BETWEEN ASSIMILATION AND RESISTANCE OF WESTERN …

BETWEEN ASSIMILATION AND RESISTANCE OF WESTERN MUSICAL CULTURE: TRACES OF NATIONALISM ON JOSÉ PABLO MONCAYO’S VIOLA

SONATA.

By

Tonatiuh García Jiménez

A Doctoral Project Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The School of Music

of the Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Musical Arts

College of Visual and Performing Arts Department of Music

Texas Tech University Lubbock, Texas

June 2014

By the following Committee

Kimberly Sparr Doctoral Project Chair

Lauryn Salazar Annie Chalex Boyle

Copyright by Tonatiuh García Jiménez

2014

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to express my gratitude to the members of my dissertation committee,

Professors Kimberly Sparr, Lauryn Salazar, and Annie Chalex Boyle, for their insightful

remarks and careful comments on the development of my writing. I am especially

grateful to my viola teacher, Professor Renee Skerik, whose encouragement and support

helped me through my first year at Texas Tech University.

I am indebted to Patricia Lorena Keresey who shared her revision of the José

Pablo Moncayo Viola Sonata and her ideas on this work. With her permission, I

performed her edition of Moncayo’s Viola Sonata, which was published by the

Conservatory of Music of Mexico State.

I also wish to thank Universidad Veracruzana and Orquesta Sinfónica de Xalapa

for their financial support over the course of my studies at TTU.

Finally, I am grateful to my parents, Julieta Jiménez and Atanasio García, for

stimulating my wishes to learn, encouraging me to overcome obstacles, and for their

financial support. I am also indebted to my wife Anayely Olivares for her patience and

understanding of me.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

INTRODUCTION v

1 José Pablo Moncayo (1912-1958) 1

2 Nationalism Movement in Mexico: The Moncayo Viola Sonata in Context 6

3 Grupo de los Cuatro 14

4 Creatividad Musical class 18

5 Pandiatonicism and Economy in Musical Expression in Moncayo’s

Viola Sonata 23

6 Similarities Between the Moncayo’s Viola Sonata and Chávez’s

Thoughts on Aztec Music 27

7 Formal Analysis 37

8 Conclusion 41

Work Cited 45

Appendix 49

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Between Assimilation and Resistance of Western Musical Culture: Traces of

Nationalism on José Pablo Moncayo’s Viola Sonata.

ABSTRACT

Throughout the first half of the twentieth century in Mexico, a nationalist movement

emerged out of two predominant cultural processes: assimilation and resistance. This

movement inspired a generation of Mexican composers to create a musical richness that

exists between the tension and contradiction that are exposed in their nationalist

compositions. Among other musical currents, nationalism dominated the art-music scene

in the first half of the twentieth century in Mexico, causing some of the composers to

introduce folk elements such as rhythms, melodies, and native instruments alternating

with Western traditional forms. Best known for his orchestral work Huapango, José

Pablo Moncayo's catalogue of works remains forgotten for the wider audience even in

Mexico. A member of the “Group of Four” along with Blas Galindo, Salvador Contreras,

and Daniel Ayala, Moncayo was an outstanding pupil of Carlos Chávez and had a

significant career as a conductor. This dissertation explores how José Pablo Moncayo’s

Viola Sonata combines sonata form with folk elements. The composer created his own

style by following principles from his mentor Carlos Chávez who advocated a return to

pre-Conquest musical ideals. I examine the work by analyzing its form, and other

compositional procedures that were delineated through the musical idea of

pandiatonicism, a term coined by the musicologist Nicolas Slonimsky. I state that this

early sonata in Moncayos’s catalogue can be considered as pursuing a validation from

Mexican nationalism as a subjective evocation of a remote past, the Aztec music.

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INTRODUCTION

The Mexican nationalist period in music encompasses several decades in the first

half of the twentieth century. Traits from this period can be even found in works in the

late nineteenth century. In Mexico, this movement began in the arts as a trend that

pursued identity through culture and aesthetics, and encouraged musical blossoming

characterized by singular compositions that established what Mexican nationalism should

be. Many composers, including José Pablo Moncayo, played an active role in this era in

their musical activities.

This dissertation explores the idea that, in José Pablo Moncayo’s Viola Sonata,

the composer is creating a subjective evocation of a remote musical heritage: the music of

the Aztecs. Guided by his mentor, Carlos Chávez, throughout his career, we can see

principles reflected in this work regarding what Chávez considered the most profound

and deepest in the Mexican soul, the Aztec music. I examine the Moncayo Viola Sonata

by identifying musical elements that were considered findings in ethnomusicology in

indigenous music models.

Characteristics of Aztec music were summarized by Chávez in a lecture in 1928

on aboriginal music. These principles would soon influence the writing of several

Mexican composers.

In this work, I focus on the Viola Sonata from the nationalist approach,

delineating several aspects in Moncayo's life that were decisive in his career as a

composer. First his involvement in the Grupo de los Cuatro (Group of Four); secondly,

the class of Creatividad Musical (Musical Creativity) class taught by Carlos Chávez in

the National Conservatory, and finally, his active career as a conductor.

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I state that in this work the composer is using the idea of pandiatonicism as a

compositional procedure, coinciding with the Mexican musicologist, Ricardo Miranda,

who has pointed out that one of the common features among Mexican nationalist

composers include the use of pandiatonicism.

Moncayo is best known by his orchestral work Huapango, the most performed

work in the Mexican symphonic repertoire. Unfortunately, due to the success of

Huapango, most of his work is still unknown for the wider audience. In addition to the

Viola Sonata, there are works in Moncayo's catalogue that should not only be included in

performances but also be studied and analyzed. Studying and performing these pieces

brings us closer to understanding the twentieth century music history of Mexico. For

instance, I discovered clear misprints throughout Moncayo’s Viola Sonata in the edition

published in 1991 by Ediciones Mexicanas de Música. Alterations between clefs, more

specific instructions for bow articulation, and phrasing would clarify the idea on

interpretation. Most of these issues have been fixed by Lorena Oropeza Keresey’s

edition. Having both editions as references aided me in the interpretive and analytical

process.

Further information about Mexican nationalist composers can be found by tracing

correspondences between Chávez’s principles on Aztec music and his successors. The

result can be synthesized as the subjective evocation of a remote past from a musical

heritage that was rejected and disappeared, thus creating a imaginary musical identity in a

generation of nationalist composers.

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This viola sonata exemplifies how Mexican composers were combining modern

musical language and distinctive Mexican musical idioms within Western musical forms,

and the process of assimilation and resistance of the Western musical tradition.

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CHAPTER 1

JOSÉ PABLO MONCAYO (1912-1958)

Two years after the Mexican revolution started, Moncayo was born in

Guadalajara, Jalisco in 1912, during a revolt that extended across the country in

opposition to the 30 year dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz. This armed uprising endured for

more than a decade, and was an event where decisive and vital decisions were taken

regarding the future of Mexico's development. Educational reforms were introduced by

the subsequent governments after the revolution that had repercussions in the arts and

specifically in music.

Moncayo’s childhood in Guadalajara is basically unknown as there is not any

biographical information about his youth in any source. Interviews with his widow, Clara

Elena Moncayo, by Torres-Chibrás in 2000 revealed no details about her husband's

infancy.1

The first account about Moncayo’s youth comes from Clara Elena Moncayo who

points out that Moncayo's family moved to Mexico City in 1918, when he was six years

old and took his first music lessons with his older brother, violinist Francisco Moncayo.

Over the years, he was encouraged to study the piano. Eduardo Hernández Moncada is

reported as his first piano teacher in 1926 when Moncayo was fourteen years old.

Moncada would become a key friendship in Moncayo's career (second after Chávez), as a

teacher and as a mentor.

                                                                                                               1 Clara Elena Moncayo Rodríguez del Campo, interview by Torres-Chibrás, 1 May 2000, notes from a telephone conversation, author’s dissertation Archives, Mexico City. As cited in Torres-Chibrás, Armando Ramón. “José Pablo Moncayo, Mexican Composer and Conductor: a Survey of His Life with a Historical Perspective of His Time.” DMA diss., University of Missouri, 2002.

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The next step in his career was to become a member of the recently formed

Symphony Orchestra of Mexico as a percussionist and pianist in a series of performances

during its first season 1928-1929. Formal musical instruction for Moncayo began in 1929

when he was admitted to the National Conservatory where he was taught harmony,

counterpoint, fugue, solfège, and music history. One of his composition professors at the

conservatory was Calendario Huízar who had been hired before as copyist in the National

Conservatory in 1920 and later as a librarian, graduating from it 1924 as a horn player

and playing in its orchestra and other theatre companies.

The premiere concert that presented Moncayo as a composer took place in 1931

in a concert where the first three pieces in his catalogue were performed2: Impresiones de

un bosque, Impresión (both for piano solo) and Diálogo para dos pianos y una vaca (for

two pianos). This performance also featured works by Daniel Ayala and Salvador

Contreras, young composers that soon would make up the Grupo de los Cuatro along

with Blas Galindo. The Sociedad Musical Renovación, a society that provided impetus to

young composers who reflected nationalist ideas in their works, organized the concert.

After several interviews, Moncayo and his friend Salvador Contreras obtained a

position in a middle school in Mexico City in 1933 as music professors. Moncayo started

teaching piano and solfège in the Middle School No. 3 with a salary of 90.00 pesos a

month.

In the first years of the 1930's, Moncayo focused on composing chamber music.

He exclusively concentrated on the sonata as a genre for about four years. Compositions

that he wrote those years included Sonata for cello and piano (1933), Sonata for violin

                                                                                                               2 Eduardo Soto Millán, comp. Diccionario de Compositores Mexicanos de Música de Concierto (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, Vol. I,II, 1996).

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and cello (1934), Sonata for viola and piano (1934), Sonatina for piano (1935), Sonata

for violín and piano (1936). Subsequent works will show predilection for larger

orchestral ensembles rather than small settings.

