one that arrives in America, and stays at the
moment in use at popular
level, is a similar model to which one came using from the
medieval period, this
is, the small harp, diatónica. In Venezuela, the harp is had
consustanciado to such
an extent with the music and the dance of the joropo that: «In
the
plains, to invite to a
joropo is equal to invite otherwise to a party in that there
will be harp
music and maracas,
doesn't call himself joropo, but dances». The harps practiced
in
Venezuela receive 2
denominations, in attention to the number of strings and the
material
that they are made, to
the form of the box of resonance and the disposition of the pegs
that
are used to tighten the
strings. The number of them oscillates between 30 and 37.
Assisting
to those characteristics
and the area where they are cultivated knows them to him with
the
respective names of harp
mirandina or harp tuyera and harp apureña. The harp mirandina
or
tuyera are cultivated in
the central states. Their box of resonance is wider than that of
the
harp llanera and the
strings that you/they give him a characteristic sound, are of
different
materials: metal, gut
and synthetic material. The pegs are placed in a single line. On
the
other hand the harp
llanera that is used mainly in the states Guárico, Barinas and
Hurry it is
of box of narrow
resonance, the pegs are placed in double line and the strings
are of gut and
synthetic material.
Those «harpists» Venezuelans tune the harp until in 6
different ways;
some tune it
simultaneously in the tone and their relative and others in 2
tones. The
modulations to the fifth
superior or the smallest relative achieve it stepping with the
fingernail of the thumb
of the left hand the superior part from the next rope to the
peg. The
harp accompanies the
singer and it is also used like instrument soloist accompanied
by
maracas. The Venezuelan
harp has an execution technique different to the one used in
other
countries of America and
stands out for the I dot that one makes of the melodies with its
accompaniment, achieving
this way a similar execution to that of the key.
Institutions
National institute of
Folklore (INAF): For initiative of Juan Liscano the Service of
National
Folkloric Investigations
was created, October 30 1946 and attributed to the Address of
Culture and fine arts of
the Ministry of Education. began with the organization of the
musical files, with the
collaboration of the musicóloga Isabel Aretz and of professor
Luis
Felipe Ramón and
Rivera. From their beginnings had outstanding collaborators as:
Miguel
Acosta Saignes, I Move
away Carpentier, Juan Pablo Sojo, Walter Dupouy, Rafael Olivares
Figueroa and Smith
Thompson. In the Files of General Folklore, the service had
important
collections donated by
Rafael Olivares Figueroa, Juan Pablo Sojo, Luis A. Domínguez
and
Juan Liscano, among
others. Little time later was given beginning to the creation of
a
collection of «material
folklore» (suits, crafts, musical instruments) at the time that
the
publication of the
Venezuelan Magazine of Folklore begins. During the period
1948-1949
takes place the creation
and development of the section of Application from the Folklore
to
the School: music
teaching and folkloric dances in the headquarters of the
service. In 1953
it changed their
denomination for Institute of Folklore. The first editions of
the Bulletin of
the Institute of
Folklore that it was published during the decades of 1950 and
1960 appear.
In 1965 it changed their
denomination again for National Institute of Folklore and it was
attributed to the
National Institute of Culture and fine arts (INCIBA). In 1971 it
begins their
activities the Center of
Technical Formation with the purpose of imparting teaching at
professional level in
the theoretical and practical branches of national character.
was
organized in 4
denominated units: Unit of Investigation, Educational Unit, Unit
of
Information and
Institutional Relationships and Audiovisual Unit. Among the
programs
that started starting
from 1978 they stand out: the project Diagnosis of the current
state of
the folklore in
Venezuela; the creation program of «regional units of study and
summary of
the folklore»; and
numerous investigations of individual character carried out by
investigators to the
service of the unit. Through agreements the INAF has created
regional
files in the University
of East and in the University of you Walk Them; it began an
interdisciplinary work
to investigate «who the man of Windward is», in collaboration
with
the Central University
of Venezuela and the Shop Free of Art of Windward. In 1982 you
concluded the
documentary The godfather Antonio and an audiovisual selection
of the
«Paradura, robbery and
search of the Boy»; they were published among other the
following
works: The folkloric
story in Venezuela; dancing Devils from Venezuela; the
publication of
a bibliographical series
began on Venezuelan folklore. In 1983 the album was published
with 4 disks traditional
popular Music of Venezuela, the publication of the collection
Cultural Dimension of
the Society of the Bulletin of the INAF began (third time) and a
quadruple exhibition was
presented on the Venezuelan folklore and the studies that were
carried out in
connection with those manifestations.
