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242
1. 1939 film score, “Mexican tragedy” celebrating
heritage of native Mayan empire
2. 1961 arranged into four- movement suite, José
Ives Limantour (1919–1976)
3. expanded percussion: intersections of native,
African, Eu ro pean cultures
4. “Noche de Jaranas,” “tempo di son”
a. son: popu lar Latin dance genre; mixture of
indigenous, African, and Spanish traditions
b. traditional son, shifts between 3/4 and 6/8
c. Revueltas: unpredictable shifts between 6/8
and 5/8
d. mariachi band evoked: violins in parallel
thirds, answered by brass section
e. celebrates national heritage and modernist
American soundscape
C. LG 54: Revueltas: “Noche de Jaranas” (“Night of
Revelry”), from La noche de los Mayas (The Night
of the Mayas) (Suite arrangement 1961)
1. rondo- like form
2. full orchestra with piano, Latin percussion
3. ele ments of Latin American son dance music
4. highly syncopated; alternations between com-
pound and irregular meters
5. tonal, unusual harmonic shifts
OVERVIEW
This chapter focuses on Mexican musical modernism in the
early twentieth century and the traditional national music that
inspired it. This subject is explored through the music of Sil-
vestre Revueltas, whose La noche de los Mayas (The Night
of the Mayas) evokes the style and instrumentation of the
Mexican mariachi tradition.
OUTLINE
I. Musical Traditions of Mexico
A. Embrace indigenous Amerindian and Hispanic
cultures
1. late nineteenth century, goal to create distinct
national style
2. mestizos: people of mixed Spanish and Amerin-
dian ancestry
3. 1910 Mexican Revolution stirred patriotism
4. “Aztec Re nais sance” post- revolutionary period
a. composers evoke native music for modern
age
b. influential composers: Carlos Chávez
(1899–1978), Silvestre Revueltas
B. Mestizo realism: nationalist modernist movement
1. ele ments of Mexico’s traditional culture
2. Revueltas: folk ele ments, mariachi band traditions
II. Silvestre Revueltas: “Mestizo Realist”
A. Silvestre Revueltas (1899–1940)
1. Mexican composer, conductor, violin prodigy
2. studied composition in Mexico City and United
States
3. assistant conductor, Orquesta Sinfónica de
Mexico
4. representative of “mestizo realism”
5. late 1930s, Spanish Civil War, went to Spain,
worked for Loyalist government
6. composed anti- Fascist works
7. style: Mexican folk ele ments, Romantic in inspi-
ration, lyrical, dissonance and chromaticism,
polyrhythms and ostinatos
8. works: orchestral music, film scores, chamber
music, ballets, songs
B. La noche de los Mayas (The Night of the Mayas)
Also American: Revueltas and Mexican
Musical Modernism
CHAPTERfi60
textbook makes the in ter est ing point that postrevolutionary
Mexican composers of the 1920s and 1930s confronted the
legacy of colonialism in their attempts to evoke, rather than
recapture, the music of pre- Columbian cultures (see pp.368–
69). This chapter pres ents an opportunity to discuss with your
SUPPLEMENTAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Henriques, Donald Andrew. “Performing Nationalism: Mariachi,
Media, and Transformation of a Tradition.” Ph.D. diss., Univer-
sity of Texas at Austin, 2006. One of the few scholarly works in
YOUR TURN TO EXPLORE
Find examples of music associated with Mexico (for exam-
ple, mariachi ensembles) and compare it with music associ-
MODEL RESPONSE
This per for mance of El rey by Vicente Fernández highlights
several aspects of Mexican ranchera music. This genre is fre-
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. To understand Revueltas as part of a larger group of Mexi-
can and American modernist composers interested in cel-
ebrating Mexican nationalism and identity through music
mariachi music (rhythm, meter, instrumentation), and
play for them some examples of the classic sones of the
mariachi bands from Revueltas’s time (1930s and 1940s;
see the “Encounter” feature on pages372–73 for an
example).
1. Carlos Chávez is another twentieth- century Mexican
composer whose music reflects the history and culture
of Mexico. Do some background research on and listen
to Chávez’s Symphony No.2, Sinfonía India. What kinds
of Mexican nationalist ele ments does Chávez incorpo-
Homage to Federico García Lorca for chamber orches-
tra, Revueltas set seven of Lorca’s poems to music in a
collection titled Siete canciones. After reading these
TEACHING CHALLENGES