Like many other Mexican composers, Moncayo joined the League of

Revolutionary Writers and Artists (LEAR) in 1935. The Liga de Escritores y Artistas

Revolucionarios was a Mexican association defined as a section of the International

Union of Revolutionary Writers, which was founded by the Comintern in the Soviet

Union in 1930. One of the presidents of the LEAR was Silvestre Revueltas who

maintained an active socialist sympathy. The Grupo de los Cuatro, formed by José Pablo

Moncayo, Blas Galindo, Hernández Moncada, and Daniel Ayala, was affiliated with the

LEAR, however unlike Revueltas, the four young musicians just wanted sponsorship for

their concerts as Blas Galindo remembers:

I was a provincial boy and had no history of anything or anyone. In the LEAR I met many friends. The Group of Four belonged to the LEAR. We wanted the LEAR to sponsor concerts for us. The opportunities that we saw were the opportunities that we took. LEAR sponsored some concerts for us.3.

Once appointed Music Director of the National Conservatory of Mexico in 1928,

Carlos Chávez founded a class of composition he called Creatividad Musical (Musical

Creativity). Moncayo joined the class in 1931 along with his friends Galindo, Ayala, and

Contreras.

In addition to his career as a member of the Symphony Orchestra of Mexico as a

pianist and percussionist, Moncayo also started conducting the Symphony Orchestra of

Mexico, a position he held in different years of his life as a guest conductor under the

                                                                                                               3 Xochiquetzal Ruiz Ortiz. Blas Galindo. Biografía, Antología de Textos y Catálogo. México: INBA, CENIDIM, 1994, p. 22. In the case of translations from Spanish to English, unless otherwise stated, all translations are my own.  

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guidance of his mentor Carlos Chávez. In 1947, Moncayo was hired as a chief conductor

of the National Symphony Orchestra of the Conservatory and years later in 1956 as

conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of the National Conservatory of Music.

In the summer of 1941, Moncayo and Galindo were granted scholarships from the

Rockefeller Foundation to study at the Berkshire Music Institute, known today as the

Tanglewood Music Center. According to Dr. Jesús C. Romero, Moncayo was invited to

attend there by Aaron Copland and Serge Koussevitzky4.

José Pablo Moncayo won first prize in a composition competition in 1944

organized by the Symphony Orchestra of México with his First Symphony. In 1949,

Moncayo held the position of Chair of Composition at the National Conservatory of

Music winning second prize in the composition competition to commemorate the

centenary of Chopin's death.

The Louisville Symphony Orchestra commissioned Moncayo to compose a

symphonic work in 1953. This was the first and only commission that he received in the

United States. For this commitment, Moncayo wrote Cumbres and Robert Whitney, the

founder of the Louisville Orchestra, conducted the piece. Moncayo's health in his last

years of life deteriorated because of a heart condition that took his life on June 16, 1958.

In his short life, Moncayo composed forty varied works including piano solo

pieces, chamber music, duos, trios, a quintet for flute and string quartet, vocal music,

orchestral works, a symphony, an opera, and a ballet. His Viola Sonata was composed in

1934 at the age of thirty-two.

                                                                                                               4 Jesús C. Romero, "José Pablo Moncayo," Carnet Musical 161 (Año 13/14, July 1958): 300. Jesús C. Romero (1893-1958) was founder and President of the Mexican Society of Musicology and teacher and Director of the National School of Music of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

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Enthusiasm for music in the first half of the twentieth century in Mexico gives us

an idea of the interest in the increasing activity of musical repertoire of Mexican

composers and contemporary avant-garde composers from other countries. Through its

twenty-one-years of existence, the Symphony Orchestra of Mexico had renowned guest

artists performing 487 works, of which 284 were Mexican, and 88 were world premieres.

The Symphony Orchestra of Mexico invited guest artists and conductors such as: Sir

Thomas Beecham, Otto Klemperer, Dmitri Mitropoulos, Paul Hindemith, Darius

Milhaud, Aaron Copland, Igor Stravinsky, Leopold Stokowski, and Ernest Ansermet

among others. It was an exceptional opportunity for the young Moncayo to listen to and

discover some of the most adventurous works of the avant-garde music of the twentieth

century.

The subsequent political turmoil of the revolution, education reforms from the

government promulgating nationalist ideas, his friendship and guidance from Carlos

Chávez, and his involvement in the Grupo de los Cuatro were pivotal events in

Moncayo's maturation as a composer. Unfortunately, Moncayo did not express his

thoughts on aesthetics through the written word. He was not a person inclined to speak,

write, or comment about himself. His expression was portrayed through the music, not in

words.

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CHAPTER 2

Nationalism Movement in Mexico: The Moncayo Viola Sonata in Context

The political, sociological, and cultural perspective in the early twentieth century

informed Mexican musical nationalism in very specific ways. The historical context and

the past of Mexico should not be ignored in the understanding of the blossoming of

nationalism as a cultural movement. These observations are necessary to broaden the

scope in analyzing the musical elements of a work.

Before the arrival of Columbus to America, several ethnic groups inhabited the

Mexican territory dominated by a tributary empire Mexica, which spread across a large

portion of Mesoamerica. At the heart of this vast territory was the city Tenochtitlan

which was ruled by Aztecs.

After Columbus’ arrival, Spaniards forced Aztecs to transform their political

system, religion, and culture. There was a cultural process of assimilation and resistance.

Much of the wealth of this ancient Aztec culture was lost forever. There has been a

debate about this period of colonialism of about three hundred years as to whether it was

a cultural enrichment or a looting the wealth of a civilization and destruction of its

people. Images from Aztec history were preserved in Codices like the Florentine Codex

that documents the culture, ritual practices, society, economics, religious cosmology, and

natural history of Aztec people. The Florentine Codex is a manuscript orchestrated by the

Franciscan missionary Bernardino de Sahagún entitled La Historia general de las cosas

de Nueva España and compiled between 1576-77 after the Aztecs were defeated by the

army commanded by Cortez. Most of the Aztec and Mayan codices that were made up

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before the arrival of Columbus were destroyed and burned by the Spaniards, the few who

were preserved mainly describe astronomy calendars.

Mexico became independent from Spain in 1810. Around this time, other Latin

American nations such as Argentina (1810-20), Venezuela (1810-23), Colombia (1810-

24), Ecuador (1820-22), and others established independence as republics. In 1862,

Napoleon the Third led France in an invasion of Mexico. This invasion established a

monarchy with Maximilian of Habsburg on the throne. Mexican republican forces

defeated the French monarchy in 1867. This immersed the country of Mexico with a

French influence on many cultural aspects including architecture and music.

One hundred years later in 1910, wealth inequality and hunger among the

population were catalysts that ignited the beginning of Mexican revolution. It is in this

first decade of the twentieth century that many musicologists and composers place the

roots of the nationalist period, a musical movement that, it is observed, becomes diluted

until the late fifties.

[…] The figure of Manuel M. Ponce (1882-1948), who after a first stage indicated by the clear influence of French music, developed the outlines of a fully nationalist language5. For nearly three centuries, Mexico was not only a musical province of Spain, as such, reflected both the times of splendor as lapses narrowness of peninsular music itself6. Musical Mexico has just nine years old”, stated Silvestre Revueltas in 19377. The first stage of the nationalist movement started with the revolution of 1910 and seems to close its cycle from 1919 to 1920, some years after the triumph of the Carranza revolution [...] Saturnino Herran, Ramón López Velarde and Manuel Ponce were educated young Mexican artists of the time. Its production marked a turning point with regard to its predecessors8.

                                                                                                               5 Juan Arturo Brenan. “La magia perdida en la música de México.” Heterofonía, CENIDIM, Enero-Junio, No. 108 (1993): 11. 6 Consuelo Carredano. “Luces y sombra de la música española en México,” Música española entre dos guerras (1914-1945), edited by Javier Suárez, (Granada: Archivo Manuel de Falla, Serie Música, No. 4, 2002), p.20. 7 Silvestre Revueltas. Silvestre Revueltas por él mismo. México: Era, 1989, p.198. 8 Carlos Chávez. “La primera etapa nacionalista.” El Universal, January 28, 1937.

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The ideology of nationalist culture emerges only after the armed struggle, when the Revolution resulted at times in a given culture for all9. This nationalist musical movement coincided with the formidable revolutionary shaking that started in the north of the country, avalanche destroyed violently, the whole order of things established during the great dictatorship [of Porfirio Díaz]10.

Although the purpose of this work is not to focus on a historical review of

nationalism in Mexico or an epistemological study, we can observe a diversity of

conception and context. Unfortunately, many of these assertions are based on a

generalization that will irrevocably fall into contradictions in analyzing specific works by

the same author in different periods of his life. Nationalist Mexican composers not only

wrote within the nationalism principles but also in other twenty-century trends.

Some musicologists have gone so far as to define this period as an Aztec

Renaissance in music and the arts, which further stirs the ideological implications that

arose at this stage of search for musical identity.

With [Carlos Chávez] and his followers came a “revolutionary” ideology of nationalism that questioned the former elitism of art music and advocated a more holistic conception of national culture. It attempted to recognized and represent an image of a mestizo and Indian nation. This period saw the emergence of the so-called Aztec Renaissance in the arts of Mexico11.

In this period of about fifty years, many cultural and musical institutions were

founded; the National Autonomous University of Mexico (1910), The National School of

Music (1929), The Symphony Orchestra of Mexico (1928), The Musical Society

                                                                                                               9 Julio Estrada. “Silvestre Revueltas: totalidad desarmada.” Internacional Colloquium Silvestre Revueltas, Escuela Nacional de Música de la Universidad Autónoma de México, 1996. Cited on line at http://bibliotecavirtual.unl.edu.ar:8180/publicaciones/bitstream/11185/5564/4/ISM_7_2000_pag_11_20.pdfAccessed on March 18, 2014. 10 Manuel Ponce. “El folklore musical mexicano.” Revista Musical de México, Manuel M. Ponce y Rubén M. Campos, eds., México, septiembre 1919- mayo 1920, reimpr. facsimil, México, Centro Nacional de Investigación, Documentación, e Información Musical, No. 5 (1991): 6. 11 Gerard Béhague. “Indianism in Latin American Art-Music Composition of the 1920s to 1940s: Case Studies from Mexico, Peru, and Brazil.” Latin American Music Review, Vol. 27, No. 1, Spring-Summer, (2006): 31.

