http://arsisthesis.cuaad.udg.mx/ EISSN (en tramite) Centro Universitario de Arte, Arquitectura y Diseño Universidad de Guadalajara

Vol. 1 (2019)

Artículo / Article

Grundegestalt: tones-of-a-motive technique in Revueltas

D.M. Roberto Barnard Baca Universidad de Guadalajara

Resumen:

El compositor Silvestre Revueltas (1899-1940) es mundialmente reconocido como exponente de un nacionalismo musical mexicanista de muy alto nivel. Personalidad compleja, multifacética, contradictoria. Sin obviar sus grandes cualidades humanistas y su activismo político y social pos-revolucionario, su mexicanismo y nacionalismo tajantes, pocos conocen que Revueltas el compositor es un gran modernista, afín en su desarrollo técnico de procedimientos contemporáneos de la primera mitad del siglo veinte, como el manejo de tonos-de-un-motivo, técnica que aquí se arguye es toral para su lenguaje. Se ejemplifica con el Cuarteto núm. 1 del duranguense.

Abstract: 6 2 Based on the use of a Tones-of-a-Motive Grundgestalt technique as the principal method of composition, the String Quartet no. 1 of Silvestre Revueltas (1899-1940) presents short, reiterative pitch matrix-building blocks combined in different ways that provide, along with vigorous rhythmic figures, tempo, and meter changes, the means for creating form, tension, and release. Revueltas is universally recognized as a Mexican nationalist, with a strong, multifaceted personality. Few know that he is also a leading modernist, a pioneer in post-tonal technique within Latin America.

1. Introduction

The Cuarteto num. 1 para cuerdas (1930) - String Quartet No. 1- of Silvestre Revueltas

(1899-1940) is a representative work for the string quartet medium by the violinist- , and a representative example of his compositional technique. My essay freely analyses the quartet musically as an essentially post-tonal work. This work is representative of Revueltas: brevity and density combined, and is of suitable dimensions for ready discussion and reference. After just a few hearings the work is retained and lingers in the mind, yet it is still fresh and engaging with each repeated listening. The quartet consists of two concise movements. Both movements are ternary in structure, using an overall slow-fast-slow (ABA) construction. The first movement, Allegro energico, is further sub-divided into smaller episodes. The second movement, Vivo, is in three clear sections.

The music is predominantly atonal, highly chromatic, and to a large extent derived from the manipulation of a generating theme and motive present in the first four bars of the Allegro energico, using transformations of this material throughout for

6 3 harmonic and contrapuntal textures, and to articulate the structural delineation of the sub-sections (and between movements) by means of a consistent and constant reference to the generating sonorities. Revueltas, like Stravinsky, would sometimes juxtapose sections of contrasting character and rhythms, ostinati, yet keep them united by the motive generator. The character and highly-charged rhythms and timbres of Revueltas’s music owe much to rhythms of the son.107 This can easily be appreciated in the sparer texture of a string quartet and, no doubt, merits additional investigation - if not here then certainly in a future, complementary essay.

Here the terminology of set theory will be used—though not exclusively—to describe the objects discussed. Pitch-class nomenclature makes it easier to generalize the motive cells described here. Traditional chord names can be cumbersome, and pitch- class sets have been reduced to normal form set classes to look for patterns of transformation. However, the use of both pitch-class or “pc” labels and traditional note and chord terms does highlight the idea that this work moves in a world that makes reference to tonal and post-tonal music—a situation not atypical in early twentieth- century writing. This parallels, in aptly non-verbal ways, the movements found in both the figurative and less-than-figurative paintings of José Clemente Orozco (1883-1949) or Juan Soriano (1920-2006), where expressionism and abstraction meet with concrete ideas and forms that function on many different levels. These pairings of the concrete and the abstract are mainly concerned, in the case of Orozco, with expressing a reality peculiar to 1930s México—a time and place of post-Revolutionary cultural upheaval and renaissance. In Soriano, sub-themes are portrayed within themes, sub-realities within realities. Like Orozco and Soriano, Revueltas is true to his impressions and feelings about México. This music is not serial or dodecaphonic, but Revueltas does

107 Mexican popular forms of rural and mestizo (mixed Spanish, African and Native American elements) origin. 6 4 use certain protocols, referent axes and sonorities to create his music. This represents a sophisticated, original contribution to the post-tonal musical repertoire of Latin

America.

II. Synopsis of Revueltas: education and formative years

Silvestre Revueltas began his studies as a child in modest (though not truly impoverished) surroundings and he eventually went on to study in City, Texas and Chicago. Revuetas hailed from a family of small merchants and shopkeepers in the town of Santiago Papasquiaro, in the mountainous northern state of Durango. He was blessed to have the support of parents who were sensitive to his (and his siblings’) talents.108 As his sister, the actress Rosaura Revueltas, pointed out in a letter in 1946:

Silvestre began to learn when he was five years of age. Do you know what that means? If you consider that my father and mother were very simple people, who had always lived in a small mining town, who had no culture and a very slight instruction. But they were extraordinary people too. Both possessed an innate intelligence and sensibility. My mother had never read a book or heard other music than that of the small rustic orchestra of the village playing waltzes.109

Reveueltas gave his first public recital at the Teatro Degollado in Guadalajara, Jalisco, in 1911. Program notes are non-existent or have yet to surface.110 After a short stay in

