A Program of Mexican Music 

Sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art

Music of Mexico
The Symphony Orchestra of Mexico
 Coro del Conservatorio
conducted by Carlos Chávez

1. Sones Mariachi - Jalisco 

    arranged by Blas Galindo for Orchestra 

2. La Paloma Azul (traditional)

    arranged by Carlos Chávez for Orchestra and Chorus

3. Carlos Chávez: Xochipili-Macuilxochitl

    Music for Pre-Conquest Instruments

4. Carlos Chávez: Danza a Centeotl from "Los Cuatro Soles"

    for Chorus and Orchestra

5. Yaqui Music - Sonora (traditional)

    arranged by Luis Sandi for Orchestra

6. Huapango - Vera Cruz

    arranged by Gerónimo Baqueiro Fóster

Carlos Chávez conducting an orchestra of American and Mexican musicians and the chorus of the National Music League.

(78 rpm transfer; Columbia, 1941)

Carlos Chávez in rehearsal at MOMA (1940)

THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

11 WEST 53RD STREET, NEW YORK

TELEPHONE: CIRCLE 5-8900

From: Herbert Barrett 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Columbus 5-4640

5/7/40

Re: Mexican Music Program

AZTEC, YAQUI, INDIAN, FOLK BALLAD AND MODERN MEXICAN

MUSIC IN CARLOS CHAVEZ ORCHESTRAL PROGRAM FOR

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

The program of Mexican music, arranged by Carlos Chavez,

Mexico's foremost composer and conductor, will be inaugurated Thursday

evening, May 16, in the auditorium of the Museum of Modern Art. For

the first time the Museum directly sponsors a musical program, which,

in combination with the exhibition of Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art,

presents a comprehensive view of Mexico's great cultural tradition.

The program is divided into nine major groups, each representing

an important period in Mexican history, and ranges from a

special arrangement of music for Aztec instruments of the 16th century

to the popular Huapangos, the gay love songs of the Mariachi, the

popular Corridos Mexicanos and the traditional Yaqui music. Listed

for first performance is an 18th century Mass by Don Jose Aldana, discovered

in April of this year in the archives of the National Conservatory

of Music in Mexico City.

An orchestra and chorus especially assembled for the series

has been formed by Mr. Chavez. The first three evening concerts,

May 16, 17 and 18, will be conducted by Mr. Chavez, and the series will

continue for two weeks with two performances daily, at 3:30 p.m. and

8:45 p.m., including Sunday.

In his task of selection and synthesis of the music, Mr.

Chavez enlisted the services of Mexico's most eminent composers,

musicologists and specialists. They included Eduardo Hernandez

Moncada, composer and conductor, who will assume direction of the

Orchestra following Mr. Chavez's appearances; Bias Oalindo, fullblooded

Indian composer from the state of Jalisco; Vicente Mendoza, a

distinguished authority on Mexican folk music; Candelarlo Huizar,

Professor at the National Conservatory of Music; Luis Sandi, Chief

Of the Department of Music in the Secretariat of Public Education; and

-2-

Jeronimo Baqueiro, musicologist and critic, who has made an extensive

study of huapangos from the state of Vera Cruz.

The first composition of the program is called "Xochlpili-

Macuilxochll," and was written by Carlos Chavez in an attempt to recapture

the Aztec musical culture known through actual discovery of

instruments and through the Florentine codices. The orchestral

ensemble will include the sea-snail shells; the teponaxtle, a

cylindrical piece of wood hollowed out to produce a sound box; the

huehuotles, great Indian drums; the omichica-huaztlis, wooden and bone

rasps; a score of other percussion instruments like rattles, rasping

sticks and drums of various sizes; and finally flutes of which there

are many examples in the National Museum of Mexico.

"I sought in this composition," said Mr. Chavez, "to penetrate

the totality of Indian culture. It is, of course, an experiment.

But the Aztec musical tradition was strong, complete and deeply rooted

and even today the pure Indigenous music is still sung in various

remote places in Mexico. In great religious processions we may still

hear Indians playing the 'huehuetle,' the 'Teponaxtle' and their little flutes.

"But I should say that the Indian music which best preserves

its purity in Mexico is not what remains of Aztec culture, but that

of the more or less primitive or nomad tribes like the Yaquis and the

Seris. They have preserved an almost archaic culture."

Luis Sandi, who has arranged the Yaqui music group, has tried

to keep as close to the original as possible." The music is vigorous

and dramatic and the orchestras have an astonishing variety of percussion

instruments, including drums, water drums, rasps, bunches of

dried butterfly cocoons, called "capullos de mariposa." In Yaqui

music the melody is carried by a flute and each percussion instrument

keeps up a distinct rhythm which changes from measure to measure.

In like fashion, many of tha traditional Pre-Conquest hymns

still prevail and Mr. Chavez used one of them in the final dance of

his ballet, "Los Cuatro Soles," a ritual dance of adoration to Centeotl, 

Goddess of Maize. This ballet, written in 1925, represented a turning 

back to Mexican legend and art as a source of musical inspiration.

Two of its dances make up the final group of the Museum program.

But the Conquistador did bring into Mexico a real wealth of new music, new 

                                                  instruments, new melodies, new forms.