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Renovation (1931), The National Institute of Fine Arts (1947), three different music

journals, a music publisher, and a new building of the National Conservatory of Music.

This period of social transformation and emergence of cultural institutions gives

us a frame of reference, which helps us understand the context in which many Mexican

composers lived. The historical facts mentioned above represented a questioning of the

cultural identity of the Mexican people. Composers during the first half of the twenty-

century were interested about creating a musical identity and reconstructing a heritage to

be proud of. Manuel María Ponce, Silvestre Revueltas, and Carlos Chávez are three of

the most important composers of this period who pursued the ideals of nationalism in

their music.

For the Mexican musicologist Leonora Saavedra, Mexico occupied a peripheral

position within Western culture, brought about by its colonial past and the particular

characteristics of its history as an independent nation 12 . This position created a

relationship with the Western metropolises marked by an on-going tension between the

processes of assimilation and resistance. In music, this tension was reflected by the

alternation of the Western musical tradition and a Mexican idiomatic musical language.

Often this process of assimilation and resistance is superimposed in musical works,

creating a particularly rich synergy and reveals the musical richness that resides in the

contradictions, tensions, and ambivalence that are resolved in nationalist compositions.

In order to introduce the folk material in their works, Mexican composers utilized

different compositional procedures. There were composers who cited folk songs almost

textually with no alterations of their original elements; others who transformed these folk

                                                                                                               12 Leonora Saavedra. “Of Selves and Others: Historiography, Ideology, and the Politics of Modern Mexican Music.” PhD diss., University of Pittsburgh, 2001, p. iv.

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materials; and still others who synthesized what they considered to be the idiomatic

language of Mexican folk music with no textual reference to them.

Mexican composers researched different historiographical backgrounds: Aztec

music, the popular song, the mestizo heritage, and in general, the traditional music heard

in local towns across Mexico. Folk music was transcribed into musical notation and

published to preserve this heritage. For example, Once cantos (Eleven Chants) was a

collection of songs from different states of Mexico transcribed and harmonized by José

Pablo Moncayo13, as well as El folklore y la Música Mexicana (Folklore and Mexican

Music) a research and anthology of songs and melodies from 1525 through 1925 led by

Rubén M. Campos14. This effort resulted in publications that were subsidized and

supported by the Secretary of Public Education with the aim of preserving folklore of

Mexico. This was an age in which nationalist discourse was emphasized from the

Mexican state.

The above mentioned topics on nationalism reveal divergent ideological

implications, however, as I will illustrate, the Sonata for Viola and Piano by Moncayo

shows us an attempt to exploit specific features of what the nationalism trend considered

the Mexican ancient music to be, specifically, the Aztec music.

According to Blas Galindo, Moncayo is not a nationalist composer; he considers

his best-known orchestral work Huapango to be an isolated case in its production.

However, Blas Galindo notes that Moncayo’s remaining works can be identified to

                                                                                                               13 Cited on Vicente Mendoza T. “Once cantos de México”. Sección de Investigaciones Musicales del Departamento de Música del Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes de la Secretaría de Educación Pública. Boletín Bibliográfico de Antropología Americana, Vol. 14, No, 2 (Enero-Diciembre 1951), p. 195 14 Rubén M. Campos. El folklore y la música mexicana: investigación acerca de la cultura musical en México (1525-1925). México: Talleres Gráficos de la Nación, Serie ‘Secretaría de Educación Pública’, 1928.

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posses certain Mexican elements, which reflect a peculiar character to his music, a

Mexicanism raised to the status of international15.

In his short life, Moncayo composed forty works including solo piano pieces,

chamber music, duos, trios, a quintet for flute and string quartet, vocal music, orchestral

works including a symphony, an opera, and a ballet. The Viola Sonata was composed in

1934 when he was thirty-two. In this catalogue, we see diversity and exploration of form,

texture, variety in orchestration, richness of rhythms, and a diverse musical language.

One of the objectives of the Grupo de los Cuatro, where Blas Galindo and

Moncayo actively participated, was to revive the spirit of Mexican nationalist music, but

not all the works that they composed fit within the nationalist parameters that were fixed

as premises to be considered as such.

Carlos Chávez considered Mexican music to have a broader definition of

nationalism as the grafting of a thousand musical expressions brought into the country.

To Chavez, Mexican music was not based on a single, unique trait, but was considered to

be born out of diversity of different cultures. For him, every musical work was a

synthesis of traditional expressions; “the national style is the result of all traditional,

cultural, and geographical influences on a social group of individuals with an intellectual

condition given [...]. Now, as these conditions are always changing, the national style is

constantly evolving16”. The boundaries of nationalism to Chavez were not encompassed

within a succession of events, but were the result of an attitude of the composer about his

work.

                                                                                                               15 Blas Galindo. Hacer Música: Blas Galindo, compositor. Guadalajara, México: Universidad de Guadalajara, Dirección de Publicaciones, 1994, p.42. 16 Carlos Chávez. “Nacionalismo y Futurismo”, El Universal, August 31, 1936.

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Due to his reserved personality, José Pablo Moncayo was not inclined to write

about his works. It is not possible to find articles, interviews, or journals where he

expresses his ideas about nationalism or aesthetic positions. Nevertheless, he was a

founding member of the music magazine Nuestra Música (Our Music). In its beginnings,

this journal was an attempt by several composers to create a cooperative association to

publish their music. The list of founding members includes, in addition to José Pablo

Moncayo, Carlos Chávez, Blas Galindo, Luis Sandi, and the Spanish exiled composers

Rodolfo Halfter, Jesús Bal y Gay, and Adolfo Salazar.

The first issue of the quarterly journal dates from April 1946 and the publication

lasted until 1953. In it, there were collaborations of well-known contemporary composers

and critics including Aaron Copland, Béla Bartók, Darius Milhaud, Arnold Schoenberg,

Arthur Berger, Virgil Thomson, Henrietta Yurchenko, Dyneley Hussey, Marc Pincherle,

Paul Collaer, Isabel Pope, and Hermann Scherchen. Nuestra Música (Our Music) was

another clear example of the enthusiasm and dedication to the nationalist movement.

Moncayo's attention to this magazine focused on the board meetings, as Consuelo

Carredano settles "[…] he never engaged in exerting music criticism or journalism: he

was the only member of the Nuestra Música group who did not carry out any kind of

editorial task or write articles or reviews in Nuestra Música17". During his career,

Moncayo concentrated mainly on composition and conducting the Symphony Orchestra

of Mexico as music director, and supporting Carlos Chávez who was its artistic director.

Carlos Chavez always believed in Moncayo’s talent and was convinced of his abilities as

a composer, although he saw, a personality that needed a more determining character.

                                                                                                               17 Consuelo Carredano. Ediciones Mexicanas de Música: Historia y Catálogo. Mexico City: Centro Nacional de Investigación, Documentación e Información Musical “Carlos Chávez”, 1994, p. 46.

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I am convinced, now more than ever, that Moncayo is a musician of greatest talent, one of the best Mexican composers and, moreover, splendidly to be a conductor […] But also, like three years ago, I am convinced that José Pablo Moncayo needs to fortify the virtues of his character and get accustomed to demanding more effort and more work from himself18.

                                                                                                               18 Carlos Chávez. “Carta a Antonio Rodríguez.” Nuestra Música, año 3, No. 10 (April 1948): 103.

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CHAPTER 3

Grupo de los Cuatro

In 1935, the four young Mexican composers José Pablo Moncayo, Blas Galindo,

Hernández Moncada, and Daniel Ayala founded a group called Grupo de los Cuatro

(Group of Four).

The name of Grupo de los Cuatro was taken from a review written by José Barros

Sierra, columnist of El Universal, on November 27th of 1935, following their first

performance on November 25th in a concert entitled “Concierto de un Grupo de Jóvenes

Compositores”. The four young composers had been in Carlos Chávez’s Musical

Creativity class in previous years at the National Conservatory of Music and adopted this

description for their next concerts:

In our environment, it is unusual that young composers present the results of their work. It is even less common that a large audience gathers to listen specifically to their new works. Salvador Contreras, Daniel Ayala, J. Pablo Moncayo and Blas Galindo –the last promotion (to use the term now generally accepted) in our musical environment- managed to accomplish this feat in the concert that took place the night before last in the Theater Orientation of the Ministry of Public Education. With the exception of Daniel Ayala whose work has transcended the "largest" audiences through concerts with the Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, the young composers were… largely unknown. It was not possible for us to hear the whole program which was comprised by two works by each of the authors, and if we were used to apply exotic terms, this would be the occasion to speak of the group of four- ... the four young composers come from, musically speaking, our "avant-garde" and follow paths that, judging by what was heard the night before last, can not always be clearly seen. The concert of the four young fully filled its purpose and resulted in a contact with the public, which should encourage a whole new generation of musicians19.

Another review written by Solomon Kahan in Universal Gráfico on November

29th in his column "Música" under the title "Una hora experimental" described the

character of the music performed.

Obviously, it is noted that the above four musicians have said "goodbye" to the language and composition of formulas dating even from the last century, and have

                                                                                                               19 José Barros Sierra. “Conciertos y Recitales”. El Universal, November 27, 1935. Cited on Tello, Aurelio. Salvador Contreras: Vida y Obra. México: CENIDIM, 1987, pp. 35-36.

  15  

nurtured their exercises from iconoclastic examples. The dissonance does not scare them but, on the contrary, attracts them20.

These writings reveal the interest aroused among the musical community around a

generation of composers who saw with affinity how they were identified.