Colima state, the family moved back to where Revueltas enrolled at the

Júarez Institute of Music that same year.111 More dramatically,

108 José Revueltas (1914-1976) became a noted prose writer, screenwriter and leftist political theorist, well-known in the Spanish-speaking world. José adored his older brother Silvestre. 109 Lorenzo Candelaria, “Silvestre Revueltas at the Dawn of his 'American Period': St. Edward's College, Austin, Texas (1917-1918),” American Music 22, no. 4 (2004): 504. 110 Ibid., 505. 111 Calvin D. Hofer, “Performance issues related to Soli by Carlos Chávez and Two Little Serious 6 5 By 1913 the family had attained enough financial security to send Silvestre to a four-year program at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música in where he studied violin with the Spaniard Jose Rocabruna (1879-1957) and composition with Rafael Julio Tello (1872-1946). Silvestre's studies with Rocabruna and Tello must have been the most significant musical experiences of his life to that point. A far cry from the rustic musicians Silvestre had first heard at Santiago Papasquiaro, Rocabruna was an accomplished artist of international reputation who had played under the batons of Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921) and (1864- 1949) in Barcelona, and performed alongside the legendary Pablo Casals (1876-1973) and Enrique Granados (1867-1916).112

In 1917 Revueltas’s parents sent him to St. Edward's College in Austin, Texas.

There he befriended one of the friars, a Frenchman named Louis Gazagne (1885-1973), who was a piano instructor as well as amateur cellist. In a letter directed to Rosaura

Revueltas from January 28, 1946, he had this to say of Revueltas:

It was at night, on the fourth floor of our Main Building, where we were less likely to be disturbed that we spent our most pleasant hours. All lights used to be turned out except for a weak piano light just sufficient to know the piano keys. Silvestre used then to go to the farthest corner of the hall and there, with myself at the piano, for a goodly two hours, he would pour out all his soul in thrilling interpretations of Sarasate, Gounod, Kreisler, Bach all played by heart, and played as only a consummated artist can play and as only born poet can interpret. I am sure that never after in any of his concerts has he surpassed those evenings when his soul was lost in masterly interpretation. I feel quite proud to have been the sole partaker of those thrilling moments. 113

Charmaine Leclair further documents his violinistic prowess, making mention of the fact that:

According to Chávez and others, Revueltas was an excellent violinist. Chávez was particularly impressed with his interpretation of Beethoven and Handel violin sonatas when they concertized together in the early 1920s. The American Record Guide shows a photo of him playing one of the many

Pieces by Silvestre Revueltas. A lecture recital, together with selected works of Kennan, Stravinsky, Haydn, Hummel, Neruda, Stevens and others” (Ph.D. diss., University of North Texas, 2000): 15. The Juárez Institute, now a part of the Universidad Juárez de Durango, would appear to be the school Hofer refers to, although Hofer claims that it is in Guadalajara. I have never heard of it, and I live in Guadalajara. 112 Candelaria, “Silvestre Revueltas at the Dawn,” 505. 113 Ibid., 517. The date given by Candelaria, probably from Rosaura Revueltas’s own memoirs. The translation is presumed to be Candelaria's. 6 6 instruments in his violin collection. And Revueltas played the Saint-Säens Violin Concerto No. 3 with the Orquesta Sinfónica de México in 1929.114

Revueltas studied at the Chicago Musical College from 1918 to 1920, and then again from 1922 to 1924, when his father’s death forced Revueltas to return to

México.115 Later, he rejoined Chávez in piano-violin recitals and playing freelance gigs.

He returned to work in the United States in 1927, directing pit bands, cinema orchestras and the like in Alabama and Texas. This was a period of professional frustration for

Revueltas. Finally, Chávez invited him back home to be his assistant conductor in the

Mexico City Symphony. It was then that his compositional career really took off.

Silvestre Revueltas finally began to be celebrated for his folkloric talent and

“nationalist flair” both inside and outside of Mexico around that same time. As Robert

Parker, Roberto Kolb Neuhaus and others have observed, he was also a well-schooled and noteworthy concert violinist, as well as a conductor of musical theatre, silent cinema pit bands, and symphony orchestras. Still, for far too long he continued to be over-shadowed by the more boisterously publicized and analyzed Mexican of that era, such as his one-time friend and mentor Carlos Chávez (1899-1978) and

Manuel M. Ponce (1882-1948). Both of these men were outstanding artists and educators, yet neither trod outside of the political and social mainstream. Revueltas remained true to his convictions and ideas, and did not temper or adjust his language

(verbally or musically) to profit socially or economically from his talents.

During the 1920s, with Carlos Chávez at the piano, Revueltas played in a series of recitals, exploring the works of Hindemith, Milhaud, Stravinsky, Honneger, Bartók and others. Revueltas had as much contact with the United States as did Chávez at that time, but did not spend nearly the same amount of time in self-promotion. Chávez lived

114 Charmaine Francoise Leclair, “The Solo and of Silvestre Revueltas” (Ph.D. diss., University of Oregon, 1995): 98. 115 Ibid., 6. 6 7 in New York, a renowned cultural center, while Revueltas instead went as a migrant to

Texas, Alabama, and Chicago where he earned a basic living as a pit musician.

Meanwhile he was sincerely dedicated to a number of progressive left-wing causes. He eagerly volunteered, for example, to join a Mexican delegation sent to support the

Republican government during the Spanish Civil War.

