ABSTRACT Title of Document: SINGING BOUNDARIES: TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF VOCALITY AND THE PERFORMANCE OF IDENTITIES IN THE CAT VALECIÀ D’ESTIL Carles A. Pitarch Alfonso, Doctor of Philosophy, 2011 Directed By: Professor Robert C. Provine Division of Musicology and Ethnomusicology School of Music, University of Maryland, College Park The cant valencià or cant valencià d’estil of Valencia is one of the four main living monodic expressive song traditions of Spain. Comprised of non-metric cant d’estil and metric albaes songs mostly used in street serenades, it features a distinctive vocality characterized by a highly-projected, clear, inflected, and flexible voice as well as two melodic styles, of which the more ornamented cant requintat developed at the turn of the twentieth century. I take a historical, theoretical, and ethnographic approach to this Valencian vocal genre and explore the ways in which vocality can help us to understand it better. After examining the origins of the cant valencià and the antiquarian, journalistic, folkloristic, and (ethno)musicological approaches to it, I probe the notion of vocality in a transdisciplinary way: drawing on ethnomusicological theory, anthropology, folklore, semiotics, and other disciplines I show its significance for the development of a musical anthropology of the voice productively based on the ethnographic exploration of the iconicity of style and of two sets of central vocal issues: on the one hand, identity, gender, authority, and sonic histories and geographies; on the other, acoustemology, interpellation, and transcendence. Vocality not only expands usefully the scope of vocal or singing style by encompassing larger bodily-dependent traits of the human voice as central or salient means of aesthetic and ethical production of meanings, but also acknowledges its pre- eminent position in the hierarchy of musical values, since the material/textural qualities of (vocal) sounds iconically shape our first sonorous perceptions and identifications and are thus paramount for communication. I make a first approach to vocality and the performance of collective identities in the cant valencià by showing that its modern stylistic development is linked to two diachronic frameworks: the moments of modern radical situational change in Europe and the construction of Spanish national identity. I also explore how issues of interpellation and transcendence bear on the formation of personal identities of the cantadors d’estil , the specialized cant valencià singers. I show that an emically- informed, etic approach to vocality can afford an understanding of how people can create their own history and affirm their own collective or personal identities in response to larger social processes. SINGING BOUNDARIES: TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF VOCALITY AND THE PERFORMANCE OF IDENTITIES IN THE CAT VALECIÀ D’ESTIL By Carles A. Pitarch Alfonso Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2011 Advisory Committee: Professor Robert C. Provine, Chair Professor William T. Stuart, Graduate School Dean’s Representative Professor Emeritus Ramón A. Pelinski Professor Elizabeth D. Tolbert Professor J. Lawrence Witzleben © Copyright by Carles A. Pitarch Alfonso 2011 Preface “For the cultural critic must attempt to fully realize, and take responsibility for, the unspoken, unrepresented pasts that haunt our historical present.” (Homi Bhabha 1994, 12) “From the grossest of noises to the most delicate of singing, the voice always means something, always refers beyond itself and creates a huge range of associations: cultural, musical, emotive, physiological, or drawn from everyday life.” (Luciano Berio 1985, 94) My effort to understand and realize the unspoken, unrepresented past of the cant valencià tradition began about twenty years ago in Valencia, Spain, and developed concurrently with my striving to comprehend what ethnomusicology is and what its methodologies are. Happily, my pursuits led me in 1997 to outline and publish the first historical and conceptual synthesis of this monodic expressive song tradition (Pitarch Alfonso 1997a, b) and to undertake formal studies in ethnomusicology at graduate level with Professor Ramón Pelinski (Emeritus, University of Montreal, Canada). For the first time in Spain, he was offering, at the University of Valencia, a Graduate Diploma of Professional Specialization in Ethnomusicology, which to my great advantage I attended for its three years, along with students from all over the country. Why was I so attracted by the cant valencià and its vocal renditions? My previous background in philology, in linguistics, and particularly in Italian language teaching had offered me an opportunity to come into contact with Italian ii ethnomusicology and also to discover a certain book at the private library of my good friend and accomplished pianist Piero Marconi, Professor at the Conservatory of Music of Fermo, Italy. It was this book, Corrado Bologna’s Flatus vocis: Metafisica e antropologia della voce (1992), that made me realize where my fascination with the cant valencià came from: I was moved, just as Bologna was, by the “materiality” or phonic style of the human voice, which can immediately evoke an existential or cultural style. It was this “materiality” which Paul Zumthor, in his preface to Bologna’s book, had termed vocality . I could only delve further into understanding the workings of vocality, the existentially and culturally-conditioned “materiality” or bodily dimensions of the voice through my doctoral studies in ethnomusicology at the University of Maryland, College Park, particularly during my preparation for the comprehensive examinations—my first concentration being on “Vocality and anthropology of the voice in the Mediterranean area” (Pitarch Alfonso 2005a)—and during my theoretical and ethnographical research for writing this dissertation (2007-2008). At the University of Maryland, between 2002 and 2006, I had the opportunity to work with Professor Carolina Robertson, who both inspired me and supported my theoretical research in different ways. I must acknowledge that she was my first dissertation supervisor until her retirement in the Spring term of 2006. I am indebted to her not only for all this, but also for having introduced me to Professor Elizabeth Tolbert (Department of Musicology, Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore), whose research on vocality was so useful to me during my iii theoretical research on this notion. I am extremely grateful to Professor Tolbert for having agreed to serve on my dissertation committee and for her constant availability. In addition, I must thank Professor Robert Provine for having agreed to become my new official dissertation supervisor in 2006, even though it was Professor Ramón Pelinski who generously and voluntarily took on the actual responsibilities of this role, being the one who in fact stimulated my research. I am deeply indebted to him for hours of conversation which challenged me to bring my ideas to fruition and for having read through my chapters providing overall commentaries which helped me make significant improvements. Likewise, I must thank Professor William Stuart (Department of Anthropology at the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park) for all his support, availability, and interest in my research over time, since I first had the opportunity to study “Current Developments in Anthropology” with him in 2003. Last but not least, I must thank Professor J. Lawrence Witzleben (Chair of the Musicology and Ethnomusicology Division, School of Music, University of Maryland, College Park, since 2007), for having agreed to serve on my dissertation committee and for having provided useful and stimulating commentaries which helped me improve the coherence this text. Since my research to a considerable extent has been of a historical and theoretical nature and draws on both American and European scholarship, many descriptive and theoretical texts quoted at length or in short passages are originally in one of several languages. All of the Valencian, Spanish, French, or Italian citations in this dissertation are given in my own English translations, unless otherwise specified in footnotes. iv Finally, an observation on cited materials from Spanish published sources. Both Spain and the U.S. are contracting parties of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works and of the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty , which establishes that the “Contracting Parties may, in their national legislation, provide for limitations of or exceptions to the rights granted to authors of literary and artistic works under this Treaty in certain special cases that do not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work and do not unreasonably harm the legitimate interests of the author.” Thus, several illustrations from Spanish published works included as figures in this dissertation are used here in compliance with the Spanish Law 23/2006, of July 7, by which the adapted text of the Law of Intellectual Property approved by Royal Legislative Decree 1/1996, of April 12, is amended. Its Article 32 “Quotes and Reviews” establishes that “[i]t is lawful to include in one’s own work fragments of others, whether of written, sonorous, or audiovisual nature, as well as to include isolated works of artistic,