During this time, Calendario Huízar guided them on advising their works as Blas

Galindo remembers:

At our request, the teacher Huízar amicably revised our compositions. We learned a lot from him, as it allowed us to see how he composed. Thus we acquire a working knowledge of the profession. He even came to us posing problems about his own work to see if our solution coincided with his. Huizar's remarks, regarding the need to develop in each project a clear and consistent formal structure, were very useful. In our desire to achieve that quality, exaggerations incurred because often we drew sonatas and symphonies schemes before we even conceived the themes. This controversial procedure, like any other procedure, allowed us to acquire accuracy and what is the musical vision architecture21.

Through the memoirs of Blas Galindo, we can observe how these young

composers organized their musical ideas and which compositional procedures were

conceived as a broad scale vision of their works. Calendario Huízar was highly esteemed

by his pupil José Pablo Moncayo. Further research might reveal what influence remains

in his works from Huízar's compositional style. “Huízar was for me more than a teacher, I

always had his advice at the time that I needed it, I owe him much. His music seems

excellent, especially his Fourth Symphony that filled me with joy when I conducted it”22.

Unfortunately, there is not any direct reference to Moncayo’s viola sonata in

reviews or inclusion of it in any of the performances organized by the Grupo de los

Cuatro. In later decades, José Antonio Alcaraz briefly mentions Moncayo’s Sonata:

When Moncayo approached classical forms, the result was with the same quality as when he followed the dictation of a more free development.

                                                                                                               20 Salomon Kahan. “Una hora experimental”. El Universal Gráfico, November 29, 1935. Cited on Tello, Aurelio. Salvador Contreras: Vida y Obra. México: CENIDIM, 1987, p. 36. 21 Blas Galindo, Hacer Música: Blas Galindo, compositor, p. 39. 22 José Antonio Alcaráz. La Obra de José Pablo Moncayo. México: UNAM, Difusión Cultural, Departamento de Música, 1975, p. 13.

  16  

The sonata for viola and piano (1934) and his Symphony (1944), both clearly demonstrate the success of this happy conjunction of a healthy tradition (provided with sufficient elasticity to have enough evolutionary capacity) and restless and fertile imagination (even exuberant) of a musician, always present in their production. The Moncayo Viola Sonata is undoubtedly much better written than the violin sonata. The viola has always enjoyed as an instrument of his choice and can be seen, especially in his orchestral works, that achievement with the novel timbre combinations, not only entrusted passages of "poetic" character. Occasionally, he joined the viola with the tuba, drums, trombones and other instruments that are usually considered hard injectors, with happy results23.

The emergence of the Grupo de los Cuatro in the Mexican musical scene

established a wider dissemination of the nationalistic trend, encouraging its members to

continue on this path. Although it’s integration can be considered fortuitous, there were

other circumstances that unified the course of the nationalistic trend. As mentioned

above, the founding of the National Conservatory of Music, the inclusion of the

Creatividad Musical class where all four composers received advice from Carlos Chávez,

and the foundation of the Musical Society Renovación, stimulated composers to continue

exploring the nationalist style. The Sociedad Musical Renovación was founded on July

5th of 1931 by Gerónimo Baqueiro Foster. Foster was professor at the National

Conservatory of Music at that time where he taught solfège and music history. One of the

objectives of this society was to “support and encourage composers forming part of

society, trying to guide them towards nationalism24”.

In his book Music of Latin America, Nicolas Slonimsky summarizes what he

believed to be the key stages of the nationalist period in Mexico in the first half of the

twentieth century.

Mexican folklore, which had previously been regarded as exotic material to be treated in European manner, received at the hands of Manuel Ponce and inner interpretation as a natural form of art. Chávez and Revueltas continued the cultivation of Mexican folklore in the harmonic and contrapuntal technique of ultra-modern music. The melo-rhythmic complex of Mexican folklore also serves as the

                                                                                                               23 Íbid., p. 13 24 Cited on Aurelio Tello. Salvador Contreras: Vida y Obra. México: CENIDIM, 1987, p. 30.

  17  

foundations of works by a group of Chávez’s disciples, Daniel Ayala, Salvador Contreras, Pablo Moncayo, and Blas Galindo. These four musicians banded together in 1935 into a Grupo de los Cuatro, and from the very beginning devoted their energies to native folklore interpreted in the contemporary technique25.

The musical career of José Pablo Moncayo was divided between three main

professions: composing, conducting, and teaching at the National Conservatory. The

success of his orchestral work Huapango overshadowed his creative output and was

considered unfairly by Robert Stevenson a composer who was, "like Dukas a one-piece

composer with all repeat performances listing the same title26". After my analysis of

Moncayo’s Viola Sonata I consider that Moncayo’s works deserve deeper appreciation.

Furthermore, the decade of the 1930s decade proved to be one of the most

successful Mexican emergences of concert music. This success was supported by an ideal

of building a national emblem that reflected the idiomatic elements of Mexican folk

music. The Group of Four raised their nationalist flag and placed importance on national

repertoire as their most representative works. Unfortunately, with the early loss of José

Pablo Moncayo in 1958 the nationalism trend was gradually diluted by the second half of

the twentieth century.

                                                                                                               25 Nicolas Slonimsky. Music of Latin America. New York: Da Capo Press, 1972, p. 224. 26 Robert Stevenson. Music in Mexico, a Historical Survey. New York: Thomas Y., Crowell, 1952, p. 260.

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CHAPTER 4

Creatividad Musical Class

At the request of José Pablo Moncayo, Daniel Ayala, and Salvador Contreras

while they were studying in the National Conservatory, Carlos Chávez founded the class

Creatividad Musical. The class was founded during the time when Carlos Chávez was the

Director of the Conservatory (from 1928 up to 1934) and had been conducting the

Symphony Orchestra of Mexico since 1928. As stated by Salvador Contreras:

With willing mind, we turned to the teacher Chavez and we expressed our desire to guide us in the fields of the composition. He heard with enthusiasm, he proposed that we should invite other students and a class of Musical Creativity would be designed. The next morning, the group was large, we were more than twenty and one afternoon took place the inauguration of that class. The inaugural session was attended by the revolutionary teachers gathered into the vanguard group, others conservatory teachers and of course students that we form the body of learners. The talks by teacher Chavez were a tonic of encouragement and under his direction and care we gave the first fruits27.

For Blas Galindo, the Creatividad Musical class was the only class that produced

results and stimulated new ideas in comparison with the more conservative composition

class they had had previously in the Conservatory. As Galindo remembers:

In the Conservatory, Rolón, Tello, Barrios, and Morales taught the composition class. Registration was large, but unfortunately, none of the students ended his career. Gradually classes were left deserted. The reason for this desertion was due undoubtedly to a misuse of teaching methods. This misuse was to emphasize the academic dogmatism, which avoided the student to think freely from the start, and it also prevented develop their creative faculties28.

Although there are differing accounts reporting the number of students who

attended this class in its beginning (according to Galindo, the first year only three

students were registered: Daniel Ayala, J. Pablo Moncayo, and Salvador Contreras, the

next year there were eight students registered, among them himself but just four took the

                                                                                                               27 Salvador Contreras. “El Grupo de los Cuatro”. Armonía, Agosto-Septiembre (1967) p. 8-10. 28 Blas Galindo, Hacer Música: Blas Galindo, compositor, p. 37.

  19  

exam29), it is important to note the significance this class had for these young composers.

They continued taking compositional advice and guidance from Carlos Chávez even after

he resigned as Director of the National Conservatory in 1934. Over the years, Chávez

became a central personality in the musical, cultural, and political arena living his life in

Mexico and was one of the most influential Mexican composers of his generation.

The Creatividad Musical class lasted a few years in the curriculum of the

National Conservatory, from 1931 to 1934, due to the personal differences between

Chávez and the director who followed him, Estanislao Mejía. Mejía was considered part

of the conservative generation, while Chavez was not only innovative in his teaching

methods but also in his compositional works. Chávez was dismissed from the

conservatory in 1934 when the president of the republic, General Lázaro Cárdenas

appointed as rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico to Ignacio García

Téllez, appointed Mejia as a new director of the conservatory.

In a lecture at Harvard University where he held the Charles Eliot Norton poetic

chair in 1958-59, Chávez related what he considered his objectives in the conservatory

and the disappointment of the partial success he achieved on it during his administration:

Among [the difficulties I faced as director] was the idea of writing simple, melodic music with a peculiar Mexican flavor that would have a certain dignity and nobility of style; music that would be within the reach of the great mass of people…This plan included the foundation of choral groups…and the contribution of composers…As the project was beginning to take shape, I left the conservatory (late 1934) and there was nothing [more] anyone could do without the backing of the national institution30.

Chávez made several reforms during his administration in the conservatory and

instituted a new syllabus, eradicating what he considered useless and adding courses that

were in accordance with his ideals of modernizing the Conservatory. His innovative

                                                                                                               29 Íbid., p. 38. 30 Carlos Chávez. Musical Thought. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1961.

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teaching approach in his composition workshops are described in an article entitled

"Revolt in Mexico":

We used no text. All the students worked untiringly, writing melodies in all the diatonic modes, in a melodic scale of twelve tones, and in all of the pentatonic scales. Hundreds of melodies were written, but not merely as exercises on paper. We had instruments in the classroom, and the melodies were played on them, and found to be adequate or inadequate to the resources of the specific instruments. The result is that the young boys in particular now write melodies with amazingly acute instrumental feeling31.

This method of teaching by Chavez is corroborated by Blas Galindo who joined

the class just one year after it was instituted, and soon, Musical Creativity brought life to

the first works that were performed in the concerts of the Conservatory in 1933: Sonata

para Violin and Cello by Moncayo, Sonata para Violin and Cello by Contreras, Piezas

para Cuarteto de Cuerdas by Ayala, and Suite para Violin y Cello by Galindo.

The program, to describe it briefly, included the creation of solo melodies, from the simplest ones to those conceived in the scale of twelve tones. Therefore, the plan adjusted, in outline, to the historical evolving process of the melody. After this first stage of studies, the assignment consisted of superimposing two melodies. Subsequently, three, four, etc., until acquiring, as a result of such lineal superimpositions, the harmonic sense of verticality and the awareness of form, the latter determined by cadenced rest. All melodies were conceived to be performed by certain instruments, or by human voices. Therefore, from the first lessons, the student became familiarized with the appropriate resources for instruments and voices32.