Edgard Varèse became interested in Revueltas thanks to Chávez, and Revueltas reciprocated with an appreciation for Varèse. Both were founding members of the

League of Composers. A 1930 league concert in New York City included Revueltas’s

Colorines, and another in Habana in 1934 presented the same next to pieces by Varèse and Schoenberg.116 It is interesting to note that the “northcentric” (as the

Uruguayan composer Graciela Paraskaveídis calls it) focus of the United States and

Europe rarely (if ever) accommodated the interest that Varèse had in Latin American musicians. Therefore, the 1928 founding of the Pan American Association of

Composers by Varèse, Cowell and Chávez was a significant event indeed, as was

Varèse's use of Afro-Caribbean instruments in Ionisation. Varèse's knowledge of

Revueltas’s work was evident as early as 1926, with his desire to perform Revueltas’s music in New York. This desire was never fully realized, though they did co-participate and collaborate through the League of Composers. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be any documentation showing that the two ever actually met face-to-face.117

Revueltas, who was often sardonic and acid in his humor, as evidenced in his correspondence, was also bemused by Satie's wit for a spell. He became interested in

Milhaud, Ravel and Debussy, but it is notable that the French “sound” we associate with the 1920s is absent from his quartet of 1930, which appeared to owe more to other

116 Deane L. Root, “The Pan American Association of Composers (1928-1934)” in Anuario Interamericano de Investigación Musical, 8 (1972): 63. 117 Graciela Paraskeváidis, “Edgar Varèse y su relación con músicos e intelectuales latinoamericanos de su tiempo. Algunas historias en redondo,” Revista Musical Chilena, LVI, no. 198 (2002):8. 6 8 influences. Revueltas himself composed little during the 1920s. Perhaps he was captivated by these “other” influences as he consolidated his position as an independent left-wing progressive artist? Political activity was clearly intrinsic and natural to

Revueltas, and it was inseparable from his musical explorations, through which he sought to give voice to the proletariat.

In a letter Revueltas later commented on his education, ideals, and one of his composition teachers at the Chicago Musical College:

Yes, I studied violin, but that doesn't matter much. My dream was to create new music. My irresponsibility was forgiven by my eagerness for the future....I wrote a first composition for violin and piano, and submitted it to one of my teachers. When he read it he told me enthusiastically, “Very interesting, completely in the style of Debussy!” “[In the] style of Debussy?” I asked, “What do you mean?” He answered, “Well that this music is like Debussy's.” And noticing my astonishment, he asked, “Aren't you familiar with Debussy's music?” I said, “I have never heard the music of this composer, and I'm unaware of the existence of something like what I have just composed.” Later when I became familiar with Debussy, I realized that all of my mental music was identical. Debussy gave me the same feeling of a sunrise whose colors acquire a tactile plasticity that is transformed from my eyes to my ears, in plastic music, music in movement. Until 1924 I lived in this attitude: Finding that there was someone who had already given realization to my new world caused me to undergo tremendous turmoil which translated into inaction. Because I decided not to compose again until I created my own language.118

These compound influences on Revueltas’s own musical language are a product of his peculiar encounter with, and immersion in, those very styles. His particular interaction with those styles must be seen, at least in part, from the perspective of a rocky life’s journey that took him from Santiago Papasquiaro to Colima, Guadalajara, and Mexico City, followed by Texas, Alabama, and Chicago; after that he continually moved back and forth between the United States and Mexico. A trip to Europe included

118 Leclair, “The Solo and Chamber Music,” 28. The translation is Leclair's, 6 9 a bittersweet visit to Republican Spain via France. His reception in Spain was a personal triumph, but sadly it also marked a tragic passage in history, as the Republic was defeated soon after by the combined fascist forces of Franco, Hitler, and Mussolini as the western democracies looked on and did little to help. The defeat of the Republic was a major blow to Revueltas; not only did it compel him to cancel a planned visit to the

USSR, but it also impacted every aspect of his life, emotionally and creatively.

Because of employment, schooling, concertizing, personal life adventures and fate, he was subjected to a full gamut of early twentieth century sights, smells and sounds in an immediate, visceral way that was mirrored in his music with passing and fleeting echoes of cinematic and radiophonic reflections. Like the cinema and radio, he was truly a product of the twentieth century, and his need to work within the United

States of America to make ends meet also set him apart from elite Mexican composers of earlier generations, who were able to go to Europe (particularly France and Germany) on government stipends prior to the Revolution.

In this way, too, Revueltas was among the first wave of Mexican migrantes to the United States, like so many others who would follow. The vast majority (known as braceros) went north not to play the violin or conduct pit bands, but rather to pick crops for American agribusiness during World War II in the states of California, Texas,

Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. These migrants surely experienced even more prejudice then than they do today, and this rankled Revueltas’s sensibilities and impacted his political and creative evolution. 119

III. Revueltas’s style and its sources.

119 As an educated, political man, Revueltas was well aware that the U.S. lands in which he and other Mexicans worked and were exploited, had recently (just 80 years earlier) belonged to his own beloved Mexico. These and other lands were seized by the U.S. during its invasion and occupation of Mexico from 1846 to 1848. 7 0 Revueltas was fond of popular mestizo music, the music of his time. This included corridos (ballads) and other styles. He worked in small forms and entirely rejected the Europeanized notions of academies and conservatories that had governed

