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The Latin American Art Song

Sounds of the Imagined Nations

Patricia Caicedo - Foreword by Walter Aaron Clark

Taking as a thread the concept of national identity, this book elucidates the sound transformations that have taken place in the world of the Latin American art song since its appearance in the late nineteenth century to the present day. The book focuses in the art songs of Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Perú, and Colombia. The book addresses the subject of performance practice of the Latin American song and ends with a proposal for its interpretation.

In songs, spaces of representation and cathartic tools thought, language and music have been at the service of some interests, fulfilling specific functions in the construction of the nation. In them, we observe that the construction of identity is a continuous, constant and changing process in which different stories are superimposed. Seen this way, songs are historical texts where social interactions are reflected, and the past, the present and the future are constantly negotiated.

The book also addresses the subject of performance practice of the Latin American song and ends with a proposal for its interpretation.

Lexington Books

Pages: 188 • Trim: 6 x 9½

978-1-4985-8162-2 • Hardback • December 2018 • $117.00 • (£90.00)

978-1-4985-8164-6 • Paperback • August 2020 • $47.99 • (£37.00)

978-1-4985-8163-9 • eBook • December 2018 • $45.50 • (£35.00)

Subjects: Music / EthnoMusicology, Music / Ethnic, Music / Genres & Styles / Latin, Social Science / World / Latin America, Music / Instruction & Study / Composition

The Latin American Art Song

Sounds of the Imagined Nations

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Taking as a thread the concept of national identity, this book elucidates the sound transformations that have taken place in the world of the Latin American art song since its appearance in the late nineteenth century to the present day. The book focuses in the art songs of Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Perú, and Colombia. The book addresses the subject of performance practice of the Latin American song and ends with a proposal for its interpretation.

In songs, spaces of representation and cathartic tools thought, language and music have been at the service of some interests, fulfilling specific functions in the construction of the nation. In them, we observe that the construction of identity is a continuous, constant and changing process in which different stories are superimposed. Seen this way, songs are historical texts where social interactions are reflected, and the past, the present and the future are constantly negotiated.

The book also addresses the subject of performance practice of the Latin American song and ends with a proposal for its interpretation.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 188 • Trim: 6 x 9½

978-1-4985-8162-2 • Hardback • December 2018 • $117.00 • (£90.00)

978-1-4985-8164-6 • Paperback • August 2020 • $47.99 • (£37.00)

978-1-4985-8163-9 • eBook • December 2018 • $45.50 • (£35.00)

Subjects: Music / EthnoMusicology, Music / Ethnic, Music / Genres & Styles / Latin, Social Science / World / Latin America, Music / Instruction & Study / Composition

Author

Patricia Caicedo is a Colombian-Spanish soprano. She holds a PhD in musicology from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and a MD from the Escuela Colombiana de Medicina. Patricia is the founder and director of the Barcelona Festival of Song, a summer program dedicated to the study of the history and interpretation of the Iberian and Latin American art song repertoire.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Walter Clark

Prelude

Introduction

Chapter 1: The sounds of the imagined nations

Towards a broader definition of nationalism

Latin America: multiple identities

Musical nationalism in Latin America

Latin American National Anthems: Towards a national identity?

Salon music and the influence of Italian opera

The construction of the national sound begins

Creolism

Alberto Nepomuceno: Song in Portuguese

Developing the National Style

Alberto Williams and the stylization of folk song

The double verbal-musical nature of song: Latin American composers setting Latin American poems to music

Chapter 2: A creative storm

Art song as a medium of expression of modernist nationalism

Argentina

Brazil

Cuba

Perú

Venezuela

Chapter 3: New facets of the concept of nationalism in the 20th century

Art song since 1940

Alberto Ginastera: from a national style to a national atmosphere

Carlos Guastavino: the voice of tradition

Jaime León: a Pan-American voice

The Nueva Canción Latinoamericana movement and its relation to art song

Chapter 4: Towards a musical transnationalism or the dissolution of borders.

Transnationalism: multiple places or the non-place

A transnational composer: Moisès Bertran (Catalunya, 1967)

Transnationalism, cosmopolitanism, multi-locality, neo-nationalism?

Chapter 5: Performance practice of Latin American Art Song

The concept of performance practice

Performance: a space of communication between performers and audience

The performance of art song: an integrative space

Art song and its performance

Folk song and its performance

Popular song and its performance

Looking for the borders between Art song and Folk song: Following the steps of Marcel Duchamp

Pierre Bourdieu and the concepts of field and habitus applied to the study of song

Meaning-producing agents in the world of song

Meaning-producing agents in the sub-field of art song

Performance context of art song

Meaning-producing agents in the sub-field of folk song

Performance context of folk song

Meaning-producing agents in the sub-field of popular song

Performance context of popular song

The dual status of folk and art song: Marcel Duchamp and the “ready-mades”

Song: an elastic, flexible and integrating space

Proposals for a new performance practice of Latin American art song

Discography

Bibliography

Reviews

This volume is an enticing introduction to Latin American song that encourages readers to rethink the concept of nationalism in an increasing transnational world. It is highly recommended.

— Journal of Singing

Brava to Dr. Caicedo! Her efforts to bring Latin American Art Song to voice studios, recitals, and performance venues are applauded. The Latin American Art Song: Sounds of the Imagined Nations allows teachers, singers, and aficionados of song to truly imagine a more inclusive world in which repertoire from Latin America is celebrated and cherished. Dr. Caicedo discusses and analyses composers and song repertoire from Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Perú, and Venezuela. She presents song repertoire from three dimensions—socially, historically, and musically—melding folk song with the genre of art song. This book is a treasure trove of information and a rich resource that should be in every singer’s library.
— Suzanne Rhodes Draayer, Winona State University

With the publication of her new book on the Latin American art-song repertoire, Patricia fills a need that has been felt urgently by all singers, instrumentalists, and composers who are part of the community that loves and values this repertoire, and provides a gateway for those who have not yet discovered its riches. With her immense erudition, deep musicality, and profound advocacy, Dr. Caicedo leads the reader to understand the roots of this repertory and its various contexts: Twentieth-Century Nationalist movements, the revalidation of Folk musics, and the astonishing (but undervalued) technical and musical craft of the best Latin American composers of art-songs. For those who have had the good fortune of hearing Dr. Caicedo lecture and perform (and in my case, perform with her as accompanist), it is a body of work that she also champions through her beautifully sung live concerts and CDs. It goes without saying that Dr. Caicedo is the foremost living authority on the Latin American art-song and its evolution, and is shepherding its continuity through the commissioning of new works, and through her founding and direction of the Barcelona Festival of Song for over a decade. This festival also exposes audiences and informs performers on the beauty and interpretive requirements of Hispanoamerican songs in Catalan, Portuguese, and Indigenous languages of the Americas.
— José Lezcano, Keene State College

The Latin American Art Song

Sounds of the Imagined Nations

Patricia Caicedo - Foreword by Walter Aaron Clark

The Latin American Art Song

Sounds of the Imagined Nations

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