The reforms implemented by Chavez in the conservatory introduced vigor in the

musical environment of those years. While Chavez met some resistance by traditional

scholars of the previous generation, the majority of young teachers supported his reforms

and students were motivated to develop their musical skills and ideas. These years were

fertile ground for the nationalist movement, which was loaded with a progressive spirit

and transformation.                                                                                                                31 Carlos Chávez. “Revolt in Mexico”. Modern Music 13, No. 3 March-April (1936): 38. 32 As cited and translated on Armando Ramón Torres-Chibrás. “José Pablo Moncayo, Mexican Composer and Conductor: a Survey of His Life with a Historical Perspective of His Time.” DMA diss., University of Missouri, 2002. Originally on Galindo, Blas. Hacer Música: Blas Galindo, compositor. Guadalajara, México: Universidad de Guadalajara, Dirección de Publicaciones, 1994, p. 38.

  21  

Chávez carried out several reforms that benefited the reputation of the National

Conservatory. Among those reforms he created three research academies with their

respective programs: the Research Academy of Popular Music, the Academy of History

and Bibliography, and the Academy of New Music Research Methods. He also gave

opportunities for advanced students to perform with the Symphony Orchestra of Mexico.

Chávez founded a choral ensemble with a vast repertoire as well as the Orquesta

Mexicana which was formed with only indigenous instruments. He was in charge of

organizing Conservatory Concerts performed by students and staff. Finally, Chávez

promoted chamber music in the Conservatory33.

The Research Academy of Popular Music emphasized the collection of

indigenous and mestizo Mexican music. This Academy preserved the sounds of the

mestizo people through written or recorded records, anthologies, research and studies in

any part of the world. Professors involved with this Academy collected records of the

main Mexican nationalist musical cultures thus making the appropriate musical

transcriptions available for the ensembles in the conservatory.

The principles synthesized above were the foundation of many works composed

by the young generation of composers in the conservatory, including the Grupo de los

Cuatro. Reflected in their works, we see a yearning for and interest in holding a musical

ideal in nationalistic terms, and rescuing the folklore by introducing it in their works

through different compositional procedures.

It is also important to remember that Moncayo’s Viola Sonata was composed in

1934, the last year that the Musical Creativity class was still offered in the conservatory.

                                                                                                               33 Cited on Roberto García Morillo. Carlos Chávez Vida y Obra. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1960, p. 61.

  22  

It is not far fetched to imagine that the work was probably a result of the lessons taken by

Moncayo in this course and as a natural consequence of the nationalistic ideas that

encompassed the ideology of composers in those years. These events were crucial in the

maturation of Moncayo as a composer.

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CHAPTER 5

Pandiatonicism and Economy in Musical Expression in Moncayo’s Viola Sonata.

Nicolas Slonimsky, who was a passionate defender of the avant-garde, coined the

term “pandiatonicism” in a conversation about his composing with the American critic

Richard Kostelanetz. Slonimsky, a Russian composer and theorist, was determined to

develop new musical ideas when he came to the United States and thus brought attention

to his work through being innovative. His explorations in music led him to break

paradigms on concepts of consonance and dissonance in music that were in vogue in his

formative years in Russia.

I began thinking of inventing some new combinations and categories. There is one thing, now in the music books, which I called pandiatonicism […]. One professor in Cleveland described it as “C-major that sounds like hell.” I like that definition –because pandiatonicism means that, in C major, you play on the white keys but you use dissonance freely. These dissonances always sound mild, though, because with the white keys only you can’t create sharp dissonance as you can in polytonality34.

The concept of pandiatonicism is the simultaneous use of any or all seven tones of

the diatonic scale freely, with the bass determining the harmony to build chords. “The

chord-building remains tertian, with the seventh, ninth, or thirteenth chords being treated

as consonances functionally equivalent to the fundamental triad”35.

In his article on José Pablo Moncayo’s work Muros Verdes, Ricardo Miranda

states that the most important features of Mexican nationalist composers are: the use of

repetition, forms of ostinato, the repetition of a motivic cell as the basis of a melody, the

use of pandiatonicism, an open search for economy in musical expression, and the

constant change of time signatures36. Miranda observes that the use of pandiatonicism

                                                                                                               34 Richard Kostelanetz, and Nicolas Slonimsky. “Conversation with Nicolas Slonimsky About his Composing.” The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 74, No. 3 (1990): 462. 35 Nicolas Slonimsky. Music since 1900, New York: W. W. Norton Company, Inc., 1938, p. xxii. 36 Ricardo Miranda. “‘Muros Verdes’ and the Creation of a New Musical Space.” Latin American Music Review, Vol. 11, No. 2, Autumn-Winter, (1990): 281.

  24  

combined with a constant change of time signature appears in late works by Manuel M.

Ponce (1882-1948) and José Rolón (1883-1945), in Siete piezas para piano by Blas

Galindo (1910- ), 10 Preludes for piano by Carlos Chávez (1899-1978), and Tres piezas

para piano by Pablo Moncayo. I consider these techniques used by nationalist Mexican

composers to be an attempt to give their music a distinctive character and re-create their

own musical identity.

Some excerpts of the Moncayo Viola Sonata illustrate compositional procedures

where diatonic texture is used freely in dissonant combinations without conventional

resolutions, and chord progressions disregard the traditional rules of voice leading as is

shown in Example 1.

In this same excerpt of the second movement (Example 1), a melody based on a

pentatonic scale E, F#, A, B, C# is supported with a chord progression where the voices

are moving stepwise in an ascending line. Triads with added dissonance of a second or

sixth intervals typical of pandiatonicism.

Example 1. Second movement, Lento, mm. 1-4.

  25  

An open search for economy in musical expression is accomplished through a

moto perpetuo featured by a continuous steady stream of sixteenth notes laid through

their melodies and accompaniment in the first movement. These lines are small rhythmic

and thematic cells that are continuously repeated. The limited use of dynamics and

variations in tempo is another clear example of economy in musical expression. Themes

consist of short musical phrases throughout this movement as illustrated in Example 2.

A dance-like character is featured in the third movement where an irregular pulse

is a result of asymmetrical meter writing. The meter changes constantly in it’s first theme

between 6/8, 5/8, and its second theme in 2/4 which strikingly reminds us the

asymmetrical rhythms in the opening of the Sinfonía India by Carlos Chávez where the

meter changes between 6/8 and 5/8. This orchestral work by Chávez was composed

between 1935-36 only one year after Moncayo Viola Sonata.

As a result of the stream of sixteenth figures in its first movement and the dance-

like character in its third, the Sonata remains percussive in its outer movements, probably

influenced by the fact that, at the beginning of his career, Moncayo was a percussionist,

thus reinforcing the link with primitivism in music. In his Viola Sonata, Moncayo

provides clear-cut tunes of folk character, block-like chords played in parallel line-up

producing a harshly percussive effect.

  26  

Example 2. First movement, Allegro moderato, mm. 140-154.

  27  

CHAPTER 6

Similarities Between the Moncayo Viola Sonata and Chavez’s Thoughts on Aztec

Music

The influence of Chávez on his pupil Moncayo in terms of musical style and

compositional procedures should not be generalized. Although there is no source

suggesting a direct influence, in this paper I observe specific correlations between

Chavez's ideas about Aztec music and Moncayo's Viola Sonata. Likewise, in his analysis

of the structure of Muros Verdes, Ricardo Miranda suggests that José Pablo Moncayo’s

incorporation of Chávez’s ideas about repetition in music while composing his work,

"perhaps even influenced –though in small measure– by Chávez itself"37.

Fortunately, unlike Moncayo, Carlos Chavez wrote several articles and books in

which he explained his concern about several subjects, including nationalism and Aztec

music. In a lecture given by Chávez in 1924 at the National Autonomous University of

México entitle “La Música Azteca”, he stated:

The Aztecs showed a predilection for those intervals, which we call the minor third and the perfect fifth; the use of other intervals was rare. This type of interval preference, which must undoubtedly be taken to indicate a deep-seated an intuitive yearning for the minor, found appropriate expression in modal melodies, which entirely lacked the semitone. [The pentatonic series, which lacks the semitone was the type of five-note scale used by most aboriginal American tribes]. Aztec melodies might begin or end in any degree of the five-note series. [...]. Since the fourth and seventh degrees of the major diatonic scale (as we know it) –continue Chávez –were completely absent for this music, all the harmonic implications of our all-important leading tone were banished from Aztec melody. If it should seem that their particular pentatonic system excluded any possibility of “modulating” –which some feel to be a psychological necessity even in monody-we reply that this aborigines avoided modulation primarily because was alien to the simple and straightforward spirit of the Indian. For those whose ears have become conditioned by long familiarity with the European diatonic system, the “polymodality” of indigenous music inevitably sounds as if it were “polytonality”38.

                                                                                                               37 Ricardo Miranda. “’Muros Verdes’ and the Creation of a New Musical Space.” Latin American Music Review, Vol. 11, No. 2, Autumn-Winter, (1990): 281-85: 282. 38 As cited on Robert Stevenson. Music in Mexico, a Historical Survey. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1952, p. 6.

  28  

What emerged from this paragraph quoted above are essential ideas that make up

the musical principles of Aztec music which can be summarized the following:

predilection for minor third and perfect fifth intervals, modal melodies, the absence of

semitone, use of pentatonic scales, melodies that begin or end on any degree of the

pentatonic scale, absence of the leading tone, and lack of modulation in its developments.

As illustrated below, some of these features can be found in the Viola Sonata in a

stylized manner, suggesting that Moncayo was influenced by Chávez’s thoughts on Aztec

Music. Considering that he was his student in the Creatividad Musical class in the

conservatory, it is difficult to believe that Chávez did not communicate these remarks

about Aztec music to his students.