Mexican musicology up to that time. After leaving Spain and arriving in Paris he wrote the following to his wife Ángela in 1937:

Now I understand the powerful influence that this city has had on the composers, men of science, students who have been steeped in this life; how much it is reflected in their works, and how it has diluted them to the point of saying nothing of their own. I firmly believe that they lost the best of themselves and the best of their country. Our America is young and surely has all of the defects of youth and clearly it needs to be educated, but not by losing its best characteristics. The error of our (Parisian) teachers, and not only theirs but that of all those influenced by Europe, has been to want to make us similar due to a certain inferiority complex, a desire to be genteel, polite, pass for refined before the admired nations, before those that one feels obligated to prostrate oneself.120

Elsewhere in that letter Revueltas referred to the corrido in his music, along with the more characteristic rhythmic and timbral elements of the Mexican son. In particular he referenced the son as practiced in the Tierra Caliente of Michoacán and Guerrero, with varying instrumental colors from village bands and the urban style of the mariachi (and its multiple references—from jazz and music hall to bolero and Viennese waltzes). All these influences can be found in much of the music of Revueltas.121 Extreme registers, so often found in the village bands of México, are employed extensively by Revueltas in

120 Robert Schwartz, “Revueltas and Revolution” (D.M.A. diss., Manhattan School of Music, 1992): 44. Schwartz' fine translation of a letter which appears in Silvestre Revueltas por él mismo, ed. Rosaura Revueltas (México, D.F.: Ediciones ERA, 1989). Schwartz provides a good outline of the corrido and other popular forms, too. 121 The late medieval and early Renaissance Iberian culture that was brought to México by the Conquista lives on in folk and popular musical traditions throughout the country. Veracruz, the Huasteca, Chiapas, Oaxaca and Yucatán all boast distinct regional styles with varying degrees of rapport and intersection amongst them and amongst Afro-Caribbean, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Anglo/United States musics. More familiar to the average norteamericano are the norteño and banda styles developed largely in the nineteenth century, which share much in common with United States popular musical traditions, first in the preference for duple and quadruple time signatures, and second in the preference for brass band instrumentation and a healthy Slavic and German influence (Polish and Czech in Mexico). Well-known, of course, are the mariachi ensembles of bowed and plucked strings, and later brass and string versions. 7 1 many of his works, including , Sensemayá, and Noche de los mayas. In this sense his work resembles that of Stravinsky in his early works with their folkloric references. In the string quartet at hand, the exploitation of extreme registers is moderate; indeed, the folkloric rhythms are less prevalent per se, with one instance that might be the possibly sesquialtera-derived122 figure in the II Vivo, maybe a touch of the nervous intro to a huapango. Here are measures 1 through 3 (my reduction Example 1) and the beginning of El Tamaulipeco (Example 1a):

Example 1

Example 1a

More directly, that figure emerges—like all the other figures in this piece—from the dotted rhythms of the opening four bars of I Allegro energico.

122 The sesquialtera can be described as an accompaniment in a 'two bar' rhythmic pattern that illustrates a stress pattern. It is manifested as an alternation of two bars; one has 3 beats and the other 2 beats in a bar. The idea of the sesquialtera could be described as an alteration of "feels" between 3/4 and 6/8 'bars' (or vice versa). This is my idea. 7 2 Revueltas wrote the following commentary on the state of Mexican conservatory and academic compositional idioms in the first quarter of the twentieth century:

Our Mexican music has all the characteristics of that puerile provincial vanity that presents itself to its countrymen in the dress and with the manners of the capital. It is music enveloped in silks imported from the boulevards of Europe, music made of cloying diminutives, as remote from the painful throbbing reality of the masses as a diplomatic reception or an aristocratic soirée.123

The timbres and registers in the Cuarteto número uno are not as adventuresome or readily identifiable to the Mexican listener as popular, mestizo, or “Mexican” in a manner typical of some other Revueltian works. Still, these timbres and registers function perfectly well to sustain the musical argument presented in the opening bars.

The musical phrases, short and decisive as they are, could very well be the verses of a revolutionary-era corrido, albeit a completely non-verbal, shocking, arresting and twisted one. Revueltas, the musician, was a lover of the poetry of García Lorca, of

Nicolás Guillén, and of Langston Hughes and he set their texts to music (see List of

Works). Only one of these poets (Lorca) was a European; all three poets represented progressive social and political tendencies in each of their respective nation-states.

Revueltas's musical output, for all its brevity, is difficult to define. It has a bit of everything in it, including a certain hoary brashness that would have been embraced on

New York’s Broadway with tamer harmonic language and a less challenging political message, but Revueltas was not driven by vanity or marketing postures, but rather by political and social principles. Revueltas was a product of the Mexican Revolution. His motivation was to highlight and ennoble Mexico’s rural people and their music, but not by constructing simple caricatures or music-hall “set numbers” that only alluded to them. In fact, Revueltas explored these humble themes even as he became a world

123 Schwartz, “Revueltas and Revolution,” 44. 7 3 renowned and pioneering film composer.124 He worked in show business and played popular gigs in both the Unites States and México while developing as a part-time conservatory teacher and a conductor of note. Meanwhile Revueltas wrote about a myriad of topics, including Eurocentrism, of which he noted, “Malas lenguas insinuan que en Europa las cosas se oyen mejor. Hay que ir a Europa. [Evil tongues insinuate that in Europe things sound better. Let them go to Europe].”125

