Nationalism in Venezuelan Music
Nationalism in Venezuelan Music:
The Pioneers, Propagators, and its effects on Venezuela’s guitar situation
Presented to Dr. Jeffrey McFadden as the final assignment of:
The history and literature of the classical guitar course
The Nationalist movement in the Venezuelan art began around 1920 when the dictator president, General Juan Vicente Gomez forced the closure of the Circuelo de Bellas Artes de Caracas (Caracas’ Fine Arts Circle). Nevertheless, “the artistic interests of poets (Generation of 1918) and young musicians were beginning to stir, Vicente Emilio Sojo, Juan Bautista Plaza, and Jose Antonio Calcaño surfaced, starting
the birth of Venezuelan academic music”.1
This essay will discuss the background and achievements of the Founders and Propagators of this movement and then will address how their results affected the place of Venezuela’s guitar in the 20th century.
1- Pioneers (First Generation): Vicente Emilio Sojo, Juan Bautista Plaza, Jose Antonio Calcaño
1.1-Historical Situation and Strategies of the Nationalist Society Founders (pioneers);
The movement took place at a critical time when the country confronted the dictatorship government and had also entered a process of economic transformation caused by the new petroleum industry in 1918.
Pedro Rafael Aponte in his Ph.D. thesis, The Invention of the National in Venezuelan Art Music, states:
“The shift in Venezuela’s economic system from agrarian to industrial in the 1910s triggered a reconfiguration of the country’s social and cultural structure. In art music, the movement initiated by a group of three native musicians (Vicente Emilio Sojo, Juan Bautista Plaza and Jose Antonio Calcaño) in Caracas to set out a national ideology and to act historical and ethnomusicological research, creating national policies on music and music education and, composing a nationalist music repertoire.”2
In other words, to achieve their aims, the founders (pioneers) of the nationalist movement chose these four strategies:
1- Creating a solid national repertoire 2- Reorganizing music education
3- Creating National Music ensembles
4- Expanding the audience’s knowledge by writing reviews and holding conferences on every musical event.
1 . Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p51)
2 . Aponte, Pedro Rafael, The Invention of the National in Venezuelan Music, University of Pittsburgh (2008-p
1.2-Vicente Emilio Sojo (1887-1974), a Practical Musician
Known as the “father of modern Venezuelan music,”3and the cornerstone of the nationalist movement, Vicente Emilio Sojo, a composer, educator, musicologist, conductor, and politician, was born into a family of farmers and artisans on December 8th, 1887.
Although he claimed that he lacked formal musical training, existing documents show that Sojo had received music lessons from his hometown’s band director, Romulo Rico, after he had settled in Caracas in -1906-, at the school of music, where he was enrolled in the harmony course in 1910.4
In 1921, Sojo started his career as an instructor by teaching theory and musicianship courses at the School of Music and Declamation in Caracas and became the director of the same school in 1936. His Achievements and Legacy for Venezuelan Music:
Among the mentioned strategies, Sojo had an essential role in reorganizing music education, building a national repertoire, and creating national ensembles.
As Alejandro Bruzual in his book The Guitar in Venezuela states:
“Sojo had the greatest influence on the development of Venezuelan music. He reconstructed the way music was taught by reorganizing the National Conservatory. He encouraged the creation of new theoretical and instrumental professorships, selected teachers and students, and made the conservatory the heart of music activity in Venezuela.”5
3 . Sojo, Vicente Emilio, Works for Guitar Vol.1, Caroni Music (2003-preface)
4 . Aponte, Pedro Rafael, The Invention of the National in Venezuelan Art Music, University of Pittsburgh (2008-p76) 5. Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p56-57
o build a solid repertoire of Venezuelan music, Sojo travelled around the country collecting, arranging, and compiling Venezuelan melodies. He also created a repertoire which Bruzual titled” a kind of Nationalist Gregorian repertoire.”6
Moreover, Sojo was the founder and director of Orfeon Lamas (Lamas Choir) and the Venezuelan Symphony Orchestra in 1930.