The predominant use of the minor third and perfect fifth intervals in this sonata

can be observed in the way Moncayo elaborates the themes in the three movements.

These intervals are the germinal material that expand motives and longer structures into

melodies and thus achieve unity between their movements. This cohesive identity

permeates the entire work.

From the very beginning of the work, the first measures show the predominant

recurring intervals in the tune that opens with the viola and the piano accompaniment.

The minor third and perfect fifth intervals, their inversions, and any combinations of

them are the basis in which the first and second movements are built. These are primary

elements that provide cohesion to the work as shown in Example 3.

  29  

Example 3. First movement, Allegro Moderato, mm. 1-5. Minor third (m3) and perfect fifth intervals (P5).

The second theme in the first movement is also built upon a succession of perfect

fifth intervals and a minor third interspersing inversions of them as well on an

accompaniment of eight notes of perfect fifth and fourth intervals (Example 4). In this

excerpt, the second theme is characterized by the simplicity of a singable line lined up

with straightforward sixteenth notes.

  30  

Example 4. First movement, Allegro Moderato, mm. 16-24.

In the second movement, as illustrated below, the slow melody emphasizes the

ascending interval of fifth with a reminiscence of the first theme from the first movement.

Example 5. Second movement, Lento, mm. 1-5.

  31  

Although less evident, the construction of the thematic material in the third

movement is also interwoven with the elaboration of minor third and perfect fifth

intervals and inversions of them from the key change as shown in Example 6.

Example 6. Third movement, Allegro, mm. 18-20.

The use of pentatonic scales allows the composer to avoid the relationship

between dominant and tonic in cadences through the lack of the semitone, which in tonal

music leads to the harmonic resolution. This absence of dominant-tonic function is

replaced by modal resolutions in the Viola Sonata by Moncayo. Harmonic progresions II-

I or VII-I are displayed through the entire work, which are significant in confirming the

authenticity of the mode.

The word ‘pentatonic’ was first introduced in music history in Carl Engel’s The

Music of the Most Ancient Nations and has become a reference to designate different

musical old traditions39. Rameau described it as a peculiar scale of “only five notes” in

176040; while Roussier in 1770 referred to it as a scale “whose gaps always seems to

                                                                                                               39 Carl Engel. 1864/1909. The Music of the Most Ancient Nations. London: Reeves. 40 Jean Philippe Rameau. 1760/1965. Code de musique pratique. New York: Broude Brothers, p.191.

  32  

await other tones”41. Other theorists defined the pentatonic scale simply as a scale “in

which there is neither fa nor ut” like Laborde in 178042. It was also defined in a practical

way by Crotch as “the same kind of scale as that produced by the black keys of the piano-

forte”43.

In the first movement of Moncayo's viola sonata, the opening theme is built on a

pentatonic scale on D (D, E, F#, A, B), illustrated in Example 7, as well as the themes in

the second movement unlike the third movement where the themes are built on phrygian

scales on A and B, respectively.

Example 7. First movement, Allegro Moderato, mm. 1-5. Use of a pentatonic scale on D.

In the same way the first theme in the second movement is built on a pentatonic

scale on A (A, B, C#, E, F#) as shown below.

                                                                                                               41 Pierre Joseph Roussier. 1770/1966. Mémoire sur la musique des anciens. New York: Broude Brothers, p. 33. 42 Benjamin de Laborde. 1780/1978. Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne. Vol. 1. New York: AMS Press, (1:146). 43 Cited on John Crawfurd. 1820/1967. History of the Indian Archipelago. London: Frank Cass and Co., 339.

  33  

Example 8. Second movement, Lento, mm. 1-5.

In the third movement, the themes are built on modal melodies (Example 9), the

first on a phrygian scale on A and the second theme on a phrygian scale on B (Example

10).

Example 9. Third movement, Allegro, mm. 1-5. Phrygian scale on A.

  34  

Example 10. Third movement, Allegro, mm. 16-25. Phrygian scale on B (B, C, D, E, F#, (G), A.

Another striking aspect in this work is the absence of harmonic modulation in its

development sections in each of the three movements. The process of shifting tonal

centers by modulating through closely related keys is absent. The composer prefers

sudden changes, which introduce new tonal centers thus avoiding the standard cadential

progression dominant-tonic. The development in the first movement clearly exemplifies

this where the second theme continues its development with a sudden chord change to A

major, illustrated below.

  35  

Example 12. First movement, Allegro moderato, mm. 95-104.

It is significant to observe that Moncayo rarely explores the timbre and potential

of the fourth string in his Viola Sonata, the C string, that makes the sound in the family

string unique compared to the violin and cello. In turn, most of the composition is written

in the middle range of the viola and exploring often the highest range on its A string.

It would be difficult to consider that all these features of the Viola Sonata by

Moncayo, which correspond to the principles of Aztec music defined by Chávez, are a

sort of coincidence and accident. There is a deliberate decision to synthesize these

characteristics in his work since Aztec music was considered the most profound and

deepest expression of the Mexican soul by Carlos Chávez. We must take into account

that Chávez’s lecture La Música Azteca was given in 1928, six years before the

composition of the Viola Sonata in 1934 and that Moncayo attended the Creatividad

  36  

Musical class where he was guided by his teacher and mentor Carlos Chávez along with

the other members of the Grupo de los Cuatro in the period 1931-34. At some point of

his education as a composer, Moncayo had knowledge of Chávez’s thoughts on Aztec

music whether he attended that lecture or during the composition class at the National

Conservatory. Moreover, this conscious decision reveals an attempt to recover a past

heritage of a music tradition of what little evidence there is of its survival after the

Spaniards conquest in 1521. There was a gap of more than four hundred years during

which the subjugation from the new culture was annihilating and banishing any trace of

the Aztec civilization, including its music heritage. I consider that the desire and need to

recover a lost musical past is what Robert Stevenson has defined as “Aztec Renaissance”

in the nationalist period in Mexico44.

                                                                                                               44 Robert Stevenson. Music in Mexico, a Historical Survey. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1952, p. 6.

  37  

CHAPTER 7

Formal Analysis

The procedure of introducing idiomatic folk material in the Viola Sonata, Aztec

music elements, is delimited by the use of Western musical forms. Moncayo does not

refuse to follow the traditional set of three movements on it: the first movement in sonata

form, the second in a three-part form (ABA), and the third in a Rondo (ABACA-Coda)

form, juxtaposing the content derived from idiomatic folk material with musical forms

pre-established through the Western tradition.

Despite the absence of a harmonic development through modulation which is

usually observed in the form of the first movement in a sonata form, it is possible to see a

development through thematic and rhythmic material in the Moncayo’s Viola Sonata,

specifically in its first movement. Therefore, the given title of this work can be justified

through a formal analysis of a sonata form. In this chapter, the formal analysis follows

the guidelines for style analysis and stereotypes of shape given by LaRue (see reference

in the next page). The analysis is organized in three sections corresponding each one to

the three movements of this sonata.

  38  

First Movement Formal Analysis (Sonata Form)45

Exposition Development Recapitulation K (Conclusive material)

mm. 1-77 78- 129 130-217 217-278

Exposition

P T S T 2S T

mm. 1-10 11-17 18-24 25-50 51-59 60-77

Development

mm. 78-129

Recapitulation

P T S T S K

mm. 130-144 145-154 155-169 170-197 198-217 217-228

Second Movement Formal Analysis

This second movement is analysed in a three-part form ABA

A B A

a cad. ext. T b cad. ext. N cad. ext. b a K

mm.1-34 34-37 38-59 59-85 85-89 90-101 101-105 105-114 115-129 129-134

Third Movement Analysis (Rondó Form)

A Cad. ext. B T A Cad.ext. C T A Coda

mm. 1-41 41-42 43-79 79-99 99-147 147-150 151-187 188-195 196-227 227-234

                                                                                                               45  Where P-Primary materials; T-Transitional or other episodic, unstable functions; S-Secondary or contrasting functions; K-Closing, articulated functions; N-New material; Cad. ext.-Cadential extension. When a number is preceding the functions it indicates two or more themes of similar function. When measures numbers are repeated at the end of a section and the beginning of another it means that those sections are overlapped. Jan LaRue. Guidelines for Style Analysis: A Comprehensive Outline of Basic Principles for the Analysis of Music Style. Ney York: W.W. Norton, 1970, p. 154.  

  39  

Comparing the analysis of Moncayo Viola Sonata movements through standard

Western forms; sonata form, three-part form, and five-part rondo form, I find an attempt

that closely follows the traditional structure rather than avoiding the sonata form

stereotype. This sonata by Moncayo was written in 1934, and due to the proximity of

Moncayo's years at the Conservatory and the date of his composition, I considered this

sonata as an early work in his catalogue.

Moncayo composed a few other works during the same period as the Viola

Sonata; Impresiones de un bosque, piano, 1931; Impresión, piano, 1931; Diálogo para

dos pianos y una vaca, 1931; Sonata, cello and piano, 1933; Sonata, violin and cello,

1934; and Sonata para violin y piano, 1936.

It is interesting to note that there were three other works composed by Moncayo

around the date of his Viola Sonata titled as ‘Sonata’; the cello sonata with piano, the

sonata for violin and cello, and the violin sonata with piano. Further research would show

if those three works follow the same form approach comparing to the viola sonata.

It is also striking that after the composition of his violin sonata (1936), Moncayo

abandoned composing in the sonata genre and instead decided to write for larger

orchestra ensembles. The following is a list of the works that Moncayo wrote after 1936:

Trios: Romanza (1936) violin, cello, and piano; Trío (1938) flute, violin, and piano.

Quintets: Amatzinac (1935) flute and string quartet; Pequeño nocturno (1936) string

quartet and piano. Chamber music: Llano grande (1942); Homenaje a Cervantes

(1947). Symphonic works: Llano alegre (1938); Hueyapan (1938); Huapango (1941);

Sinfonía (1942); Sinfonietta (1945); Tres piezas para orquesta (1947); Tierra de

  40  

temporal (1949); Cumbres (1953); La potranca (1954); Bosques (1954).

