Full Description
Taking as a thread the concept of national identity, this book elucidates the sound transformations that have taken place in the world of the Latin American art song since its appearance in the late nineteenth century to the present day. The book focuses in the art songs of Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Perú, and Colombia. The book addresses the subject of performance practice of the Latin American song and ends with a proposal for its interpretation.
In songs, spaces of representation and cathartic tools thought, language and music have been at the service of some interests, fulfilling specific functions in the construction of the nation. In them, we observe that the construction of identity is a continuous, constant and changing process in which different stories are superimposed. Seen this way, songs are historical texts where social interactions are reflected, and the past, the present and the future are constantly negotiated.
The book also addresses the subject of performance practice of the Latin American song and ends with a proposal for its interpretation.
Contents
Foreword by Walter Clark
Prelude
Introduction
Chapter 1: The sounds of the imagined nations
Towards a broader definition of nationalism
Latin America: multiple identities
Musical nationalism in Latin America
Latin American National Anthems: Towards a national identity?
Salon music and the influence of Italian opera
The construction of the national sound begins
Creolism
Alberto Nepomuceno: Song in Portuguese
Developing the National Style
Alberto Williams and the stylization of folk song
The double verbal-musical nature of song: Latin American composers setting Latin American poems to music
Chapter 2: A creative storm
Art song as a medium of expression of modernist nationalism
Argentina
Brazil
Cuba
Perú
Venezuela
Chapter 3: New facets of the concept of nationalism in the 20th century
Art song since 1940
Alberto Ginastera: from a national style to a national atmosphere
Carlos Guastavino: the voice of tradition
Jaime León: a Pan-American voice
The Nueva Canción Latinoamericana movement and its relation to art song
Chapter 4: Towards a musical transnationalism or the dissolution of borders.
Transnationalism: multiple places or the non-place
A transnational composer: Moisès Bertran (Catalunya, 1967)
Transnationalism, cosmopolitanism, multi-locality, neo-nationalism?
Chapter 5: Performance practice of Latin American Art Song
The concept of performance practice
Performance: a space of communication between performers and audience
The performance of art song: an integrative space
Art song and its performance
Folk song and its performance
Popular song and its performance
Looking for the borders between Art song and Folk song: Following the steps of Marcel Duchamp
Pierre Bourdieu and the concepts of field and habitus applied to the study of song
Meaning-producing agents in the world of song
Meaning-producing agents in the sub-field of art song
Performance context of art song
Meaning-producing agents in the sub-field of folk song
Performance context of folk song
Meaning-producing agents in the sub-field of popular song
Performance context of popular song
The dual status of folk and art song: Marcel Duchamp and the "ready-mades"
Song: an elastic, flexible and integrating space
Proposals for a new performance practice of Latin American art song
Discography
Bibliography