National museum of the
Folklore: It was created by resolution of the presidency of the
INCIBA in November of
1972. has their origin in collections organized by the Service
of
Folkloric Investigations
of the Ministry of Education in 1947 and then, for the National
Institute of Folklore.
Their main objectives are: the conservation and increment of the
goods that constitute
their patrimony; the systematic study of the testimonies of the
tradition popular
Venezuelan; the exhibition of their collections and realization
of activities
that diffuse the
traditional popular culture; to develop activities divulgativas
and of
consultantships to
institutions and especially to educational centers and of
workers, and in
general to the whole
public.
Interamerican institute
of Etnomusicología and Folklore. (INIDEF): You creó in 1970
for
resolution of the INCIBA
of Venezuela, for recommendations of the CIDEM and the
Cultural Interamerican
Council. In 1973 the agreement was signed between the
Government from
Venezuela and the General Secretary of the OAS by which the
INIDEF
is recognized as Centro
Multinacional of the Regional Program of Cultural Development.
Among their objectives
they are: to save and to use the patrimony etnomusicológico and
folkloric of the
American countries, to centralize in a file the music
collections, of musical
instruments and of
folklore in general, for consultation, study and projections,
besides
preparing technical in
different specialties. Their organ divulgativo is the Revista
Inidef.
Later on and always
attributed to the National Council of the Culture (BRANDY), you
creó
the Center of the
Popular and Traditional Cultures (CCPYT), with the integration
of the
National Institute of
Folklore (INAF), the National Museum of Folklore (INIDEF). At
the
moment, the INIDEF
concentrates those institutes under the new name of Foundation
of
Etnomusicología and
Folklore. W.G.
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1960; SALAZAR, RAFAEL. Music and folklore of Venezuela.
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academy of the History, 1982; SALAZAR M., RAFAEL Our H. music
through the time.
Caracas: National institute of Culture and fine arts, 1979;
SÁNCHEZ,
María LUISA. The
musical teaching in Caracas. Caracas: Typography The Tower,
1949;
STALLBOHM, ARNOLD. The
music, their interpreters and the public from Venezuela.
Caracas: Editions
Sursum, 1959; Súper-estrella [chronology and history of the
popular
music]. Caracas:
Editorial Yare, [1972].
HEMEROGRAFÍA: BARRAL,
BASILIO María OF. «The teúrgico-magic music of the
Indian guaraúnos». IN:
Montalbán. Caracas, Catholic University Beautiful Andrés,
núm.
10, 1980.