Charmaine Leclair's dissertation, The Solo and Chamber Music of Silvestre

Revueltas, points to many humorous and ironic elements in Revueltas's music, and her principal thesis is that there was much more to his music than Mexican nationalism and post-Revolutionary bravura. This is certainly true, in part at least; however, it should be pointed out, that well-meaning (but naïve) listeners and performers often confuse the irony and bitterness in Revueltas with whimsy and tongue-in-cheek satire. To be sure, other contemporaries such as (1892-1974), George Auric (1899-1983), or (1899-1963) might have manifested such satire in their early jazz- age works of 1920s “Gay Paris.” Revueltas, however, was a serious, socially-conscious artist, and the mocking tone in some of his music is perhaps better viewed as a beautiful, artful expression of protest.126 It required real artistry to compose such vibrant, chromatic music over—or about—seemingly innocuous I-IV-V-I diatonic models such as the popular story-telling ballad that is the corrido.

In his dissertation, the pianist Robert Schwartz comments that:

The music of Revueltas does not lend itself to detailed formal analysis, a fact which could be daunting to the musicologist. The musical scholar will find none of the motivic cell structure in Bartók's music or the intricate organizational processes in the music of the serialists. The fact is that not

124 See Antonia Vondrak, “Innovative Ansätze in der Filmmusik von Silvestre Revueltas” in Österreichische Musikzeitschrift 59, no. 10 (2004): 19-31. 125 Schwartz, “Revueltas and Revolution,” 44. Schwartz references the same letter. 126 Some might disagree with me, of course. Including these words here means invoking accusations of “irrelevancy” or “ranting” or even of being “non-academic” in tone. Que así sea. 7 4 only does Revueltas's music not lend itself to formal analysis, it willfully defies such an attempt...Revueltas's sarcasm on the subject of determining form in his works springs from a deep distaste and mistrust of intellectuality and academicism with regard to art. His rejection of intellectualism exists on both conscious and unconscious levels, that is, it is a result of conscious political beliefs and decisions as well as a manifestation of an inherent, impulsive spirit.127

While this view has merit, it is essential to recognize that Revueltas's music can and does respond to many analytical approaches, each offering useful insights. This includes a musical analysis that seeks out and finds motivic cells.128 Schwartz, for example, gallantly speaks of “an eleventh chord on Gb, undulating with chromatic passing tones within a limited range of pitch” when discussing the Homenaje a García

Lorca.129 What lies under such a surface? Pitch-class terminology offers an excellent way to analyze, synthesize and generalize such motives more succinctly. Charmaine

Leclair's exhaustive dissertation, which covers almost all of Revueltas's chamber music, employs rather vague “timelines” to address harmonic structures, though they are too broad to really offer any insight into the intervallic ingredients of the Revueltas musical caldo de res or consomé de pollo.130 (There is a saying in Spanish: El que mucho abarca, poco aprieta. [Don't bite off more than you can chew].) There are, of course, multiple ways to talk about music:

Existen muchas aportaciones extra-musicales que nos llegan de las ciencias aplicadas como las ingenierías mecánica y electrónica, del ámbito de la

127 Schwartz, “Revueltas and Revolution,” 47. The Schwartz dissertation is a wonderful, provocative document that argues for Revueltas´s convictions admirably. Schwartz really emphasizes the rhetorical and ethical connection between García Lorca and Revueltas, with gonads (politically corrected to: authentic, sincere and jubilant prose). 128 Alejandro Madrid, “¿Influencias o elementos de retórica? Aspectos de centricidad en la obra de Silvestre Revueltas,” Heterofonía 122 (2000), offers a trivial analysis, but at least one that talks (a bit) about pitches, not pozole, Revueltas's three marriages or Claude Lévi-Strauss. 129 Schwartz, “Revueltas and Revolution,” 104. Schwartz—like Leclair—would appear to favor the Jazz Age or the New Age harmony books, what with the insistence on labeling chord extensions in a manner that only Mark Levine, Hector Infanzón or Chick Corea could truly understand, or more importantly, unfold. These can be baffling: “G13 sus with added sixth, flat ninth and major/minor seventh”. Más vale diablo que conozco que diablo por conocer. 130 Beef stock base or chicken soup. 7 5 psicología y el psicoanálisis, de estructuralistas y estudiosos del papel del género, etcétera; todas de gran utilidad e interés para el musicólogo contemporáneo. Pero para acertar un poco mejor y atinarle a la música de concierto de nuestra era, es imprescindible contar con las herramientas necesarias, que son meramente musicales en su concepción. [There are many contributions which come to us from the applied sciences, such as mechanical and electronic engineering, from the métier of psychology and psychoanalysis, from structuralists and students of the role of gender, etcetera; all of great usefulness and interest to the musicologist of today. But to approach the concert music of our time, it is imperative to have the necessary tools, tools that are musical in their conception.]131

In Revueltas resides enormous contradiction. Perhaps this was a basic condition of being mexicano in the 1920s and 1930s, and a product of the twentieth century, and of the Revolution? Perhaps it was a condition of being unafraid to speak out for a brief but exhilarating period in our history? Today Revueltas's music sounds increasingly human in a world dominated more and more by over-specialization and segregation—a world ofhaves and have-lesses—where the fear of being politically incorrect manicures an unwillingness by many to speak out in a forthright manner. By nature and conviction, Revueltas was not afraid to express strong opinions.