Choir: Canción del mar (1948). Ópera: La mulata de Córdoba (1948). Ballet: Tierra

(1956)46.

                                                                                                               46 Eduardo Soto Millan comp. Diccionario de Compositores Mexicanos de Música de Concierto. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, Vol. II, 1996, p. 104.

  41  

Conclusion

It is commonplace to designate the term "Mexican nationalism" to an entire

generation of Mexican composers. However, it is necessary to limit the connotation of

this musical trend, referring to and specifying which elements of folklore have been

introduced in the work and most importantly how. As shown in Chapter one, there were

decisive events in Moncayo’s life that formed his musical ideas about nationalism which

we see reflected in his Viola Sonata. Social and cultural changes across the centuries in

Mexican history from Aztecs through the Mexican Revolution transformed the

conception of identity in the Mexican people. The demand to create a new identity came

not only from composers, but firstly from intellectuals, writers, and government officials

who introduced several educational reforms that had repercussions in music.

Moncayo draws a new reassessment of the role that Mexican composers played in

the configuration of the nationalist musical taste in Mexico. His Viola Sonata reveals the

attempt to construct a Mexican musical identity without rejecting Western musical forms.

As is explained in Chapter two, Moncayo crafts a composition marked by an ideological

tension of assimilation and resistance superimposing two aesthetic conceptions: the folk

idiom of Aztec music and the Western tradition that results in the richness of language of

this piece.

The historical context of when and where Moncayo lived supported and

encouraged composers to write within the trend of nationalism. This tendency urged

composers to recreate a language that looked back at their musical heritage. Some

composers found Aztec music to be the pure roots and the deepest soul by which

  42  

nationalist music should reflect. An example of this foundation was the emergence of

Grupo de los Cuatro who raised the guidelines of what Mexican nationalism should be.

In Chapter three, I described what the formation of the Group of Four meant, a deliberate

intention to build a musical identity, motivating and encouraging a young generation of

composers to write under the principles of nationalism.

Carlos Chavez had a great influence on Moncayo as a teacher and mentor. Their

close friendship and the years Moncayo spent in the class Creatividad Musical in the

National Conservatory of Music, as is accounted in Chapter four, played a significant role

in the assimilation of Chávez's compositional ideas to Moncayo. Traces of this impact

can be found in the Viola Sonata where Moncayo illustrates the principles given by his

teacher on Aztec music. The intense musical activity in Mexico while Moncayo was

studying at the National Conservatory allowed him to be in contact with the avant-garde

style of the first half of the twentieth century. As laid out in Chapter five, Moncayo

enriched his compositional tools introducing in his Viola Sonata the use of

pandiatonicism, modal harmonies, development through rhythmic motives, and the

absence of modulation.

Although there is no direct evidence of how Aztec music sounded, Carlos Chávez

pointed out the main features of this ancient music in his lecture. From this imagined

music, Moncayo incorporates the Aztec music components in the melodies, themes,

rhythms, and harmony in his Viola Sonata combining them with Western musical forms.

It may never be known for certain how Moncayo acquired knowledge about Chavez’s

principles on Aztec Music. It is probable that his knowledge was acquired from attending

Chavez’s lecture or during his Musical Creativity class. I argue in Chapter six that there

  43  

is no doubt that Aztec characteristics were reflected in Moncayo’s Viola Sonata.

Characteristics of nationalist composers mentioned by Ricardo Miranda such as

pandiatonicism, open search for economy in musical expression, and the constant change

of time signature are reflected as well in the Moncayo Viola Sonata. However, it will be

necessary to continue further analysis of Moncayo and nationalist composers works from

the precepts transmitted by a teacher who greatly influenced them: Carlos Chávez. This

research shows how conceptions of ancient music of a country are adopted and recreated

in the present. It shows that musical identity can be deliberately created from a state

policy, aesthetic trend or group of composers with specific ideals. There exists a wealth

of source material to research from this approach. The question for future research is if

there are similar characteristics of Aztec music that can be found in other Mexican

nationalist composers works.

Before the assumption of the nationalist movement in Mexico early in the

twentieth century, there were earlier Mexican composers who tried to reconstruct a

identity from other musical sources; the mestizo heritage, and the canción. Composers

like Felipe Villanueva, Ernesto Elorduy, Ricardo Castro, and later Manuel María Ponce

and José Rolón also were concerned, similarly to the Grupo de los Cuatro, to rescue

traditional Mexican music by introducing melodies and rhythms that they considered

representative of their country and used the European forms to be recognized

internationally.

In order to differentiate from the old generation, Mexican composers in the early

twentieth century started to label themselves as the true nationalists. This process of

  44  

vindication may be seen in other countries as a validation of the present. In this way, the

term “nationalism” might be expanded not only by those composers who assumed

themselves as such but also by those who used to compose with the same procedures

without the label of “nationalism” in their works.

The results found in this research help illustrate how formal analysis becomes

more powerful as it can portray the interaction between Western music traditional forms

and folk elements, thereby more accurately, providing tools for enhanced interpretation

and performance specifically on choices regarding articulation and phrasing. There are

other implications that are not discussed in this study, since it has been limited to a

specific work for viola. Several orchestral works written by Moncayo might hold more

information about the composer's compositional procedures. As illustrated in the catalog

of early works by Moncayo there are, around the date of composition of the sonata for

viola, other works entitled with the label of sonata as a genre, drawing attention for future

research.

  45  

Work Cited

Alcaráz, José Antonio. La Obra de José Pablo Moncayo. México: UNAM, Difusión Cultural, Departamento de Música, 1975.

Barros Sierra, José. “Conciertos y Recitales”. El Universal, November 27, 1935. Béhague, Gerard. “Indianism in Latin American Art-Music Composition of the 1920s to 1940s: Case Studies from Mexico, Peru, and Brazil.” Latin American Music Review, Vol. 27, No. 1, Spring-Summer, (2006): 28-37. Brenan, Juan Arturo. “La magia perdida en la música de México.” Heterofonía,

CENIDIM, Enero-Junio, No. 108 (1993): 11. Campos, Rubén M. El folklore y la música mexicana: investigación acerca de la cultura

musical en México (1525-1925). México: Talleres Gráficos de la Nación, Serie ‘Secretaría de Educación Pública’, 1928.

Carredano, Consuelo. Ediciones Mexicanas de Música: Historia y Catálogo. México

City: Centro Nacional de Investigación, Documentación e Información Musical “Carlos Chávez”, 1994.

---------- “Luces y sombra de la música española en México,” Música española entre dos

guerras (1914-1945), edited by Javier Suárez, (Granada: Archivo Manuel de Falla, Serie Música, No. 4, 2002).

Chávez, Carlos. “Carta a Antonio Rodríguez.” Nuestra Música, año 3, No. 10 (April

1948):100-108. ---------“La primera etapa nacionalista.” El Universal, January 28, 1937. --------- Musical Thought. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1961. --------- “Nacionalismo y Futurismo”, El Universal, August 31, 1936. --------- “Revolt in Mexico”. Modern Music 13, No. 3 March-April (1936): 38. Contreras, Salvador. “El Grupo de los Cuatro”. Armonía, Agosto-Septiembre (1967): p. 8-10. Crawfurd, John. 1820/1967. History of the Indian Archipelago. London: Frank Cass and

Co., 339. Engel, Carl. 1864/1909. The Music of the Most Ancient Nations. London: Reeves.

  46  

Galindo, Blas. Hacer Música: Blas Galindo, compositor. Guadalajara, México: Universidad de Guadalajara, Dirección de Publicaciones, 1994.

García Morillo, Roberto. Carlos Chávez Vida y Obra. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1960. Kahan, Salomon. “Una hora experimental”. El Universal Gráfico, November 29, 1935. Kostelanetz Richard, and Nicolas Slonimsky. “Conversation with Nicolas Slonimsky About his Composing.” The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 74, No. 3 (1990): 458-472. Laborde, Benjamin de. 1780/1978. Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne. Vol. 1.

New York: AMS Press, (1:146). LaRue, Jan. Guidelines for Style Analysis: A Comprehensive Outline of Basic Principles

for the Analysis of Music Style. Ney York: W.W. Norton, 1970. Mendoza, Vicente T. “Once cantos de México”. Sección de Investigaciones Musicales

del Departamento de Música del Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes de la Secretaría de Educación Pública. Boletín Bibliográfico de Antropología Americana, Vol. 14, No, 2 (Enero-Diciembre 1951).

Miranda, Ricardo. “’Muros Verdes’ and the Creation of a New Musical Space.” Latin American Music Review, Vol. 11, No. 2, Autumn-Winter, (1990): 281-85.

Ponce, Manuel. “El folklore musical mexicano.” Revista Musical de México, Manuel M. Ponce y Rubén M. Campos, eds., México, septiembre 1919- mayo 1920, reimpr. facsimil, México, Centro Nacional de Investigación, Documentación, e Información Musical, No. 5 (1991).

Rameau, Jean Philippe. 1760/1965. Code de musique pratique. New York: Broude

Brothers. Romero, Jesús C. "José Pablo Moncayo," Carnet Musical 161 (Año 13/14, July 1958). Ruiz Ortiz, Xochiquetzal. Blas Galindo. Biografía, Antología de Textos y Catálogo.

México: INBA, CENIDIM, 1994. Saavedra, Leonora. “Of Selves and Others: Historiography, Ideology, and the Politics of Modern Mexican Music.” PhD diss., University of Pittsburgh, 2001. Silvestre Revueltas. Silvestre Revueltas por él mismo. México: Era, 1989. Slonimsky, Nicolas. Music of Latin America. New York: Da Capo Press, 1972.