Marie Elizabeth Labonville in her book, Juan Bautista Plaza and Musical Nationalism in Venezuela, describes the situation as follows;
“When Sojo became the permanent director of Orfeon Lamas and Venezuelan Symphony Orchestra, each of which had its own mission. The Orfeon Lamas was created to present contemporary choral music by Venezuelans, and the Orchestra was created to bring the standard repertory to Caracas. Later, it began offering new works by Venezuelans.”7
His Legacy for Venezuela’s Guitar Culture; Sojo was familiar with the techniques of a few instruments, among them, the guitar which he studied with Carlos Acevedo.
He composed two original works for guitar,” Quripa “and “Endecho”8 and harmonized many folk melodies for guitar which later were published in Alirio Diaz- Edition in 6 Volumes from a set of 34 Volumes of harmonized melodies for various instruments.9
Another of his vital works for the guitar was the National Conservatory’s guitar course “one of the first academic guitar courses in the world.”10
Antonio Lauro, The great Venezuelan guitarist and composer explains Sojo’s work as follows:
“Sojo took great pains to have the guitar included as a permanent instrument in the school. At first, it fell under harp classes because a salary for a guitar teacher had not been approved in the budget. At that time the entire staff was opposed to the idea. The academics did not accept the inclusion of such an instrument […] But Sojo, who knew the value of the instrument, its history, and its potential, insisted, and in the end, he was successful.”11
6 . Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p56-57)
7. Labonville, Marie Elizabeth, Juan Bautista Plaza and musical Nationalism in Venezuela, Indiana University Press(2007-p9) 8 . Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p57)
9 . Sojo, Vicente Emilio, Works for Guitar Vol.1 ,Caroni Music (2003-Catalogue)
10. Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p76)
11. Ibid
1.3- Juan Bautista Plaza (1898-1965), an Academic Musician
Juan Bautista Plaza Alfonso was born in Caracas on June 19th, 1898. He was an educator, composer, and music critic.
Among Sojo, Calcaño, and Plaza, Plaza was the only one who studied in Europe. He studied in Rome, Italy, from 1920 to 1923 and obtained the title of the professor of Sagrada (sacred) composition.12
After his arrival to Caracas in 1924, he obtained a position as the music history teacher at the School of Music and Declamation. However, this opportunity led him to lifelong friendships with Vicente Sojo and Jose Calcaño.
Along with his teaching career in the field of music history, Plaza’s primary duties were to compose original music for the Orfeon Limas and Venezuelan Symphony Orchestra and write articles and reviews on music events to develop the knowledge of the audiences.13
During the 1930s Plaza himself wrote more than 64 articles on music events in Caracas mostly for “El Universal” one of the oldest papers in Venezuela.14
12 . Labonville, Marie Elizabeth, Juan Bautista Plaza and musical Nationalism in Venezuela, Indiana University Press(2007-p7)
13 . Labonville, Marie Elizabeth, Juan Bautista Plaza and musical Nationalism in Venezuela, Indiana University Press(2007-p77,131)
14. Labonville, Marie Elizabeth, Juan Bautista Plaza and musical Nationalism in Venezuela, Indiana University Press(2007-p132)
1.4- Jose Antonio Calcaño (1900-1978); The Coordinator
Jose Antonio Calcaño was born in Caracas on March 23rd, 1900.
He was a diplomat, self-taught composer, cellist and music critic. Although he received music education in piano and cello from an early age, he never had a chance to continue his studies at academic levels.
Parallel to his musical career, he entered the diplomatic service as an official of the Cabinet Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and as civil attaché of the Legation of Venezuela in Bern; he had the opportunity to attend some courses at the Music Conservatory in that city.15
Regarding his career as a high-level politician, Calcaño helped the music society by obtaining financial support from the government.16
1.5- Plaza and Calcaño as music critics and their role in the acceptance of the guitar as a serious instrument;
Plaza and Calcaño took seriously their self-appointed responsibility to educate the public about developments in Caracas’s concert life by writing articles about music events and specific composers.