The Mexican composer Manuel Enríquez ( 1926-1994), a student of Morelia's

Miguel Bernal Jiménez (1910-1956) and New York's Stefan Wolpe (1902-1972), and one of the few actual self-proclaimed disciples of Revueltas (though he wrote in an entirely different idiom), made the following pertinent comments regarding the man and his music:

Both while Silvestre was alive and after his death people have existed that talk about his music, and with pedantry and ignorance have said that his works are original, attractive, sound Mexican, etcetera, but they (the works) lack technique and a pure academic elaboration. They barely analyze the music, and with professionally solid yet dispassionate criteria, miss the point and the obvious. [These] scores conceal that concept [of academicism]. The critics are dealing with a music that is born from another

131 Roberto Barnard Baca, “La musicología como disciplina académica,” in Memorias del I Coloquio Nacional de Música, eds. Sergio Medina and Rodrigo Ruy Arias, eds. (Guadalajara, México: Unidad Editiorial CUAAD, 2009): 228. 7 6 creative point of view, where the author, with great talent and ability, deliberately avoided reference to traditional forms and patterns, not only structurally, but also in harmonic language, instrumentation and thematic development. Revueltas knew perfectly well when and how to elaborate or repeat a theme. It is true, and necessary to emphasize, that he never took directly from popular or traditional music of our country; in his music, everything sounds national. Yet nevertheless, actual folklore quotations, melodic or instrumental do not exist. This great originality is perhaps one of the best qualities about his work. And now much later, and with ample “knowledge of the cause” we can say, “What excellent music! What a great representative of our art!” and “How wonderful that he didn´t write symphonies or concertos, or the supposedly grand forms!” He was always faithful to his convictions, political as well as aesthetic and artistic.132

The above observations ring true, but it must be pointed out that there are surely a few fragments in Revueltas that do come from popular music sources. One example can be found in Janitzio, the wonderful, very popular short tone poem of 1933 inspired by the state of Michoacán.133 One can clearly hear a fragment of Lindo Michoacán, a folk song of the 1920s floating about in the piece's main theme, itself inspired by a Purépecha village band tune. Of course, the melodic fragment is wrapped up in a kaleidoscopic orchestral mesh exhibited in the piece.

Revueltas was fond of spending time at markets, frequenting cantinas and pulquerías on the streets, and of course wandering the campo—the countryside. His composition of folk-like melodies or fragments was utterly spontaneous, a product of his complete immersion in a sound and sight world that he loved. Schwartz mentions,

Revueltas's colleagues and friends watched him spend day after day among people in the street, absorbed, curious, deeply involved in every word and incident. Then he would suddenly announce the completion of a large work. (...) found Revueltas's spontaneity akin to Schubert's. He

132 Leclair, “The Solo and Chamber Music,” 26. The quotation is from Rosaura Revueltas, ed., Silvestre Revueltas por Él Mismo, México: Ediciones ERA, 1989, 11-15. Leclair´s translation is quite adequate. 133 This is my own home state. 7 7 once remarked that “he composes organically tunes which are almost indistinguishable from the original folk material itself.”134

The Argentine writer (and musician) Daniel Moyano (1930-1992) once commented on the condition of the Latin American writer, a condition that similarly applied to musicians like Revueltas:

El escritor [latinoamericano], al asumir su condición de tal (...), se asume también como persona, afronta la vida como riesgo y no como espectáculo. Comprende que asumir la condición de vivir significa hacerlo en todas las instancias y ciclos, sin concesiones ni renunciamientos, y esto le dará la conciencia de sí mismo y de la sociedad en que vive. En ese momento comprende que la novela, como el hombre, no es un espectáculo de la vida. La misión de la novela será entonces hacerle algo al hombre, modificarlo. [The Latin-American writer, assumes his condition as such, and so also assumes as a person, to confront life as a risk and not as a spectacle. He understands that to assume the life condition means to do this in all instances and life cycles, without concession or renunciation, and that to do this will give him consciousness of himself and of the society in which he lives. At that moment he realizes that the novel, like man, is not a spectacle about life. The mission of the novel will be then to do something to man, to modify him.]135

In this sense Revueltas was driven in a way not unlike Schoenberg (or any other artist who really commits to their vision). Revueltas was an advocate of the quotidian, populist, and radical—a combination that is not uncommon in Mexico and elsewhere in much of Latin America. One suspects that Revueltas would have been surprised by a university essay on his string quartet, particularly one that seeks to contextualize the work in some post-tonal analytical narrative, divorced from the reality that produced it.

Nevertheless, the Cuarteto número uno is international in its appeal and only mildly mexicano by design. ¡Salúd, y mucha vida, hermano Silvestre!