From ends of the XVIII
century, together with the instrumental activities already
mentioned, the
representations of comedies, tonadillas and sketches are
plentiful in The
Count's theater. To
these scenic manifestations sinks from 1808 the performance of a
«company» of French
opera that wakes up the enthusiasm of the inhabitant of Caracas
for
these lyrical
expressions. From 1822, with the visit of artists lyrical
Italians it begins to
prevail in the public's
pleasure the Italian opera whose influence and more and more
wide
repertoire, are of
manifesto in the inauguration of the theater Caracas in 1854
with the
representation of Ernani
of Giuseppe Verdi. In this theater April 26 1873 opened the
opera
the composer's
Venezuelan José Ángel Virginia Montero. This type of lyrical
theater will
continue modeling the
romantic aesthetic pleasure of the town from Caracas being
accentuated with the
inauguration of the theater White Guzmán (today Municipal
theater)
in 1881, with the opera
The minstrel of Verdi. Of all the microforms cultivated in the
romanticism in Europe
and in America: nocturne, preludes, fantasies, rhapsodies,
Poles,
mazurkas, polkas,
quadrilles and gangs, among other, 2 only rooted in the
Venezuelan
town: the song and the
waltz. The romantic repertoire will be enlarged gradually with
the
cultivation of works for
piano and it orchestrates; fantasies, rhapsodies and paraphrase
for
piano, for orchestra and
it stops band, on topics of operettas and of operas, gender with
which the romantic
creation culminates. The romantic song was the expressive bed of
the
maudlin aspects of the
time and it was constituted in the base of the next musical
movement
of nationalist
orientation. But the technique employee in her harmonization, in
the turn of
the melodies, is an
inheritance received directly through the different generations
of the
School of Chacao,
especially of those «condolences» and «tones». Among the
living room
dances, the waltz
adapted, as made it in other South American towns, to the
idiosyncrasy
of the Venezuelan town,
changing its denomination for the one of «it waltzes». This
«it
waltzes» Venezuelan
modified his movement, being made more vivacious; the same thing
happened to his rhythmic
figuration. It also adapted the expressive sense from their
melody
to the musical practices
of the town, by means of the use of the syncopation and of the
setback and of their
formal division in 2, occasionally in 3 parts. The «great
waltz» of
influence vienesa, of
more than 3 parts, it is European or imitation of the European
and
their popularization was
made through the bands of the towns. These musical groupings
were the main agent
utterer without a doubt in the whole country in the musical ways
cultivated during the
XIX century and it leaves of the XX one. On purpose of the
transformations suffered
by the waltz, Calcaño refers: «In Venezuela, like it also
happened
in other Latin American
countries, acquired the one an unknown rhythmic wealth it
waltzes in Europe. (...)
The popular performers, when adopting the one waltz, they were
incorporating him
rhythmic designs of the joropo, elements of the six for eight of
some
Spanish or native
dances, of the type of having tap-danced, and, also, an entire
abundant
series of origin
syncopations perhaps African, and we don't know to what extent
of
indigenous sources.
(...) We end up this way having in the one Creole it waltzes an
overlapping of different
rhythms and until of different compasses that make in our it
waltzes kind of a
counterpoint of rhythms». One of the most important teachers in
the time,
pianist and composer of
waltzes for piano, Salvador Llamozas, when explaining the form
of
the Venezuelan waltz
says that it is usually constituted by 2 parts, exceptionally
for 3:
«First …la ordinarily
written in the smallest way, is melancholic and leisurely; the
melody
waves smoothly. (...)
When beginning the second, the rhythm is vivified and it
inflames,
and makes its explosion
the enthusiasm. (...) comes the third part later to moderate
such
transports of happiness,
to settle down kind of a dialogue, festival and gallant;
although of
ordinary it consists our
it waltzes of only two parts…» The waltz was par excellence
the
musical form of the
period romantic Venezuelan; it was imposed toward the decade of
1870. With the variants
characteristic of each region, you ended up forming a repertoire
that went from the
popular thing to the most refined academic expressions. As long
as the
popular repertoire of
waltzes spread through small instrumental groups and of bands,
the
most sophisticated
waltzes were only written for the piano. While those were based
on an
elementary
harmonization, cadences and all acquaintances' rhythm, to the
point that was
only written the melody
giving the rest of course; the waltzes for piano were printed in
Caracas and in Europe
and they made Gallic of the most exquisite and gleaned technical
procedures in the
composition system for piano of the time. The period of bloom
this way
almost embraces one
century: from half-filled of the XIX one until the first third
of the XX
century, to the point
that Rházes Hernández López intends to call it «period of
the
valsismo». He waltzes
goes accompanied by the peak of the piano, instrument that it
could
not lack home in the
room of all that it was priced of learned and of possessing
certain
social status. On this
Alirio Díaz says: «…nunca like until then it had reached the
piano
bigger acceptance in the
refined society from Caracas, which ended up considering him an
important element in the
feminine spiritual formation. Thanks to this we had, in the
second
half of the XIX century,
a conspicuous group of ladies pianists that you/they stood out
doesn't only eat
brilliant interpreters, but also as excellent composers. (...)
inside that group
who reached universal
fame as interpreter it was Teresa Carreño, inigualable in their
time….» it Existed
more than a hundred of pianists and violinists fond composers
some,
professionals others.
