MÚSICA CRIOLLA: Cultural Practices and National Issues in Modern Peru the Case of Lima (1920-1960)
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SSStttooonnnyyy BBBrrrooooookkk UUUnnniiivvveeerrrsssiiitttyyy The official electronic file of this thesis or dissertation is maintained by the University Libraries on behalf of The Graduate School at Stony Brook University. ©©© AAAllllll RRRiiiggghhhtttsss RRReeessseeerrrvvveeeddd bbbyyy AAAuuuttthhhooorrr... MÚSICA CRIOLLA: Cultural Practices and National Issues in Modern Peru The case of Lima (1920-1960) A Dissertation Presented by Luis Gomez to The Graduate School in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Stony Brook University December 2010 Stony Brook University The Graduate School Luis Gomez We, the dissertation committee for the above candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy degree, hereby recommend acceptance of this dissertation. Brooke Larson – Dissertation Advisor [Ph.D. History – History Department, Stony Brook University] April Masten - Chairperson of Defense [Ph.D. History – History Department, Stony Brook University] Paul Gootenberg – Committee Member [Ph.D. History – History Department, Stony Brook University] Frederick Moehn – External Reader [Ph.D. Music – Music Department, Stony Brook University] This dissertation is accepted by the Graduate School Lawrence Martin Dean of the Graduate School ii Abstract of the Dissertation MÚSICA CRIOLLA: Cultural Practices and National Issues in Modern Peru The case of Lima (1920-1960) By Luis Gomez Doctor of Philosophy In History Stony Brook University 2010 My thesis is a historical analysis of a group of musical forms called música criolla in twentieth-century Peru. I analyze the historical relocation of these musical forms as symbols of Peruvianness during the period 1920 to 1960. I argue that the idea of the existence of a national music called música criolla emerged as a product of the urban modernization that had been transforming the landscape of the city of Lima since the iii second half of the nineteenth century. Faced with this transformation, early twentieth- century Limeño intellectuals asserted that Limeños displayed distinctive artistic attitudes in their daily lives. For them, the best example of these attitudes was the practice of música criolla, which they argued embodied the authentic mood of the city. In the 1950‘s, several Limeño writers began to stress that música criolla was the typical musical practice of the city, different not only from foreign musical practices but also from the musical practices of the Andean immigrants who began to arrive to Lima en masse in the 1940‘s. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………….…….vi I. Música Criolla: an Academic Dilemma …………………………………….………..1 II. Criollo: The Roots of a Republican National Narrative…………………….………..19 III. Limeño Imagination: Performing Arts and National Issues in the Republican Era (1920-1940)……………………………………………………………………..………..57 IV. A National Day: El Día de San Juan en Amancaes. Everyday Life, Public Festivals, and Peruvian Nationalism in Lima (1920-1930)…………………..…………......….…..99 V. The Mass Media Network and the Creation of a National Music in Lima (1920- 1944)…………………………………………………………………………...….…..128 VI. Música Criolla and Nationalist Performances: the Rise of Música Negra (1950- 1960)…………………………………………………………………………………....168 VII. Conclusion……………………………………………………………….………..205 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………..……..213 Appendices……………………………………………………………………………..239 v Acknowlegments My dissertation is the end of a long process of obtaining the PhD in History at Stony Brook University. Several people made the writing of this dissertation possible. My family must be first mentioned because they supported me since I was only an undergraduate student in Lima in the 1980‘s. I also wish to thank the members of my dissertation committee who gave me much valuable advice to improve the content of this dissertation. For their advice, I wish to thank April Masten and Frederick Moehn. I need to specially thank Brooke Larson, my advisor, who supported and encouraged me during the process of writing this thesis. I found very good professors in the History Department at Stony Brook University who gave me suggestions and advice during these years. I want to express special thanks to Gary Marker for all his advice and commentaries on my papers and academic projects. I also wish to thank Javier Auyero and my classmates Norberto Barreto, Martin Monsalve, Magally Alegre, and William Wharton for their specific advice during the process of elaborating the proposal for this dissertation. I also must thank Themis Chronopoulous for his academic and personal support in different moments during the process of elaborating and writing my doctoral proposal and my dissertation. I must also thank Joel and Naomi Rosenthal who gave me critical support during the first weeks at Stony Brook after having ended my overseas research in Lima. For their academic support, I also wish to thank the Librarians of the Main Library and the academic staff of the Africana Department at Stony Brook University. I need to thank