15 . Virgüez Márquez ,Yellice ,Jose Antonio Calcaño;hombre mediático desconocido (2014) 16 . Virgüez Márquez ,Yellice ,Jose Antonio Calcaño;hombre mediático desconocido (2014)
These articles about concerts in Caracas generally followed a basic format as Labonville explains:
(1) ” Near the beginning, they provided information about unfamiliar genre, debunked a misconception, or scolded the public for poor attendance;
(2) They spoke glowingly about the excellence of the artist(s) and described the works that were performed or were about to be performed; (3) If the concert had already taken place there was mention of audience’s enthusiastic applause (4) A brief conclusion paragraph urged the public to attend the next concert of the artist or ensemble.”17
Among such reviews, Plaza and Calcaño wrote their first articles about a guitar concert in 1932 when Paraguayan guitarist and composer Agustin Barrios (1885-1944) visited Caracas for the first time.
To describe the importance of these articles, Bruzual in his book Guitar in Venezuela declares:
“Despite small crowds for Barrios’s first and second concerts, they also received excellent press reviews and, finally for his third concert on March 1st, the concert hall was full. Juan Bautista Plaza and Jose Antonio Calcaño wrote enthusiastically about Barrios’s concerts, highlighting the performer’s musicality and the qualities of the instrument and emphasizing that these concerts should be an eye-opening experience for the audiences.”18
2- Propagators (Second Generation); Antonio Lauro, Fredy Reina, Alirio Diaz
2.1- Historical situation and the rise of 2nd generation
The Propagators or second generation of Venezuelan nationalist musicians was educated during the the1930s and 1940s, all under the tutelage of the first generation. At this time, because of Gomez’s death, his 28 of dictatorship had ended, and a new era of Venezuela’s history began.
In 1945 the social democrat party seized power and brought new names and faces, including artists and intellectuals, into Venezuelan politics.19During this period the second generation of nationalist musicians started to bloom.
Although there are many musicians from this generation that can be considered for focusing on, in this section I’m going to talk about those who are more important for the guitarist readers.
17. Labonville, Marie Elizabeth, Juan Bautista Plaza and musical Nationalism in Venezuela, Indiana University Press(2007-p132) 18 . Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p65)
19 . Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p99)
2.2- Antonio Lauro (1917-1986): The Gershwin of Venezuela20
The son of an Italian immigrant, Antonio Lauro was born in Ciudad Bolivar on August 3rd, 1917.
His father was an amateur musician and composer who played saxhorn, clarinet and guitar and who composed waltzes and mazurkas. After his father’s death in 1926, the young Lauro settled in Caracas with his family. In 1931, Lauro began his formal music studies at the School of Music and Declamation, and in 1933, his excellent bass voice won him a place in the “Orfeon Limas”, where he soon became a principal soloist. In 1934, Antonio Lauro began his guitar studies with Raul Borges and became the official guitarist of the radio station of Caracas.21
2.2.1- Lauro’s Nationalist tendencies and his legacy:
In the late 1930s, radio broadcasting and sound reproduction methods were improving, vinyl records were becoming very popular and the cinemas were moving to the sound era. These changes all had a powerful impact on the average Venezuelan’s musical taste and made them prefer foreign music rather than national music.22
20. Diaz, Alirio , Antonio Lauro’s Works for Guitar , Caroni Music (2002-p2)
21. Ibid
22. Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p101)
Like many other musicians at the time Lauro tried to change this situation by forming a guitar-vocal quartet called “Cantores Del Tropico” (Singers of the Tropic), the quartet included composer Eduardo Serrano, guitarist Manuel Enrique Perez Diaz, tenor Marco Tulio Maristany and Lauro himself. This group became famous throughout the country and was seen as a powerful reply by the Venezuelan music movement to the “avalanche” of foreign music heard in the country.23
According to Bruzual,
“Lauro’s life as a musician and composer changed from his experience with this quartet because his knowledge of Venezuelan music depended in terms of styles, forms, expression and repertoire”.24
The second stage of Lauro’s life began in 1944 when he gave up playing guitar professionally and dedicated himself to the world of composing, a direction that Sojo( his composition teacher at that time) fully supported. During this time he composed his non- guitar compositions including his strongly nationalistic, short orchestra pieces and also a huge number of choral pieces known as Venezuelan Madrigals.25
Nowadays AntonioLauro is known as one of the most prominent Venezuelan composers of 20th century. His vast number of works for guitar and other solo instruments along with his choral and symphonic compositions can be considered as a precious legacy that he left for the world of music and for us, as guitarists, the terms like Valse Venezolano, Joropo, Aguinaldo, and Galeron would have been meaningless without him
23 . Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p101)
24 . Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p102)
25 . Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p107)
2.3- Fredy Reyna (1917-2001): Reviver of Cuatro
Born in Caracas on April 3rd, 1917, Fredy Reyna is the only person among others of his generation who introduced the cuatro (Venezuela’s national instrument) to the world.
