Cultural Nationalism and Ethnic Music in Latin America

Comprised of an introduction and 11 essays, this edited volume examines musical representations of national and ethnic identities in Latin America. Editor William Beezley introduces the text by promising to focus on “especially operatic compositions, some with indigenous themes, and the rise of national cultural identity in Latin America” (p. 1). Several of the essays, including two by Beezley, have this priority, yet seven authors make limited or no mention of opera, dealing instead with such diverse topics as Mexican radio, rock-influenced music in Cuba, tango and folk music in Argentina, Brazilian carnival, and music in Mexican film. Despite the slightly misleading framing, the individual essays contribute usefully to histories of music, operatic and otherwise, in Latin America.The volume brings together historians and musicologists, resulting in a variety of methodological approaches to Latin American music. Historians Sonia Robles and Jerry D. Metz Jr. analyze rich archival sources to show how different cultural brokers—radio businessmen, listeners, and government regulators in Mexico and municipal officials, carnival participants, and anthropologists in Brazil—negotiated and shaped musical practices. Historians William Beezley and Carolyne Ryan Larson helpfully synthesize secondary literature on complex musical developments in Guatemala and Argentina. Musicologists Robin Sacolick and Ketty Wong integrate close readings of musical scores in their respective essays on Salvadoran composer María de Baratta and the Ecuadorian opera Cumandá. A reprinted Guardian article by musicologist Jan Fairley recounts an interview with Cuban musician Silvio Rodríguez. Musicologist Janet Sturman and literary scholar Jennifer Jenkins analyze film scenes to discuss the role of music in Mexican cinema from the 1930s through 2006. Authors do not necessarily reflect on what different sources, methods, and approaches offer or how they can interact effectively, but their collective scholarship provides fertile ground for continued conversation about interdisciplinary approaches to musical cultures and listening practices of the past.Along with methodological provocations, the volume intervenes in discussions of nationalism, with the most interesting contributions coming from authors who question or challenge the construct. Robles, for instance, shows how the Mexican government did not use music to foster national unity in the 1920s and early 1930s, in contrast to nationalistic efforts in other art forms. Her essay disputes depictions of an overpowering nationalism that completely and immediately infused culture in postrevolutionary Mexico. Other authors convincingly show the significance of regional rather than national identities. Metz details how Recife and Salvador performers resisted a national formula based on “the hegemony of Rio carnival,” and Larson reveals the ongoing and generative tensions between Buenos Aires tango and northern folk music in Argentine canons (p. 182). Moving from the regional to the individual, Sacolick contends that the work of Salvadoran composer Baratta was “postnational,” irregularly aligning with and diverging from official ideas about the nation (p. 126). These essays suggest that nationalism ultimately fails to encapsulate the complexities of musical agendas and experiences.Along with nationalism, the volume focuses on “ethnic music,” a term that appears in the title but remains undefined. Based on content, here “ethnic music” assumedly means compositions inspired by indigenous cultures and written for nonindigenous audiences. As an example, Guatemalan composer Jesús Castillo created the opera Quiché Vinak, “based on Mayan folklore,” for elite audiences in Guatemala City in 1924 (p. 69). In cases like this, authors reveal what happened and when without analyzing how structural inequalities based on class, ethnic, and racial differences were inherent to and reproduced by these productions. In short, most essays dodge a more critical treatment of ethnicity and race, but exceptions do exist. Sacolick, for instance, considers not only ethnicity and class but also gender in her discussion of Salvadoran composer Baratta. Regardless, the musical outcomes mentioned in this volume will no doubt inspire future work along the lines of scholarship by Robin Moore, Marc Hertzman, Christina Abreu, and others, who have investigated music to understand race relations, ethnic identities, and Latin American social and cultural history more broadly.All in all, this volume does important work. First, it brings attention to understudied musical cultures of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Bolivia. Second, it makes some inroads in the study of opera. Third, it goes beyond the relatively exclusionary opera genre to discuss more popular expressions like Brazilian carnival, Argentine tango and folk music, Cuban nueva trova, and Mexican film music. Fourth, it is free of academic jargon and includes a reprinted primary source—a 1947 essay on “Afro-Cubanism” by Cuban writer and composer Alejo Carpentier—thereby offering a variety of essays appropriate for undergraduate syllabi on Latin American history and popular culture (p. 81). Fifth and finally, the volume undoubtedly provides points of reference for scholars analyzing music and cultural production more broadly in the countries represented: Mexico, Guatemala, Cuba, El Salvador, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia

Art · Art history · Call and response · Ethnomusicology · Folk music · Indigenous · Latin Americans · Literature · Music history · Musical · Musicology · Nationalism · Opera · Political science · Popular music · Sociology · Anthropology · Cuban History and Society · History · Law · Music History and Culture · Politics and Society in Latin America