  47  

--------- Slonimsky, Nicolas. Music since 1900, New York: W. W. Norton Company, Inc., 1938. Soto Millan, Eduardo comp. Diccionario de Compositores Mexicanos de Música de

Concierto. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, Vol. I,II, 1996. Stevenson, Robert. Music in Mexico, a Historical Survey. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1952. Tello, Aurelio. Salvador Contreras: Vida y Obra. México: CENIDIM, 1987. Torres-Chibrás, Armando Ramón. “José Pablo Moncayo, Mexican Composer and Conductor: a Survey of His Life with a Historical Perspective of His Time.” DMA diss., University of Missouri, 2002.

Bibliography

Álvarez Coral, Juan. Compositores Mexicanos. Mexico: Edamex, 1993.

Alcaráz, José Antonio. Reflexiones Sobre el Nacionalismo Musical Mexicano. Mexico,

Patria, 1991. Béhague Gerard. Music in Latin America: An Introduction. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.:

Prentice-Hall, History of Music Series, 1979. Chase, Gilbert. “Creative Trends in Latin American Music-II.” Tempo, New Series 50

(Winter, 1959): 25-28. Chávez, Carlos. Toward a New Music, trans. by Herbert Weinstock. New York: Norton

and Company, 1937. Estrada, Julio et al. La Música de México. México: UNAM, 1984. Harrison Doyle, Don, and Marco Antonio Villela Pamplona, eds. Nationalism in the New

World. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2006. Kahan, Salomon. “Una hora experimental”. El Universal Gráfico, November 29, 1935. Miranda, Ricardo. “Moncayo (García) José Pablo.” New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Edited by Stanley Sadie. London, (1980): 916. Parker, Robert. Carlos Chávez: Mexico’s Modern-Day Orpheus. Boston:

Twayne Publishers, 1983. Pedelty, Mark. Musical Ritual in Mexico City: From Aztec to NAFTA. Austin, Texas:

  48  

University of Texas Press, 2010. Slonimsky, Nicolas. Nicolas Slonimsky, Writings on Music, Vol. I and II, Electra Slonimsky ed. Yourke. New York: Routledge, 2004. Torres-Chibrás, Armando Ramón. Mexico’s Musical Crest. Köln, Germany: Lambert

Academic Publishing, 2009. Zepeda, Kamuel. Vida y Obra de José Pablo Moncayo. Guadalajara, Mexico: Gobierno

de Jalisco, Secretaría de Cultura, Serie Música, 2005. Websites Universidad Nacional del Litoral Online Library. Estrada, Julio. “Silvestre Revueltas: totalidad desarmada.” Internacional Colloquium Silvestre Revueltas, Escuela

Nacional de Música de la Universidad Autónoma de México, 1996. http://bibliotecavirtual.unl.edu.ar:8180/publicaciones/bitstream/11185/5564/4/ISM_7_2000_pag_11_20.pdf. Accessed on March 18, 2014.

  49  

APPENDIX

Performances of Grupo de los Cuatro Date November 25, 1935 Location Teatro Orientación, Secretaría de Educación Pública (Ministry of Public Education)

Program 1. Sonatina for piano José Pablo Moncayo

2. Sonata for violín and cello Salvador Contreras Violin, Luis Sosa

Cello, Juan Manuel Téllez Oropeza 3. Danza for string quartet Daniel Ayala Violin, Salvador Contreras Violin, Daniel Ayala Viola, Miguel Bautista Cello, Juan Manuel Téllez Oropeza 4. Caporal for chorus Blas Galindo Text by Alfonso del Río 5. Lagartija, dance for piano Blas Galindo 6. Pieza for string quartet Salvador Contreras 7. Amatzinac, for flute José Pablo Moncayo and string quartet Soloist, Miguel Preciado Conductor, José Pablo Moncayo 8. El Grillo, piece for ensemble Daniel Ayala and soprano Text by Daniel Castañeda Flute, Miguel Preciado Violin, Daniel Ayala Sonaja, Juan Téllez Oropeza Piano, José Pablo Moncayo Soprano, Margarita L. Ayala Conductor, Salvador Contreras

  50  

Reviews “Vida Musical”(advertising the performance) In El Instante, Anonymous, November 25, 1935 “Conciertos y Recitales” In El Universal by José Barros Sierra, November 27, 1935 (In this review they were identified as Grupo de los Cuatro) In El Universal Gráfico by Salomón Kahan, November 29, 1935 Date March 31, 1936 Location Conference Room, Palacio de Bellas Artes Sponsored by Grupo Unitario de Iniciativa y Acción, identified

as members of LEAR (League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists) Advertised with the label Grupo de los Cuatro

Program Works by Handel, Beethoven, Poulenc, and Debussy

October 15, 1936 Location Conference Room, Palacio de Bellas Artes Program 1. Suite No. 2 Blas Galindo Piano, Eunice Gordillo

2. Sonatina José Pablo Moncayo Piano, J. Pablo Moncayo Violin, Francisco Contreras

3. Cuatro Canciones Daniel Ayala Text by Juan Ramón Jiménez

Soprano, Margarita L. Ayala Piano, Carlos Okhuysen 4. Tres Poemas for Soprano and Small Orchestra Salvador Contreras Text by Daniel Castañeda Soprano, Irma González

  51  

5. Romanza José Pablo Moncayo Violin, Francisco Contreras Cello, Guillermo Argote Piano, J. Pablo Moncayo 6. Cuarteto No. 2 Salvador Contreras Violins, César Quirarte and Luis Sosa Viola, Miguel Bautista Cello, Guillermo Argote

Reviews “Concierto primaveral en el mes de octubre” In Todo (weekly magazine) by Daniel Castañeda, October 20, 1936 “Conciertos y Recitales: Cuatro Jóvenes Autores” In El Universal by José Barros Sierra, October 18, 1936 “El Grupo de los Cuatro” In El Nacional by Luis Sandi, October 25, 1936 “La música y los músicos entre bastidores” In El Ilustrado by Demóstenes (pseudonym), November 26, 1936 In Cultura Musical No. 1, November 1936, p. 27. “Fugas Musicales” In Novedades by Humberto G. Artime, December 14, 1936 Date April 19, 1936 Location Boston Flute Player’s Club, Boston , Massachusetts Program 1. Cuarteto de Cuerdas Salvador Contreras

2. Amatzinac José Pablo Moncayo Reviews Boston Herald, April 20, 1936 Boston Evening Transcript, April 20, 1936

  52  

Date Programmed on 25 June, 1937 (Concert cancelled) Location Conference Room, Palacio de Bellas Artes Review In Cultura Musical No. 8, June 1937, p.27, Signed by B.G. Date November 13, 1937 Location National Conservatory of Music on 60th Anniversary Program 1. Cuarteto Salvador Contreras “Silvestre Revueltas String Quartet” Violin, César Quirarte Violin, Luis Sosa Viola, Alfredo Cárdenas Cello, Guillermo Argote 2. Amatzinac José Pablo Moncayo 3. Suite No.1 for violin and cello Blas Galindo Date August 23, 1938 Location Conference Room, Palacio de Bellas Artes Program 1. Radiograma Hacia la Villa Daniel Ayala Hacia la Villa Piano, Humberto Artime

2. Trío for flute, violin, and piano J. Pablo Moncayo

3. Scherzo y Final for violin and cello Salvador Contreras

4. Dos Preludios Blas Galindo for oboe, horn, and piano 5. Sonatina for violin and piano J. Pablo Moncayo

  53  

Piano, César Quirarte

6. Vidrios Rotos for small ensemble Daniel Ayala

Date September 5, 1938 Location Palacio de Bellas Artes Program Arrangements commissioned by Carlos Chávez

1. Las mañanitas Salvador Contreras 2. I-Coos (El viento alegre) Blas Galindo 3. La Adelita J. Pablo Moncayo Cycle of five concerts organized by National Conservatory of Music Date 1) August 7, 1939 Broadcasting by National University Autonomous of Mexico Radio Station (Radio UNAM) Program 1. Sonata José Pablo Moncayo Violin, César Quirarte Piano, José Pablo Moncayo

2. Trío J. P. Moncayo Flute, Miguel Preciado Violin, César Quirarte Piano, José Pablo Moncayo 2) August 14, 1939 Program 1. La lagartija Blas Galindo Piano, Blas Galindo

2. Cuatro canciones B. Galindo Mi querer pasaba el río La luna está encarcelada Poema de amor Paloma Blanca

  54  

Voice, Luz Subías 3. Concertino B. Galindo Piano I, Eunice Gordillo Piano II, Salvador Ochoa 3) August 21, 1939 Program

1. Sonatina José Pablo Moncayo Piano, J.P. Moncayo

2. Llano alegre Blas Galindo

3. Vals B. Galindo Piano, Amanda Cuervo

4. Cuarteto Salvador Contreras Quirarte String Quartet 4) August 28, 1939 Program

1. Suite Blas Galindo Impresión Caricatura de vals

Jaliciense Piano, Eunice Gordillo 2. Dos canciones Salvador Contreras Voice and Piano

3. Amatzinac J. P. Moncayo Flute, Miguel Preciado

Quirarte String Quartet 5) September 4, 1939 Program

1. Suite Salvador Contreras String quintet, clarinet trumpet, bassoon, and piano 2. Tres Poemas Salvador Contreras Text by Daniel Castañeda Voice and small ensemble

  55  

Date January 17, 1940 Location

Little Theater, New york Series “Music from the Americas” Program Program 1. Cinco Piezas infantiles Daniel Ayala

2. Amatzinac J. Pablo Moncayo

3. Pieza for String Quartet Salvador Contreras Date November 22, 25, 1940 Location Palacio de Bellas Artes Program

1. Suite de baile Blas Galindo

2. Preludio B. Galindo

3. Música para orquesta sinfónica Salvador Contreras

4. Paisaje Daniel Ayala

5. El hombre maya D. Ayala

7. Hueyapan J. Pablo Moncayo Date August 15, 1941

Location Palacio de Bellas Artes, performed by

Symphony Orchestra of Mexico Program

“Música Tradicional Mexicana” 1. Sones de Mariachi Blas Galindo

  56  

2. Huapango J. Pablo Moncayo 3. Corridos Salvador Contreras

For Chorus and orchestra