134 Schwartz, “Revueltas and Revolution,” 75, 78-79. The Copland citation is taken from Robert Stevenson, Music in Mexico, A Historical Survey (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1952). 135 From an unpublished talk, “Literature and liberty,” of 1972, cited in Cecilia Corona Martínez, Literatura y Música: Confluencias en la Obra de Daniel Moyano. (Córdoba, Argentina: Editorial Universitas 2005), 90. My translation. 7 8 “He estado observando las gentes y las cosas…cuan lejos de nuestra manera de ser, en todo. Cuanto, a pesar de nuestros defectos, hay más generosidad, más vida real, en aquellos pueblos jóvenes. Esta gente súper-civilizada me parece estar seca por dentro. Todo está regulado, mesurado, organizado. El color del cielo –el cielo-, los árboles, las casas, las comidas, el amor, la amistad: todo está lleno de una finura cortés, completamente indiferente. Al principio engaña, después se hace repulsiva”

Silvestre Revueltas

IV. Form Outline

Charmaine Leclair contends,

Revueltas's first string quartet is the clearest example of his style devoid of Mexican nationalistic elements. This quartet resembles the first four quartets of Bartók and Berg, primarily with the unrelenting intensity of the music, but also with the dense chromatic harmonies of the lyrical contrapuntal sections and the use of special effects of stringed instruments such as glissandos and harmonics. It could be argued that folk music did influence this piece because Revueltas composed duple divisions followed by triple divisions extensively, and this is also a primary characteristic of the corrido and popular Mexican dances. But this influence is not significant enough to label this work as a nationalist composition. In the broadest scale, each of the two movements of this quartet follows a three-part form (ABA). The outer sections are rhythmically unpredictable, fast, very loud, and aggressive, while the middle contrasting sections have more melodic material, even rhythms, soft dynamics, and a more tender mood. In both movements, harmonic progressions are vague; therefore the formal plan is determined by the tempo markings, the short motives, repetition, and fermatas over sustained chords or silences.136

The tempting allusions to Bartók and Berg aside, these comments are succinct and, in general, quite accurate. The overall outline form of each movement of the Quartet can be described as ternary.

The first movement, Allegro energico, is A-B-A. The main A section encompasses mm. 1 through 59; the B section mm. 60 through 81; The A' section

136 Leclair, “The Solo and Chamber Music,” 105. I concur with most of these observations; however, my formal subdivisions and ideas are somewhat different. 7 9 encompasses mm. 82 through 99. These larger sections are sub-divided then as A (a: mm.1-23; b1:mm.24-59), B (b2: mm. 60-81), A' (c: mm. 82-99). [The lower case 'c' is used for clarity]

The second movement, Vivo, is also A-B-A. The main section A encompasses mm.1 through 66; the B section mm. 67 through 115; the A' section mm. 116 through

167. These larger sections are subdivided as A (a: mm. 1-66), B (b1: mm. 67-95; b2—a transition passage—mm 96-115), A' (c: mm. 116-167).

V. Tones of a motive: a generator of the piece

A dotted rhythm starts in the cello, opens up across viola, violin II and finally cadences with violin I and the full quartet in m. 4. These four measures provide most of the pitch source material for the work, some of the rhythmic ideas, and certainly open registers and create chromatic completion in a non-serial setting. The delineation into tetrachords (and smaller groupings) is one interesting descriptive approach that reveals several statistical and audible relationships including pitch class inversion, transposition, pitch class associations and intervallic motives.

A 0126 tetrachord (0126A in the examples) appears across the first four pitches in the violoncello—C , C#, D and F#. Two eighth notes follow—C and B—and then another 0126 tetrachord (0126B in the examples) across the pitches (G#, E, B flat and

A), in cello and viola. A third tetrachord, 0148 (0148A in the examples), appears in violin II across the pitches (G, G#, B and E flat) [Example 3]. These and the 0148

(0148B) product of intersection are outlined below. Example 2 shows the opening four bars of the i. Allegro energico [Example 2]. {Courtesy of Peer Music—Southern

Music Publishers}

8 0

Example 2

Example 3

The transformation of tetrachord 0126A into 0126B can be effected by inversion; specifically TtI [Example 4].

Example 4

Interval 6 (ordered pitch class interval) defines the outer register of 0126A. It is also the boundary interval between the F# of 0126A and the eighth note C, also in the cello [Example 5].

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Example 5

In 0126A, the notes D and F# constitute Interval 4 [pcs 2,6]. In 0126B—across cello and viola—the first two notes are G# and E, Interval 8. Thus, Interval 4 → (maps into) Interval 8 [Example 6] (the arrow indicates mapping or complementation throughout).

Example 6

Returning to the notes connecting 0126A and 0126B, note that the eighth notes

C, B and the downbeat dotted quarter G# outline 014. The interval between the C and the G# is 4 (pcs 0,8)[Example 7].

Example 7

8 2 At the intersection of 0126A and 0126B—again, from m. 1--by grouping the cello's upbeat eighth notes C, B, with the downbeat G# and the viola's E in m. 2 we can describe a tetrachord, 0148 (pcs 0,e,8,4 → 0148 '0). For a label, I will call it 0148B.

[Example 8].

Example 8

The intersection of this 0148A and 0126B contains the boundary Interval 6, in the viola.

This is as in the Interval 6 between 0126A and the 0148B grouping [Example 9].

Example 9

The dotted rhythmic figure from 0126A, through 0148B, and across 0126B, combined with the intervallic content described, forms a musical motive [Example 10].