Some of these musicians were formed in Europe, others in United
States and most carried
out their studies in Caracas with Venezuelan professors and
foreigners that taught
in different official and private institutions. Among the
numerous
pianists Venezuelan
composers of that time they highlight: John the Baptist Abreu,
pupil in
turn of José María
Montero, Martín Díaz Peña, Sebastián Díaz Peña, Rafael
María Saumell,
María Saumell, Jesús
María Suárez, Narciso Salicrup and Salvador Llamozas who
during
more than 30 years it
contributed to the formation of several generations of romantic
pianists and the
popularization of the music through their musical printing and
of the
biweekly magazine of
music and literature Venezuelan Lira that was founded in 1882.
The study of the piano
was something fundamental in the education musical Venezuelan of
the XIX century; it
proves of it is it the quantity of official and private music
schools
disseminated by the
whole country, in which preferably this instrument was studied.
Among them it should be
remembered the Academy of fine arts been founded in 1849
especially, the
Conservatory of fine arts directed in 1870 by Felipe
Larrazábal, the National
Academy of fine arts
(1887) and the Institute of fine arts (1897). In all them the
most
important and forced
program of studies was that of the piano. The biggest composers,
authentic
representatives of the romantic musical movement are: Felipe
Larrazábal,
Federico Villena, Ramón
Thin Palaces, Teresa Carreño and José Ángel Montero. Several
of
them, accomplished
pianists, left important works for this instrument. But it was
not only in
that branch of the
creation that you/they stood out, but rather they also
cultivated with
success inside the
romantic aesthetics, the religious music, the vowel, that of
camera and
the opera. The works of
these composers escape to that romanticism of smaller and
decadenter tone that it
liked to cultivate the bourgeois society of the Caracas of the
second
half of the XIX century.
Of Felipe Larrazábal, Rházes Hernández López that is says
«romantic …nuestro
first, as much for its quality as for its historical moment
(...) who was
a pianist of exquisite
pleasure, interpreted the German classic works preferably with a
carried to an extreme
fineness…» The study of those works explains the cultivation
that
made Larrazábal of the
sonata for piano and of the camera music, represented by a
Quartet,
a Quintet and 5 trios
for piano, violin and violonchelo, of which stands out the Op
especially. 138 núm. 2,
«…quizás the most important composition in the whole XIX
century in Venezuela…»
The influence that exercised on him the Italian opera that was
disclosed in Caracas is
noticed in its smaller works. Federico Villena composed more
than
300 works in all the
goods and of each one of them he has left us excellent examples.
To
the style pianístico
«brilliant» of the time, they correspond their Waltzes of
concerts and the
Fantasy for eight
pianos; in the camera music, stands out their varied Air Op. 52
(1887) for
violin and piano; and
their Quintet for piano, violin, violonchelo and contrabass; in
the
religious music a Mass
to 4 voices, mixed choir and it orchestrates and an Ave María
(1881) to 3 voices and
sextet that continue the style of the School of Chacao. Ramón
Thin
Palaces, pianist,
organist and composer, era possessor of an exceptional technique
that
always put to the
service of the musical expression and I don't eat it was habit
of the time,
like half efectista and
of personal splendor. Their more important production
constitutes it
its waltzes for piano,
works written with a national sense but with a discharge
technical
pianística and a
rhythmic one complex. Teresa Carreño was not only the most
outstanding
musical personality as
piano concertista in Venezuela but internationally. The
perennial one
to stroll characteristic
of their artistic activity subtracted him time to be devoted to
the
composition. This is in
fact the great pianist's not very well-known facet. Their
production
keeps it narrows
relationship with the technique and characteristic procedures of
its favorite
instrument and with the
cultivation in the small ways; everything inside a purified
writing,
without concessions to
the pleasure of the time. It composed some incidental works for
soloists, choir and it
orchestrates, but their work summit is undoubtedly its Quartet
of
strings in if smaller
(1896). With José Ángel Montero culminates the series of big
instrumentalists and
composers of the Venezuelan romanticism. For the circumstance of
being son and at the
same time pupil of José María Montero, became the nexus
transmitter
of the style of the
School of Chacao. This way the colonial musical tradition
arrives almost
until beginnings of the
XX century through Juan Manuel Olivares, teacher of José Luis
Landaeta; on the other
hand this belonged it to José María Montero and this, finally,
of its
son José Ángel. This
last one is one of the most fruitful composers that has had the
country.