Reyna was son of a pianist, painter, and photographer father. He decided to study music when he heard Sainz de la Maza on the radio and began his guitar studies at the School of Music and Declamation in 1933.
As Bruzual explains
“In 1948, Reyna began to explore the potential of the cuatro as a solo instrument, changing the traditional re-entrant tuning to a progressive tuning, thereby raising the first string by an octave. He set out on his own to prove the melodic potential of the cuatro and went on to create his own repertoire of arrangements and original works and wrote a complete method on Cuatro playing in 1958.”26
Reyna musical life changed when he discovered a similarity between Venezuelan cuatro and the renaissance guitar, He subsequently left Venezuela for Europe to do research in museums and the archives of some European cities, copying and arranging the original repertoire and even developing his own form of tablature.
In 1961, Reyna was a teacher of Latin American music at Saint John’s Wood Institute in London, and from 1962 to 1966, he researched the cuatro at the General Archives of the Indies and the National Historic Archive in Madrid.2
26. Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p111) 27.Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005}
2.4- Alirio Diaz (1923-2016): An International Guitarist
Eighth in a family of eleven children, Alirio Diaz, was born on 12 November 1923 in a small village near the town of Carora. At the age of eleven and guided by his instinctive curiosity he began to play the guitar .In 1945, he moved to Caracas to start his formal guitar studies at the School of Music and Declamation where he studied harmony with Sojo and music history with Plaza. After his graduation in 1950, Alirio gave his first public concert in Venezuela and received a government grant to complete his studies in Europe.28
After a year of study with Regino Sainz de la Maza in Madrid, he moved to Italy to study with Andres Segovia at the Academia Chighiana where he became Segovia’s assistant and later his successor.
From 1950 to the end of his life, Diaz was an active performer and recording artist, and recorded 35 albums recorded between 1956 and 1986.29
2.4.1 Diaz’s legacy as a teacher, cultural ambassador, musicologist and publisher
Although Diaz spent most of his life in Italy, he commuted to his homeland almost every year during his professional life.
Inspired by the courses at the Academia Chighiana, Diaz taught guitar courses at the Universidad Central de Venezuela for four years starting in 1966.As Bruzual states:
“These courses were the first international event for the guitar held in Venezuela and must be viewed as Diaz’s greatest contribution to the teaching of the Latin-American guitar, the courses allowed a new
generation of Venezuelan guitarists to experience Diaz’s defining influence at the most important time in his artistic career.”
His activities as Venezuela’s cultural ambassador affected his career during the 1970s and made him spend much more time in the Venezuelan embassy rather than the concert halls.30
As a musicologist, Diaz published two significant books, first one in 1970,”Vestige of the 16th and 17th Centuries Remaining in our Folklore Music”, in which he highlights characteristics of national music that are fundamentally linked to the history of the guitar . The second one in 1980, “Music in the Life and Struggle of the Venezuelan People”, is a compilation of his essays about music.31
In 1995, Diaz participated in the creation of the publishing company Caroni Music, devoted to the publication and promotion of Venezuelan music.32
According to Michel d’Arcangues, his partner:
“Caroni Music’s catalogue of Venezuelan music contains more than 5000 pieces.”33
Final Words;
In my opinion, Venezuelan nationalist musicians can be considered as a goal-oriented part of society who worked hard to achieve their goals; these achievements now show us that, unexpectedly, a small group of determined persons can make significant changes.
Nowadays, learning classical music is compulsory at elementary schools34, and it doesn’t belong to the upper class anymore. The results of their efforts are undeniable, since they achieved their goals of having a solid national repertoire, national symphonic orchestra and a strong music education system in Venezuela. For all these, Venezuelans owe them huge thanks!