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Example 10

This motive contains important elements of association by adjacency and proximity. The contour of the melody includes, starting in 0126A, conjunct motion by semi-tones, a major third, a tri-tone leap and its downward “resolution.” This is followed by a minor third, upward leap of a minor sixth (melodic inversion of the M3), leap of tri-tone and another downward “resolution”. The term resolution is used loosely here, but from the rhythmic impulse of the motive it can be sensed that there is some directed motion involved in this specific melodic design of the constituent elements.

The overall flow of the motive, nonetheless, is still based on local and immediate associations.

One such association is that of F#-C-B (pcs 6,0,e) as echoed in the association of

E-Bb-A (pcs 4,t,9)[Example 11].

Example 11

F# and E (pcs 6, 4) are also heard as participants in identifiable figures, and then can be heard as pairs. Other pairs of notes can be related through extrapolation by

8 4 association with contours, patterns and associations here established. Once again,

Interval 6 is a most crucial interval.

Tetrachord

0148A appears in m. 3 across viola and violin II (pcs 8,e, 7, 3 →0148 '7)[Example 12].

Example 12

Now consider the relationship between 0148B and 0148A. 0148B → 0148A, with two pcs in common (G#,B) and the pcs 3 and 4 (E,Eb) differing only by semi-tone [Example

13].

Example 13

Associated then, are the final eighth note pair of G and E flat in 0148A, with the last two notes of 0148B, G# and E. And too, the combination of four pitches extracted

8 5 from the upper notes of both tetrachords—C, B from 0148B; G and E flat from 0148A create a 0148 'e (a 0148 tetrachord at inversion level e) [Example 14].

Example 14

0148B is projected across the registers of 'cello, viola and violin II, with the pitch class interplay of G#, G and E, E flat—making these elements associative and even interchangeable.

We can thus graph the association of G-G#, as well as E-Eb (pcs 7,8; 4,3)

[Example 15].

Example 15

The binding of 0126A and 0126B through the Interval 4 → Interval 8 mapping has a parallel in the relationship between 0126B and 0148A. The final two pitches of

0148A, eighth notes G and E flat, form Interval 4. The first two pitches of 0126B, G# and E, form Interval 8 [Example 16].

8 6

Example 16

Interval 7 is an important element in the relationship of this motive, as can be seen in 0126B and 0148A. It appears as an outside boundary interval between both— and the motive as a whole—between G# and E flat (pcs 8 and 3) and it appears across

0126B and 0148A between viola and violin II between notes E and B (pcs 4 and e)[Example 17].

Example 17

It also appears across 0148B and 0148A (violin I and II), as an outside interval of note—given that the G natural in 0148A is accented. It also appears embedded in a rhythmically noticeable place between E and B, on upbeats [Example 18].

Example 18

8 7

Interval 5—complement to Interval 7 for equivalency mod.12-- the perfect fourth, appears indirectly in 0126A between pitches C# and F#, on the upbeat side of the dotted figure of the opening gesture [Example 19].

Example 19

It also appears in 0148B, also indirectly [Example 20].

Example 20

Interestingly, Interval 5 does NOT appear directly until m. 4, when violin I finally makes an appearance in a quintuplet near the f-ff cadence, as G# to C#--the latter the highest pitch in register heard thus far[Example 21].

Example 21

8 8 Note too, that the accented G# here in mm4, in violin I, answers the upbowed-- and thus accented--G natural in violin II in mm3, previously noted. This might be taken as another example of pitch-class association through articulation.

Referring to the above example, it can be seen that along with the G#, grouped quintuplet pitches in violin I are F#, F—followed by the downbeat, accented E. The F to

E adjacency echoes the upbeat C to B adjacency of 0148B in the cello in bar 1, and indeed the opening pc content of 0126A.137 The rhythmic position of the F-E adjacency, however, truly disrupts the upbeat feel with a strong accent, marked ff.

Again, this had been anticipated by the accented play of G and G# in II and I, just prior to this cadence point.

Measure four pc material of violin I and II combines a referenced 0126A (in content, as well as prominent interval types considered, such as 6, 7, 5 etc.). Pitch class e is not present in m. 4.

Referring to previous examples, it can be seen that 0148A, in contour and content, relates to this Violin I quintuplet figure of m. 4, with the juxtaposition—or rather association-- of E and Eb (pcs 4, 3) being most notable once again.

To be certain, while this music is not dodecaphonic or serial, a certain “space” is filled out across the opening of the registers from measure one through four, and at this point we have heard for the first time all twelve pitches of the chromatic collection.

Revueltas' music here is thus not a haphazard coloring of diatonic material to give it a certain “modern” sound, but rather is very modern in its colorful use of

137 Morever, the pitches of violin I in m. 4 can be described as 02348 '8. Go to m. 1, take the final pitch of Tetrachord A, F#, and fuse it to 0148A. The result is 01458 'e.

8 9 constituent elements and constructs which come out of a post-tonal sensibility and mindset.

Revueltas is able to introduce these fundamental sonorities, which include— among other things--the possibility of aural association of interlocking pc groups of two or more elements in transposition and in inversion, in the string quartet. He keeps some elements constant while changing others, insuring the listener's ability to associate and follow along. Not only specific pitch classes, such as the E-E flat and G-G sharp mentioned above, but intervals such as the perfect fifth, diminished fifth, seventh and tri-tone become elements to elaborate.

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Score:

Revueltas, Silvestre. String Quartet no. 1 [1930]. New York: Southern Music Publishers 1952. Reproduced by permission.

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