It faced all the goods
and it was able to stand out equally in the religious music and
in the
vocal and instrumental
layman, of living room, of concerts and in the theatrical one.
The
bring up to date of its
knowledge on the last European composition tendencies, acquired
them through the direct
study of the works of those musicians. Also, for their linking
with
the operetta and the
opera, through their performance like violinist or piper of the
lyrical
companies that visited
Caracas and as the orchestra's of the theater director Caracas,
acquired the enough
technical knowledge as to amalgamate then, in its own operettas,
the
Hispanic turns with the
Creole rhythms and to attempt its biggest ambition: to write an
opera. This was summed
up with the composition of their opera Virginia on Domenico
Bancalari's libretto. It
should be recognized in Montero the effort that meant to pass
more
or less of the
composition stereotyped in the small ways for piano, to a
complex creation
and of vast proportions
as it is it an opera. With these composers closes the properly
this
romantic period and a
cycle of musical productions of great importance brilliantly in
the
history musical
Venezuelan.
Until compliment the
first room of the XX century will be prolonged the late romantic
manifestations in the
lyrical forms and pianísticas. Example of this offers it to us
Pedro
Elías Gutiérrez works
and of Manuel Leoncio Rodríguez. The first of the noted ones
owes
their fame to the joropo
Alma llanera, integral of the homonymous operetta with text of
Rafael Crowned Bolivar
and to a series of waltzes. Manuel Leoncio Rodríguez,
influenced
by the German composers,
was a genuine representative of the late romanticism, especially
with his work Legend,
for violin and piano. Another composer whose work, aesthetic and
stylistically it
corresponds to the period that we are mentioning, is Reinaldo
Hahn.
However, although born
in Caracas, their work doesn't have contact points with the
history
musical Venezuelan,
because from very boy was educated in Paris. There it developed
their
life and their artistic
production. stood out in the orchestral address, it was managing
of the
opera of Paris and I eat
composer it approached with success the most diverse goods. It
achieved special fame
with their songs gray Chansons, their living room pieces and
their
operettas Ciboulette,
1923; Mozart, 1925; Brummel 1931; Malvina, 1935.
The activities musical
inhabitant of Caracas had only been topic of journalistic
comments
up to 1883; in this date
the work of the general Ramón of the Plaza Ensayos on the art
in
Venezuela offers with
historical perspective a panorama of the musical chore and
plastic of
the country until that
date. The work is written in the style of those
«memorialistas» of the
time and although it
suffers of some inaccuracies, has the merit of being the first
history of
the plastic arts and of
the music that appears in the country. Their data, still today,
they are
consultation source and
of forced investigation. Starting from the last decade of the
XIX
century the abrupt
decadence of the musical activities begins, those that are
reduced to its
more elementary
expressions: the same thing happens to the religious music.
The musical activities
that were developed from the colonial period until the romantic
one,
were consequence of a
coherent evolution with the possibilities of the environment
that
didn't impede the
contact with the expressions musical Europeans of their time.
After the
period guzmancista the
political dysfunctions are happened and an economic decadence is
accentuated that takes
place, among other things, a stagnation in the musical
production
that stayed during
almost 40 years until the decade of 1930. Only starting from
1920, the
young composers of then
they begin to be modernized technical and aesthetically. A new
music related with the
contemporary European tendencies takes place for that
circumstance.
Due to fortuitous
circumstances, toward 1925 they were in Caracas, resided or in
traffic, a
series of fond of the
music coming from different European countries with activities
and
diverse professions; it
only united them the bond common of their passion for the music.
