University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2013 Music, Aesthetics, Peripherality: Notes on a Philosophy of History of Latin American Music (1910-1973) Stephan Hammel University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Latin American Languages and Societies Commons, Latin American Studies Commons, and the Music Commons Recommended Citation Hammel, Stephan, "Music, Aesthetics, Peripherality: Notes on a Philosophy of History of Latin American Music (1910-1973)" (2013). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 870. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/870 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/870 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Music, Aesthetics, Peripherality: Notes on a Philosophy of History of Latin American Music (1910-1973) Abstract This dissertation is a theoretical treatment of the history of Latin American music in the twentieth century. It's central claim is twofold. First, the progressive development of a Latin American music was made possible and meaningful by the region's economic, political and cultural peripherality vis-à -vis the (neo-)colonial metropole: Western Europe and the United States. That peripherality was manifest as an attempt to find in Latin American particularity the grounds for universal significance. Reading this attempt in Kantian terms of conceptual determination, it appears as an aesthetics. Given the failure of imported concepts to adequately schematize the stuff of Latin American experience, that which was native to the region could only be determined reflectively in light of sense-data alone. Throughout the last century, musical compositions, genres, and practices sought to complete that process of determination, or else transcend it altogether. The second part of my claim is that those musical responses to the aesthetic problem of Latin American peripherality were ultimately consumed by the very duality of universality and particularity they sought to overcome. They share an aporetic structure proper to the eruption of geographical difference onto the historical plane. The dissertation revolves around three case studies. The first focuses on the composer Carlos Chavez, making perspicuous the stakes of his stylistic development in light of the peasant revolution of 1910. The second traces the intellectual history of the musical gauchesca, understanding this genre as turning on the contradictions of Argentine modernity in its identification with song and Nature as such. Finally, the last case study takes up Chilean Nueva Canción as it appeared in the years before the 1973 military coup. It represented a musical movement that sought out a place for aesthetics in the context of a socialist revolution. These three cases form a counterpoint to a philosophical discourse on the history of Latin America - one that demonstrates the shape and import of an idealist musicology. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Music First Advisor Jairo Moreno Subject Categories Latin American Languages and Societies | Latin American Studies | Music This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/870 MUSIC, AESTHETICS, PERIPHERALITY: NOTES ON A PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY OF LATIN AMERICAN MUSIC (1910-1973) Stephan Hammel A DISSERTATION in Music Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2013 ___________________________ Supervisor of Dissertation, Dr. Jairo Moreno, Professor of Music ___________________________ Graduate Group Chairperson, Dr. Jairo Moreno, Professor of Music Dissertation Committee: Dr. Pablo Fessel, Professor of Music, Universidad de Buenos Aires Dr. Román de la Campa, Edwin B. and Lenore R. Williams Professor of Romance Languages!1 MUSIC, AESTHETICS, PERIPHERALITY: NOTES ON A PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY OF LATIN AMERICAN MUSIC (1910-1973) COPYRIGHT 2013 Stephan Hammel ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Neither this unorthodox dissertation nor the chapter of my intellectual adventure it culminates would have been remotely possible without the care, deep wisdom and sheer energy of my friend and advisor Jairo Moreno. His guidance, which led me always toward myself, was invaluable. The development of this project was shaped by countless stimulating and challenging conversations with colleagues, so thanks must go to Delia Casadei, Daniel Villegas, Benjamin Laude, Bryan Parkhurst, Roger Grant and Jarek Ervin. All have much more to teach me. Lastly, I must express utter gratitude to my family. They have never once doubted my eventual success, even when faced with ample cause. Whatever is good in me was handed down. !iii ABSTRACT MUSIC, AESTHETICS , PERIPHERALITY: NOTES ON A PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY OF LATIN AMERICA M USIC (1910-1973) Stephan Hammel Dr. Jairo Moreno This dissertation is a theoretical treatment of the history of Latin American music in the twentieth century. It’s central claim is twofold. First, the progressive development of a Latin American music was made possible and meaningful by the region’s economic, political and cultural peripherality vis-à-vis the (neo-)colonial metropole: Western Europe and the United States. That peripherality was manifest as an attempt to find in Latin American particularity the grounds for universal significance. Reading this attempt in Kantian terms of conceptual determination, it appears as an aesthetics. Given the failure of imported concepts to adequately schematize the stuff of Latin American experience, that which was native to the region could only be determined reflectively in light of sense-data alone. Throughout the last century, musical compositions, genres, and practices sought to complete that process of determination, or else transcend it altogether. The second part of my claim is that those musical responses to the aesthetic problem of Latin American peripherality were ultimately consumed by the very duality of universality and particularity !iv they sought to overcome. They share an aporetic structure proper to the eruption of geographical difference onto the historical plane. The dissertation revolves around three case studies. The first focuses on the composer Carlos Chavez, making perspicuous the stakes of his stylistic development in light of the peasant revolution of 1910. The second traces the intellectual history of the musical gauchesca, understanding this genre as turning on the contradictions of Argentine modernity in its identification with song and Nature as such. Finally, the last case study takes up Chilean Nueva Canción as it appeared in the years before the 1973 military coup. It represented a musical movement that sought out a place for aesthetics in the context of a socialist revolution. These three cases form a counterpoint to a philosophical discourse on the history of Latin America - one that demonstrates the shape and import of an idealist musicology. !v TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract iv Chapter One: The Philosophy of Latin American Music 1 Chapter Two: Carlos Chavez and the Revolutionary Neoclassical 49 Chapter Three: The Metaphysics of Gaucho Song 96 Chapter Four: Arte comprotetido and the End(s) of Art in La Nueva 121 Canción Chilena Epilogue 166 Bibliography 170 !vi CHAPTER ONE: THE PHILOSOPHY OF LATIN AMERICAN MUSIC In a 1977 essay called “América Latina en la confluencia de coordenadas históricas y su repercusión en la música,” the Cuban novelist, music critic and intellectual, Alejo Carpentier, argues that the history of music of Europe differs from that of Latin America. While the former follows a traceable line of development from the beginning of musical notation in the ninth century to the avant gardes of the twentieth, Latin American musical development was non- linear, disjunct. European music history, he claims, enjoys such clarity and coherence that even those composers whose more recent gestures to break convention in favor of thoroughly modern sonorous expression could not help but make explicit reference to history. Here Carpentier has in mind Schoenberg and Stravinsky, the twin pillars of twentieth century composition, who both seek some kind of historical precedent for their innovations. Schoenberg, for example, overtly places himself in a culminating position with respect to the arc of central European musical development which has led to his systematic critique of harmony with what the Cuban critic calls historical ‘necessity.’ By contrast, the Latin American composer cannot tie himself to any such narrative. “Cuando nos enfrentamos con la música latinoamericana, en cambio, nos encontramos con que ésta no se desarrolla en función de los mismos valores y hechos culturales, obedeciendo a fenómenos, aportaciones, impulsos, debidos a factores de crecimiento, pulsiones anímicas, estratos raciales, injertos y trasplantes, que resultan insólitos para quien pretenda aplicar determinados métodos al análisis !1 de un arte regido por un constante rejuego de confrontaciones entre lo propio y lo ajeno, lo autóctono y lo importado.”1 The claim is that the relationship of European culture to that of the former colonies in America is not merely one of contrasting histories, but of opposed - perhaps even complimentary - historicities. The content of past musical events, the relevant figures, technical processes and stylistic!2 tendencies, are no doubt