Search for glory, success and social promotion: Latin American musicians forgotten at the time of independence

“Remove the tyrant’s dagger, break this fierce neck” sang the enthusiastic spectators who came to the Domingo Artega Theater, accompanied by Plazuela O’Higgins. It was August 20, 1820, and on the occasion of the birthday of Bernardo O’Higgins, supreme director of the Nation, the national anthem was sung for the first time, with music by Manuel Robles and text by the Argentinian Bernardo Vera y Pintado. A practice which began to consolidate in the new Latin American republics, thanks to the talent of the composers who contributed their experience and talent to this transition.

This period is the one that interests the musicologist and researcher José Manuel Izquierdo, associate professor at the Faculty of Arts of the Pontifical Catholic University, who has just published Philharmonic and Patriots. This is a study that studies the work of Latin American composers during the independence period. and the formation of national states, until the mid-19th century.

Precisely, at the beginning of this century, the transition to new stylistic expressions began with the activity of composers such as Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Peter Schubert, among others. But what about in Latin America? “When we study music, this is the period that we know the most and that we play the most. . Even in Chile, what we play the most is Mozart. So we know a lot about the music of that era, but nothing about Latin America,” Izquierdo explains on the phone with Worship .

Hence his interest in the investigation of a period, according to him, little explored. “In most of the books, a lot of work has been done on colonial music and on authors from the early 20th century. » , which are fully recognized. In other words, in Chile we know who Enrique Soro or the Brazilian Antonio Carlos Gómes was, but this period, that of independence, is a kind of parenthesis. It was a time about which I sincerely believe we knew nothing or very little.

It took Izquierdo a little over ten years to complete this research. . He started working on era-specific names, but over time he decided to broaden it. With patience, he visited the archives of countries in the region, moved networks and contacts to obtain the few pieces from the period that have reached the repertoire today. Little by little, he managed to gather scattered data to discover some names active in the region, such as Francisco Manuel da Silva, Mariano Elízaga, José Eulalio Samayoa, Juan Meserón, José Bernardo Alzedo or Pedro Ximénez Abrill.

“The most difficult thing was that we knew very little about them. -Izquierdo emphasizes-. Virtually all of this music is neither edited nor recorded. The manuscripts are not there either, those that remain are very few. There is the case of Pedro Ximénez in Bolivia, 15 years ago we discovered a trunk with all his music. By this time he had composed 40 symphonies, string quartets and everything appeared at once. So all this is to make people believe that symphonies were not made here like in Europe. It seems to me that what we have left today is very little. »

And the case of Chile, is there any documentation available?

In Chile, there are very few. There are the archives of the Cathedral, on which Alejandro Vera worked a lot and during the colonial period a composer came from Spain, José de Canterrós, but I was very interested in the study of those born in Latin America and who have experienced the transition. to go through to become part of an independent nation. And in Chile, there really isn’t much, because there was José Zapiola, there was also a family of Peruvian musicians who were the Filomenos and I talk about them very recently in my book. Today, Chile is developing after independence, although until then it was not a very rich country. This is why we currently find many more people documented in Lima, Mexico City or Rio de Janeiro.

Despite the lack of documentary evidence, with the little he found, Izquierdo managed to identify some common traits. “Almost all of them work for the Church, which is the one that had an orchestra and was the big employer. For mulattoes and people born out of wedlock, the possibilities of having a legal name, of having an education, and that didn’t even involve going to university, but learning to read and write, were not numerous. So a very common path was to learn a trade or enter the church. For this reason, family roots are mainly linked to African slaves who arrived on the continent, even if they were already people who were not slaves. “Plus, they had to go through this transition between the Colony and the Republic.”

Although the Church is the main employer, over the years musicians began to expand their alternatives; private lessons, small ensembles and then opera. “In the 1840s, opera began to explode -Izquierdo emphasizes-. In fact, between this decade and the 1850s, many more musicians began to leave the country and municipal opera houses were built, such as the one in Santiago which dates from 1857. Then, many musicians left the Church for the theaters. often stops having an orchestra.

Was there a relationship with other types of more private spaces? think of salons, evenings, for example, as European musicians sometimes did

There was something of that, for example, we know that (Bernardo) O’Higgins organized a big dance in which several musicians performed and composed a Beethoven symphony. But this idea of ​​the solitary pianist was already more difficult. Many musicians are piano teachers, but the idea persists that it is women who learn to play the instrument and that the man who makes music is more of the lower middle class. And he does it because it’s his way of making money. There wasn’t much chance that a man could make a living from music, it started to happen later.

Although the new republics were built on the model of liberal society, the structures of colonial society persisted, with a marked class composition. Thus, free blacks, browns, and mulattoes sought ways to gain social prestige. As historical studies have proven, one solution was to participate in militias. Another was for music. “The most famous Chilean musician, José Zapiola, comes from an Afro family and his father does not recognize him. He could have been very marginal in society, but as a musician he begins to rise through the ranks and eventually becomes an influential politician. His memoirs remain excellent sources. He was someone who was invited into the living rooms of aristocratic families in Santiago, so I think yes, being a musician was a very clear form of social mobility.

Thus, it is easy to understand that many of these musicians contributed their talent to the construction of new nations. In fact, the current national anthems of Argentina, Peru and Venezuela are those composed at the time. “The hymns of this era save the tradition of church songs, theater music -said Izquierdo-. “Musicians also see it as an opportunity for glory, for fame.”

Were they then looking to be recognized, did they want to resemble the rockstars of the time?

Yes quite. Many want to be, for example, the Afro-Peruvian José Bernardo Alcedo, who is the composer of the national anthem of Peru, released a song called almost at the same time The shisha and it was a success in Peru, practically throughout the century. Even years later he kept saying “hey, I’m the one who wrote The shisha‘, it was something like his an amazing shot. In fact, when they write their letters, they say, “I’m the one who wrote this song.” So yes. Today, many seek to become independent and thus stop relying on the Church, as in Europe, but in Latin America, with all the crisis, it is much more difficult to make this transition. There weren’t any large printing presses that would allow you to print a lot of your music and still do it. For example, the first score printed in Chile is the Song Yungay, the anthem composed by José Zapiola. In fact, it is the most printed sheet music of the 19th century and was until not long ago the second national anthem. Basically, it was a bit because of that, because of the sales of this song.