In
the musical meetings
that took place, the scores were studied, the works were
executed for
piano and of the
contemporary composers' camera and the 6 phonographic recordings
of
musicians were listened
until then unknown in Caracas. It was this way that the young
students of that time
music had the opportunity to begin to study César Franck and
the
composers belonging to
the Schola Cantorum, to Claude Debussy, Richard Strauss, Darius
Milhaud and Erik Satie.
That renovating group of the Venezuelan music constituted it
initially some few
musicians, with accused differences in age, in the cultural
formation and
in the musical studies:
José Antonio Calcaño, Miguel Ángel Calcaño and Vicente
Emilio
Sojo. To them they were
added John the Baptist Square, Moisés Moleiro, Juan Vicente
Lecuna and performers
and singers like William Werner, Emilio Calcaño Calcaño,
Francisco Esteban
Caballero and Ascanio Negretti Vasconcelos then. Of the old
ones,
according to José
Antonio Calcaño, Manuel Leoncio Rodríguez only met with the
youths
and he was interested in
that they made. Toward 1920, it integrated with José Antonio
Calcaño, Richter and
Francisco Esteban Caballero, the first quartet of strings
dedicated to
study and to disclose
the new European music. It is evident that the diffusion of the
new
tendencies caused a
rupture with the musicians belonging to the old school
«valsística» and
of the «romantic
pianismo». made it a new activity to arise simultaneously: the
musical
critic, exercised mainly
by José Antonio Calcaño with Juan Sebastián's alias and John
the
Baptist Square, from the
press, which was an excellent means to justify, to clarify, to
support and to discuss
the new realizations.
Toward 1925, the camera
music was the only one with possibilities of since execution
orchestral groups and
stable corals they didn't exist. The only artistic-musical
activity that
offered with certain
regularity in the Municipal theater, was especially the Italian,
due
opera seasons to manager
Adolfo Bracale, among the years 1917 and 1932. Rházes
Hernández López says:
«It stops three rooms of shows then they had their hired
Orchestras:
they were the cinemas
Rialto, Capitol, the Teatro Calcaño and, later on, the theater
Ayacucho whose
directors, violinist José Lorenzo Llamozas and Teacher Vicente
Martucci,
they offered good
auditions with pieces of operas and other orchestral fantasies.
Among the
years of 1927 and 1928,
our learned composers met in the School of Music and
Declamation [today
Superior School of Music José Ángel Licks] and there they
changed
ideas on the problems of
the art…» An unexpected event came to incentivate even more
the
enthusiasm of that group
of young musicians. In December of 1927 it acted with great
success in the Municipal
theater of Caracas the group of Choirs and Ukrainian Dances,
integrated by 18 voices.
It provided it the idea to: «…Emilio Calcaño who being
friend of
the Russian grouping
proposed to John the Baptist Square and Vicente Emilio Sojo,
director and subdirector
of the Musical Tribune of the cathedral of Caracas, to make a
procession of Russian
choir for the next carnivals of 1928. (...) Accepted the project
a small
compound choir was
constituted by Sojo, Square, José Antonio Calcaño, Miguel
Ángel
Calcaño, Emilio
Calcaño and William Werner. (...) The musical repertoire was of
about 20
numbers, music composed
by Sojo, Square, José Antonio and Miguel Ángel Calcaño. It
was a firm success…»
For suggestion of Isaac Capriles to Vicente Emilio Sojo, it was
thought then of
organizing a chorus that would take the name of José Ángel you
Lick and
that Vicente Emilio Sojo
would direct. For it, during the years 1928 and 1929, Moisés
Moleiro and the
composers already mentioned they were devoted to write the
repertoire
consistent coral in
songs and madrigals. The presentation of the combined coral
integrated
for more than 80 voices
took place in June of 1930.
