(RE)SOUNDING CITIES: URBAN MODERNIZATION, LISTENING, AND SOUNDING CULTURES IN COLOMBIA, 1886–1930 by Juan Fernando Velasquez Ospina BA in Music, Universidad Eafit, 2005 MA in Music, Universidad Eafit, 2011 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2018 i UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS & SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Juan Fernando Velasquez Ospina It was defended on April 12, 2018 and approved by Dr. Olivia Bloechl, Professor, Department of Music. MA. James P. Cassaro, Professor, Department of Music. Dr. George Reid Andrews, Distinguished Professor, Department of History. Dr. Gavin Steingo, Professor, Department of Music, Princeton University Dissertation Director: Dr. Deane L. Root, Chair, Department of Music ii Copyright © by Juan Fernando Velásquez Ospina 2018 iii (RE)SOUNDING CITIES: URBAN MODERNIZATION, LISTENING, AND SOUNDING CULTURES IN COLOMBIA, 1886–1930 Juan Fernando Velasquez, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2018 Urban contexts have attracted increasing attention in Ethnomusicology, the History of Science, Cultural and Urban Studies, and sound studies. However, and despite some recent studies focused on the experiences of sound and space in the Global South, the study of urban aural transformation is still restricted to North American and Western European cities. This dissertation contributes to those studies from musicological, sociological, and historical perspectives, studying the processes driving the transformation of the listening and sounding cultures in Colombian cities between 1886 and 1930, a period of early modernization of the country. Through the analysis of documentary sources including the press, maps, musical scores, travelogues, and legislation, this dissertation studies the Colombian postcolonial city as a case that illustrates relevant characteristics and contradictions within postcolonial soundscapes and urban modernization processes, revealing that multiple, contradicting, and changing understandings of sounding and listening were a significant part of the experience of urban modernization that shaped postcolonial cities. The five chapters of this dissertation explore urban modernization and the transformations of cultures of listening and sounding in seven Colombian cities. By analyzing the semiprivate spaces of salons and ballrooms (chapter 2), the public spaces of squares and parks (chapter 3), the role of musical education and the reconfiguration of musical labor (chapter 4), and the changes introduced by the first forms of mechanical reproduction of music (chapter 5), this dissertation reveals that, while the elites and governmental institutions promoted listening and sounding as a means for establishing social order, the citizens’ experiences of urban spaces and technologies iv diverged from this instrumental use of sound in ways that transformed sounding and listening into means for contesting the disciplinary logic of the “modern urban space.” Thus, the Colombian case calls into question assumptions about urban modernization as a uniform linear process in which the adoption of technologies tends to create a unique ontology of sound, supported by the logic of technological advance and increased productivity v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................... XII 1.0 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 THE URBAN SOUNDSCAPE AS CULTURALLY EMBEDDED PRACTICES OF LISTENING ........................................................................................... 3 1.2 COLOMBIAN CITIES AS POSCOLONIAL URBAN SOUNDSCAPES ..... 9 1.3 STRUCTURE OF THIS DISSERTATION .................................................... 15 2.0 SALONS AND BALLROOMS: GENDER ROLES, INTERACTION AMONG PEERS, AND COSMOPOLITISM ........................................................................................... 23 2.1 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: GENDERING PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SPACES 27 2.2 BINDER’S VOLUMES: CIRCULATION OF TASTES AND REPERTORIES ................................................................................................................. 41 2.3 INK ON PAPER: MUSIC PUBLISHING AND CONSUMPTION OF SHEET MUSIC 58 2.4 CREATING DISTINCTION: SOCIAL CLASS, COSMOPOLITISM, AND WHITENESS ...................................................................................................................... 80 2.5 THE PASILLO: CREATING A NEW SYMBOLIC GEOGRAPHY OF SOUND 96 3.0 FROM THE PLAZA TO THE PARQUE: URBAN PUBLIC SPACES, DISCIPLINING, AND CULTURES OF LISTENINGAND SOUND PRODUCTION ..... 103 3.1 THE PARKS: URBAN GARDENS AND SHELTERS ............................... 