30. d’Arcangues, Michel, A Special Homage :Alirio Diaz Eightieth Birthday, Latin American Music Review (2004-p237)
31. Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p157)
32. d’Arcangues, Michel, A Special Homage: Alirio Diaz Eightieth Birthday, Latin American Music Review (2004-p237) 33 . d’Arcangues, Michel, A Special Homage :Alirio Diaz Eightieth Birthday, Latin American Music Review (2004-p238) 34 .Carlson, Alexandra , Story of Carora: The Origins of El Sistema , International Journal of Music Education (2016-p71)
Notes
1 . Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p51)
2 . Aponte, Pedro Rafael, The Invention of the National in Venezuelan Art Music, University of Pittsburgh (2008-p4) 3 . Sojo, Vicente Emilio, Works for Guitar Vol.1, Caroni Music Ltd (2003-preface)
4 . Aponte, Pedro Rafael, The Invention of the National in Venezuelan Art Music, University of Pittsburgh (2008-p76) 5 . Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p56-57)
6 . Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p56-57)
7. Labonville, Marie Elizabeth, Juan Bautista Plaza and musical Nationalism in Venezuela, Indiana University Press (2007-p9) 8 . Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p57)
9 . Sojo, Vicente Emilio, Works for Guitar Vol.1, Caroni Music (2003-Catalogue)
10. Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p76)
11. Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p76)
12. Labonville, Marie Elizabeth, Juan Bautista Plaza and musical Nationalism in Venezuela, Indiana University Press (2007-p7)
13. Labonville, Marie Elizabeth, Juan Bautista Plaza and musical Nationalism in Venezuela, Indiana University Press (2007-p77)
14. Labonville, Marie Elizabeth, Juan Bautista Plaza and musical Nationalism in Venezuela, Indiana University Press (2007-p132)
15. Virgüez Márquez, Yellice, Jose Antonio Calcaño; hombre mediático desconocido (2014)
16. Virgüez Márquez, Yellice, Jose Antonio Calcaño; hombre mediático desconocido (2014)
17. Labonville, Marie Elizabeth, Juan Bautista Plaza and musical Nationalism in Venezuela, Indiana University Press (2007-p132)
18. Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p65) 1 9. Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p99)
20. Diaz, Alirio, Antonio Lauro’s Works for Guitar, Caroni Music (2002-p2)
21. Diaz, Alirio, Antonio Lauro’s Works for Guitar, Caroni Music (2002-p2)
22. Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p101) 23 . Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p101) 24 . Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-
YPPAN EDITION (2005-p102) 25 . Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p107)
26. Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p111)
27. Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p112)
28 . d’Arcangues, Michel, A Special Homage: Alirio Diaz Eightieth Birthday, Latin American Music Review (2004-p235) 29 . Diaz, Alirio, Discography, www. Aliriodiaz.org/disco.html
30. d’Arcangues, Michel, A Special Homage: Alirio Diaz Eightieth Birthday, Latin American Music Review (2004-p237)
31. Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005-p157)
32. d’Arcangues, Michel, A Special Homage: Alirio Diaz Eightieth Birthday, Latin American Music Review (2004-p237)
33. d’Arcangues, Michel, A Special Homage: Alirio Diaz Eightieth Birthday, Latin American Music Review (2004-p238) 34 .Carlson, Alexandra, Story of Carora: The Origins of El Sistema, International Journal of Music Education (2016-p71)
Bibliography
Bruzual, Alejandro, The Guitar in Venezuela, DOBERMAN-YPPAN EDITION (2005)
Aponte, Pedro Rafael, The Invention of the National in Venezuelan Art Music, University of Pittsburgh (2008) Sojo, Vicente Emilio, Works for Guitar Vol.1, Caroni Music Ltd (2003)
Labonville, Marie Elizabeth, Juan Bautista Plaza and musical Nationalism in Venezuela, Indiana University Press (2007) Virgüez Márquez, Yellice, Jose Antonio Calcaño; hombre mediático desconocido (2014)
Diaz, Alirio, Antonio Lauro’s Works for Guitar, Caroni Music (2002)
d’Arcangues, Michel, A Special Homage: Alirio Diaz Eightieth Birthday, Latin American Music Review (2004) Carlson, Alexandra, Story of Carora: The Origins of El Sistema, International Journal of Music Education (2016) Diaz, Alirio, Discography, www. Aliriodiaz.org