To all this, the
orchestral activity began to charge importance and regularity in
its
operation, for the
desire of the jerarquizar musicians and to give professional
character to
its activities, at the
time that you/they constituted them in a half respectable of
life. In 1922
is founded the
Philharmonic Union of Caracas under the direction of Vicente
Martucci,
society that will last
up to 1929. Many of their members will be those that, June of
1930, 24
will intervene in the
National theater in the inaugural concert of the new and
definitive
grouping orchestral
denominated Society Symphonic Venezuela it Orchestrates. Among
them, Vicente Martucci
who directed the first part of the inaugural concert and it
shared
during that year the
address with Vicente Emilio Sojo. It is a happy and symptomatic
coincidence the fact
that, simultaneously with the enthusiasm to study and to
cultivate new
composition formulas was
carried out the creation of a choir and of an orchestra. It was
good it to capture in a
reality all the dreams of those young musicians' musical
creation. It
began to be systematized
and jerarquizarse the musical docencia. In the School of Music
and Declamation, John
the Baptist Square was made position of the classes of Harmony
and Composition from
1924 up to 1928. For their initiative, the Ministry of Education
creó
the class of History of
the Music in 1931.
In 1936 Sojo director of
the School is named, believe new classes and he takes to his
position that of
Composition, of which the first generation of composers will
arise in 1944.
The existence and
development of these 2 fundamental institutions for the
improvement
and diffusion of the
music: the Chorus Licks and the Symphonic Orchestra Venezuela,
they
are due to the effort
and perseverance of Sojo to take them to good term. Without
their
work tesonera to elevate
the musical level of the country, anything had been achieved.
Under their teaching
they were formed 3 generations of composers and well it can be
said
that, from their class
of Composition, it contributed sobremanera to create the modern
school of Venezuelan
music. The other prominent and excellent aspect of its work is
the
summary, harmonization
and arrangement of great quantity of songs, Christmas gifts and
popular dances to the
style of the tradition of the singers and «guitar-makers»
popular.
Their numerous works of
religious character follow the technical limits of the big
Renaissance
polifonistas, inside a strict formal and tonal sense that
connects them, in turn,
with the tradition of
our colonial composers. In all their production a nationalist
feeling that
will take charge of
inculcating to its pupils floats. Of all the composers belonging
to this
century, the most
fruitful was John the Baptist Square. Its music, of nationalist
tendency,
accuses a very personal
style deeply consustanciado with our musical tradition as they
demonstrate it its
réquiem Mass and the symphonic poems The abrupt peak, The
hours,
Escapes Creole and
romantic Flight. Their catalog surpasses the 300 works. stood
out,
also, as teacher of
chapel of the cathedral of Caracas, lecturer, educational and
investigator.
In this sense, their
cataloguing work, study, reconstruction and publication of the
music of
the colonial period that
it embraced the years 1936 at 1944, allowed to save and to
diffuse
one of the most valuable
musical files in the continent. The group founder's of the
modernist movement other
outstanding member was José Antonio Calcaño. Their incessant
work in pro of the
Venezuelan music and for the diffusion of the music in general,
it carried
out it like critical
musical, radio lecturer, television and cultural institutions,
as educational,
instrumentalist,
orchestra's director, of choirs, musicólogo and composer. The
same as their
group partners, on the
different influences of technical character the nationalist
spirit
prevails in its
production. carried out an immense work in uninterrupted form
during more
than 40 years in favor
of the diffusion of the European and national music, through the
docencia and to the
front of the choral Creole that he was founded. Their more
transcendent
work has been the
investigation musicológica, summed up in a publication that
summarizes
all its previous works:
The city and their music (1958), I study on the evolution of the
Venezuelan music from
the Colony up to 1919. Its musical production, framed at the
beginning by the
impressionism, soon intrudes for new courses of the modern
composition
(suppression of
developments, atonalismo, politonalidad, highlight special of
the
instrumental bells), in
works as its extracted Suite of the ballet Miranda in Russia,
inspired
by the hero's from
Caracas life, and integrated for: Overture, Nocturne, Scene and
Final
Dance; their Chose coral
to Andrés' memory White Eloy; In Memoriam, in homage to the
heroes of the battle of
Carabobo and Of Profundis, it works symphonic-coral in homage to
Simón Bolívar, they
constitute clear examples of their transcendent nationalist
sense, of
universal projection.