-3-

"This torrent of music," continued Mr. Chavez, "began little

by little to usurp the place of the aboriginal music and it necessarily

forms an important part of our program. In the first place there

is the religious music, which follows the same course in Mexico as in

other parts of the world. The 18th century Mass by Aldana, which we

shall play, is a fine example of religious music of the late Colonial

period, and the composer was undoubtedly familiar with the styles of

Handel, Haydn and Mozart, although not in any sense imitative." The

Mass was edited and arranged for the Museum program by Candelario

Huizar.

Also introduced by the Spaniards was popular peasant music,

such as "Jarabe," Huapango and many others. The program will Include

"La Paloma Azul," typical of the genre of peasant sentimental song,

very much influenced by the Italian aria and romanaza. Italian opera

was widely cultivated in Mexico during the 18th and 19th centuries,

but the Mexican songs retained, however, a very special flavor of their 

own.

Finally, there is a group devoted to the Mexican Corrido, in

many remote parts of Mexico the equivalent of newspaper, magazine,

radio and newsreel. The Corrido singer is a modern troubadour, whose

songs deal with crimes, natural catastrophes, railroad wrecks, wars

and even the international monetary crisis. Frequently as part of

their performance, brightly colored handbills containing the words

and primitive illustrations of the events narrated are sold for a few

centavos to the audience who read them as the singer proceeds.

Corridos are quite common among the Mexicans in California, Arizona,

New Mexico and Texas. Included in one group of marches, waltzes and

songs, selected by Mr. Chavez, as typical popular music of the Mexican

Republic is the famous Corrido "La Adelita," an anonymous ballad of

the 1910 Revolution.

Tickets for the concerts, for either afternoon or evening

performances, are one dollar, which includes admission to the exhibition

of Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art. Tickets for the first three

evening concerts, conducted by Mr. Chavez, are priced at $3.00 each.

Reservations may be made at the Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53

Street, New York City.

-4-

MEXICAN MUSIC PROGRAM

Arranged and Directed by Carlos Chavez

Auditorium of the Museum of Modern Art

Conductors: Carlos Chavez - First Three Evening Concerts,

May 16, 17, 18 at 8:45 P.M.

Eduardo Hernandez Moncada ~ Friday and Saturday

afternoons, May 17 and 18 at 2:30 P.M. and

2 performances daily, 2:30 P.M. and 8:45 P.M.

from May 19 through May 29, including Sunday.

I. Xochiplll-Macullxochil Carlos Chavez

Music for Pre-Conquest Instruments (16th Century)

II. Rones Mariachi arranged by Bias Galindo

For Orchestra (18th and 19th Centuries)

III. Corrldos Mexicanos arranged by Vicente Mendoza

For Orchestra and Chorus (18th, 19th and 20th Centuries)

IV. Mass by Don Jose Aldana arranged by Candelario Huizar

For Orchestra, Organ and Chorus (18th Century)

V.Marcha, Vals, Canclon arranged by Carlos Chavez

For Orchestra and Chorus (19th Century)

VI. Huapangos arranged by Geronimo Baqueiro

For Orchestra (19th and 20th Centuries)

VII. La Paloma Azul arranged by Carlos Chavez

For Orchestra and Chorus (19th and 20th Centuries)

VIII. Yaqui Music arranged by Luis Sandi

For Orchestra (Traditional)

IX. Two Dances from "Los Cuatro Soles" Carlos Chavez

1. Carlos Chávez: Sinfonía India

2. José Pablo Moncayo: Huapango

3. Carlos Chávez: Corrido de "El Sol"
     for Chorus and Orchestra

4. Carlos Chávez: Obertura Republicana

The Symphony Orchestra of Mexico
Coro del Conservatorio / Carlos Chávez

(LP transfer; Decca, 1956)

Aaron Copland has written concerning the accomplishments of Carlos Chávez and importance of his music:

"Carlos Chávez is one of the best examples I know of a thoroughly contemporary composer. He has faced in his music almost all the major problems of modern music: the overthrow of German ideals, the objectification of sentiment, the use of folk material in its relation to nationalism, the intricate rhythms, the linear as opposed to vertical writing, the specifically 'modern' sound images. It is music that belongs entirely to our own age. It propounds no problems, no metaphysics. Chávez's muisic is extraordinarily healthy. It is music created not as a substitute for living but as a manifestation of life. It is clear and clean-sounding, without shadows or softness. Here is contemporary music if there ever was any.... 

... with keen intuition, singlehandedly, [Chávez] created a tradition that no future Mexican composer can afford to ignore. If I stress this point, it is because I feel that no other composer - not even Béla Bartók or de Falla - has succeeded so well in using folk material in its pure form while at the same time solving the problem of its complete amalgamation into an art form."

For the first performance his "Obertura Republicana" (1935) Carlos Chávez has supplied the following note: 

"I do not see why our audiences should be deprived of the beautiful melodies that I have combined into my 'Republican Overture.' I don't know how our Republican music is not 'highbrow' enough for symphonic treatment when this is not true of minuets or colonial masses. I am certain that our orchestra complies with an unfulfilled duty when it brings to our symphony audiences this, our own music, which is so legitimate, so loyal to itself and its cradle ... Nobody will doubt, on hearing these delightful melodies, Mexico's very own, that they belong to an epoch and to a place. Here is the 'National' music, the Mexican music, from the nineteenth century. 

Do not think that in presenting this composition under the name of 'Overture' that I assume to give the word its formalistic meaning. I have selected this title because the word itself sounds well." 

___________________________________

Biography of Carlos Chávez (Spanish, English & French):

http://craton.chez.com/musique/chavez/espanol.htm


_________________________________________________________________________________

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