105 3.2 FROM THE CHIRIMÍA TO THE BANDA: A MODERN SOUND FOR A MODERN PLACE ........................................................................................................... 118 vi 3.3 RETRETAS: MUSIC, LISTENING, AND PUBLIC SPACES ................... 141 4.0 MUSICIANS AND MUSICIANSHIP: INSTITUTIONALIZATION, PROFESSIONALIZATION, AND TRANSCULTURATION ............................................. 152 4.1 PHILHARMONIC SOCIETIES: KEY INSTITUTIONS IN THE PROMOTION OF PRESENTATIONAL PERFORMANCE ..................................... 154 4.2 PROFESSIONAL AND DILETTANTE MUSICIANS: INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF MUSICAL EDUCATION ....................................... 169 4.3 MUSICIANS, DILETTANTI, AND “MÚSICOS TODEROS”: THE MUSICIAN AS TRANSCULTURATOR ...................................................................... 195 5.0 MUSIC, NOISE, AND SPACE: MECHANICAL REPRODUCTION OF MUSIC AND LISTENING ..................................................................................................................... 212 5.1 LISTENING TO THE “BOISTEROUS CITY” ........................................... 216 5.2 TRADERS AND AGENTS: OLD TRADING NETWORKS FOR A NEW MARKET DURING THE “RESPLICE POLUM” ERA. ............................................ 226 5.3 MECHANICAL REPRODUCTION OF SOUND AND THE CIVILIZING PROJECT: THE “DEMOCRATIZATION OF LISTENING” ................................... 258 5.4 DREAMS OF A CLEAN CITY: NOISE, SOCIAL CONTROL, AND FEARS OF CONTESTED SPACES............................................................................................. 275 6.0 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................... 290 APPENDIX A ............................................................................................................................ 293 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 296 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Echeverría binder’s volume content. ............................................................................................ 48 Table 2. Printers of music in Colombia between 1860 and 1932. .............................................................. 63 Table 3. Pasillos published in La Lira Antioqueña, 1886. ......................................................................... 98 Table 4. Instrumentation of late nineteenth-century Colombian and European bands. ........................... 123 Table 5. Instrumentation of Colombian, French, and Belgium bands between 1897 and 1919. .............. 133 Table 6. Repertoire performed in concerts in Colombia, 1848–1854. ..................................................... 166 Table 7. Textbooks and methods adopted by the Academia Nacional de Música, 1887. ......................... 189 Table 8. Main Colombian agents of American companies between 1914 and 1929. ............................... 237 Table 9. Piano rolls produced by Gabriel Vieco preserved in Colombian archives. ............................... 247 Table 10. Piano rolls in Manrique’s collection. ....................................................................................... 251 Table 11. Humoristic sketches, humoristic songs, poetry, and historical sketches recorded during the Victor expedition in Colombia, 1913. .................................................................................................. 263 Table 12. List of Colombiam archives and primary sources. ................................................................... 293 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Entierro de un niño en el Valle de Tenza (detail), Ramón Torres Méndez, ca.1860. .................. 37 Figure 2. El Gemido, pasillo by Santos Quijano, ca. 1860. ........................................................................ 40 Figure 3. La Melancolía, andante religioso by Jesús María Suárez (detail), [n.d.]. ................................... 45 Figure 4. Two pieces from the Echeverría binder’s volume (details), AR786.2D683. ............................... 46 Figure 5. Percentages of the main musical genres in the Echeverría binder’s volume. ............................. 56 Figure 6. Newspaper advertisements of Carlos Molina’s bookstore, 1893. ............................................... 59 Figure 7. Cover of Preciosa and stamp of Pedro Pablo Calvo, [n.d.]. ....................................................... 60 Figure 8. Gonzalo Vidal’s advertisement, Directorio de Medellín, 1909. .................................................. 61 Figure 9. Typographers active in the main Colombian cities by 1935. .....................................................