Moisés Moleiro was integrated at the little time of organized
the group
of those 3 pioneers of
the music modern Venezuelan. Although it composed preferably for
their instrument, the
piano, also approached the composition for orchestra, song and
piano
and mixed choir to
capella. Their works, of clearing nationalist sense, with
estilización of
melodic turns and
folkloric rhythms, always appear framed inside classic or
Baroque forms:
Sonata to the classic
style, for piano and later on orchestrated for orchestra of
strings, Small
suite, 5 sonatinas,
infantile Suite, you Stamp of the plain. Other outstanding
pianist and
composer that was
integrated to the previous group are Juan Vicente Lecuna. Their
production understands
diverse goods, but its creations better achieved they are those
that
thought for its favorite
instrument, the piano. Its music, of a transcendent nationalism,
always went unaware to
the folkloric document and of an advanced harmonic conception,
with regard to the one
practiced by its countrymen. They are an example of it their
Sonatas
of High Grace, their
Quatre pièces pour piano, their Movement for orchestra, the
Dance for
orchestra, the Quartet
of strings and the Sonata for harp.
While this group of
composers and other more, they carried out their creative works,
Sojo,
from its class of
Composition in the School of Music prepared the first promotion
of
composers that
egresaría in 1944. Its educational work in this sense will
extend until the
generation egresada in
1964. This numerous group of young composers begins to create
inside the nationalist
current and of technical and expressive tendencies
characteristic of the
impressionism. Many of
them, as they go securing their own values, they begin to
rehearse
new technical resources.
In the those 20 year-old course they were formed and they
entered
to the life of creation
artistic numerous Venezuelan composers. Among the disclosed
works
in these composers we
select those of: Antonio Estévez: Suite llanera (1942), I
Concert for
orchestra (1950), Creole
Cantata: Florentine the one that sang with the devil (1954).
Innocent Carreño:
Margariteña (1954), Suite symphonic núm. 1 (1955). angel
Sauce:
Jehová reigns, cantata
(1948), Cecilia Mujica, ballet symphonic-coral (1957), king's
Miguel
Romance, ballet, (it
orchestrates and autochthonous instruments, 1961). Blanca
Shatters
(first woman that
obtained in Venezuela composer's title in 1948), Fantasy of
Christmas
(1948), Three stamp
symphonic, María Lionza, symphonic poem (1958). José Clemente
Laya: Venezuelan suite
(1956), Rhapsody (1957), both stop orchestra. Evencio
Castellanos:
I concert for piano and
it orchestrates (1944), The river of the seven stars, symphonic
poem
(1946), Santa Cruz of
Pacairigua, symphonic poem, Suite avileña (1947), The Tirano
Aguirre, profane oratory
(1962). Antonio Lauro: Cantaclaro, profane cantata on the
homonymous novel of
Galician Rómulo (1948), negroid Turns, symphonic suite (1955),
I
Concert for guitar and
it orchestrates (1956). Nelly Mele Lara: Fantasy for piano and
it
orchestrates (1961),
Creole Mass (1966). Andrés Sandoval: Symphony for piano and it
orchestrates (1950),
Rhapsody for piano and it orchestrates (1956), Caracas, concert
for
clarinet and it
orchestrates. Modest Bor: Overture for orchestra (1963), Sonata
for violin
and piano (1963).
Gonzalo Castellanos: Suite symphonic inhabitant of Caracas
(1947),
Advance and fleeting
imitation (1954), Fantasy for piano and it orchestrates (1957).
Raimundo Pereira:
Symphonic movement, Song. José Luis Muñoz: Classic sonata
(1954),
symphonic Prelude
(1958). Alba Quintanilla: Cycle of songs for soprano and piano
(1966),
Three songs for
mezzo-soprano and it orchestrates (1967). José Antonio Abreu:
It
concerted grosso for
piano and strings, Sinfonietta neoclassicist, two Symphonies.
Federico
Ruiz: Sonata for
accordion (1971), The santiguao, prelude and flight vowel on a
negroid
topic (1976), Dispersion
(1976); Evocation (1976), poem symphonic-coral, Quartet of
strings (1976), intimate
Page (1979), piano, violin and violonchelo, Concert for piano
and it
orchestrates (1979),
Travel (1981, recitante, quintet of mixed voices or choir, organ
and it
orchestrates), Byte
(1983).
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