the TIAA-CREF Institute that granted me a ―TIAA Ruth Simms Hamilton Research Fellowship‖ (2005). This fellowship permitted me to undertake my dissertation research in Lima (Perú) between 2006 and 2007. In Lima, I also received the support of some institutions. I must thank the Instituto Riva-Agüero (Lima) that permitted me to make copies of old documents that I have used in this dissertation. I wish to thank Eduardo Morón, Felipe Portocarrero and Jorge Wiesse, professors of the Universidad del Pacífico, who allowed me to access the academic facilities of the Centro de Investigaciones de la Universidad del Pacífico, the Departmento de Humanidades, and the Libraries of the university during my research time. They gave me the opportunity to be a visiting scholar at the Centro de Investigaciones de la Universidad del Pacífico (Lima). I must thank Fred Rohner who shared with me in Lima between 2006 and 2008 important and unknown data about música criolla. He gave me his digitalized copies and his personal list of the Montes y Manrique duo‘s songs recorded in New York City in 1911 that has been useful for my own research. I must thank David Seubert from the University of California – Santa Barbara who gave me a provisional list of the 78 rpm Victor Talking Machine discs recorded in Lima in the end of the 1920‘s. This and other similar information is being processing to be part of the Internet web page called ―Encyclopedyc Discography of Victor Recordings‖ (EDVR). I also wish to thank all my classmates that helped me during this long academic journey that began in 2001. Sorry for not writing all their names, but I confess that I abandoned the idea after discovering what a long list it would be. However, without their support, it would have been difficult for me to survive academically and emotionally on Long Island. In this way, I also wish to thank my relatives who have lived at New York City for a long time: Carmen (―Pichuza‖), the late Margot, and Victor. With the advice of my aunts and uncle, my life in the New York area was easier than I expected. Last but not least, I must thank the generous people who academically and personally supported me when I began the process of applying to the graduate program at Stony Brook University in the beginning of the first decade of the twenty-first century: José de la Puente Brunke, José Agustín de la Puente Candamo, the late José Antonio del Busto Duthurburu, and Carlos Aguirre Ramírez. Sincerely, thank you so much to everyone. CHAPTER I Música Criolla: an Academic Dilemma 1 This dissertation is a historical analysis of a group of musical forms in twentieth- century Peru. They were practiced mainly by Peruvians who lived in its coastal areas. They were generically called música criolla by the Peruvian press. In this dissertation, the historical process by which these musical forms became national Peruvian icons in the first half of the twentieth century will be analyzed, with special focus on this process in Lima, the capital of Peru, during an era of intense urban transformation (1920 – 1960). The analysis centers on the three different cultural arenas – theater, music festivals and mass media networks – in which these musical forms were usually performed, and through which performers of música criolla gained popularity in Lima. I argue that the idea of the existence of a national music called música criolla (which combined mainly Spanish, African, and Andean musical influences) emerged in twentieth-century Lima due to an intense modernization process that transformed the urban landscape of the city (a process that began in the second half of the nineteenth century). Faced with this urban challenge, Limeño intellectuals asserted that the people of Lima could exhibit unique and time-honored artistic attitudes in their daily life. These intellectuals imagined these attitudes as being the authentic ―soul‖ of the city. They used the term criollismo to refer to them. During the early twentieth century, several Limeño writers claimed that a good example of criollismo was playing música criolla. By the 1950‘s, música criolla was fully accepted as the typical musical form of Lima, different not only from foreign musical experiences but also from the musical practices of the Andean immigrants who had been coming to Lima en masse since the 1940‘s. This dissertation contributes to the analysis of a little-known case, not only in the general academic field of the construction of modern cultural traditions, but also to the 2 historiography of twentieth-century urban Peru. At the end of the 1980‘s, Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger proposed a historical analysis of the construction (or ―invention‖) of cultural and political traditions.1 This proposal is pertinent to my own work in that based on Hobsbawm and Ranger‘s insights, I analyze the transformation of música criolla into a symbol of Peruvianness that was moreover claimed by several Limeño writers to be a symbol of the authentic ―character‖ of the city. This claim about urban authenticity was made at the same time that many of the old Limeño cultural practices were disappearing due to the process of modernization.