Latin American Art Music as European Invention: The Making of Latin American Composers in Paris, 1880-1930

Project Information

LA Music Invention

Grant agreement ID: 101028215

DOI

10.3030/101028215

Project closed

EC signature date 13 April 2021

Start date 15 February 2022

End date 14 February 2024

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 184 707,84

EU contribution

€ 184 707,84

Coordinated by

ECOLE DES HAUTES ETUDES EN SCIENCES SOCIALES
France

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - LA Music Invention (Latin American Art Music as European Invention: The Making of Latin American Composers in Paris, 1880-1930)

Reporting period: 2022-02-15 to 2024-02-14

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

This project investigated the educational experiences of Latin American musicians in Paris between c. 1880-1930. Throughout the nineteenth century, music education in Latin America evolved in direct relationship to the presence of European musicians touring or settling there. However, this education was typically insufficient to produce professional composers among those who were born on Latin American soil and, towards the end of the century, many aspiring composers sought to supplement their formal music education abroad. The majority took the opportunity to learn in well-established music conservatories of the “Old World”. From the many cities they selected, most of them chose Paris due to its well-known cosmopolitanism.
The relevance of this project lies in uncovering the transatlantic connections between European and South American art music, aiming to demonstrate the pivotal role of European education in shaping the national and continental identities of Latin American composers.
The overall objetives were:
1. To see how many Latin American composers sought a musical education in Paris shedding new light on scarcely analysed archival sources.
2. To see how, and to what extent, national or continental identity mattered to Latin American musicians during their studies in Europe.
3. To study the Parisian reception of art music written by Latin Americans and contrasting it with other European reviews.
4. To rethink the way Latin American art music is understood in the field of musicology.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The project started with a thorough archival research to collect information about Latin American musicians studying at different Parisian institutions between c. 1880-1930. This involved gathering data on Latin American musicians enrolled at different public and private institutions, such as the Conservatoire de Paris, the Schola Cantorum and the École Normale de Musique de Paris. For the records of the Conservatoire de Paris, the researcher consulted the Archives Nationales and the Archive of the Conservatoire at the Médiathèque Hector Berlioz. The records of the Schola Cantorum and the École Normale de Musique were found at the Bibliothèque National de France and the Bibliothèque Musicale La Grange-Fleuret respectively. Since the French musician Nadia Boulanger was so important and had taught many students throughout her lifetime at different institutions and in private tutoring, the researcher also consulted the records of her students held in her private collection at the BnF. The researcher was also able to collect information on some students of the pianist Isidore Philipp. These sources have allowed to confirm and also rectify information that has been circulating in secondary sources for over decades without any factual support, and to also measure the gender ratio, since most Latin American music histories mentioned a majoritiy of male students taking lessons in composition, while there was a small —yet significant— proportion of Latin American women musicians specialising in a particular instrument from which little is known. This information has been processed and made available to the public in the following repository: https://didomena.ehess.fr/collections/wd3764481?locale=fr
During the collection of the data, the researcher also gathered a series of scores, most of them at the BnF, but also at the Bibliothèque Musicale La Grange-Fleuret. The transcription and Analysis of the scores has shown that the influence of nationalism in the music of Latin American composers did not necessarily started after their European experience, and that the incorporation of national elements in their music increased over the years, without almost no visible national and/or continental (i.e. Latin American) sonorities during the nineteenth century, and with a more clear turn towards nationalism during the interwar period (1918-1939).
The access to French online repositories such as gallica.bnf.fr and Retronews, facilitatated the access to reviews on the music written and performed by Latin American musicians in Paris. These reviews were compared with articles on Latin American art music concerts in other parts of Europe. These reviews from Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, do not show much difference with the reception of Latin American art music in the French press. Latin American music was scacerly perform in France as well as in other European countries, and the impact was relatively small, usually attracting very small audiences. By dismantling preconceptions of the Western canon, the project sought to recontextualize how Latin American art music is studied in the Global North.
This project has been disseminated through a great variety of scientific and public events and resources.The scientific activities involved presenting papers at the following conferences: VI Jornadas del Instituto de Artes del Espectáculo (Universidad de Buenos Aires, 2022), César Franck Symposium (Université de Liège, 2022), Colloquim Asociación Argentina de Musicología (Buenos Aires, 2022), Quinquennial Conference of the International Musicological Society (Athens, 2022), Annual Conference of the Society for Latin American Studies, 2023); attendance to the Annual conference of the American Musicological Society (Denver, 2023); giving lecture presentations at the following seminars: Seminario de Investigación en Musicología (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2023); Seminaire du CRAL (EHESS, 2023); Royal Musicological Society Research Colloquia in Music (University of Glasgow, 2024). Two peer-reviewed articles have been produced during the project which will be soon published in Open Access. One of the major scientific activities of this project was the organization of an international four-day conference titled "“Music, Cultural Politics, and Identities: Transatlantic encounters between European and Latin American music and musicians” (September 2023). The conference was run in four languages (French, English, Spanish and Portuguese) and was done in hybrid format to allow more inclusivity. A Special Issue partially derived from this conference is being prepared for publication in 2025 or 2026. The public activities and resources include: a concert-conference with the group Almaviva at the Maison de l'Argentine (30 January 2024), the didómena database, and the creation of short biographical videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkZav5b4wcFN31a8ZSa4Djw.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

This project has been able to go beyond the current state-of-the-art that has been achieved so far when studying Latin American art music and musicians. It has shown the importance of French musical education in their music and careers. The possibility of continuing to explore other European influences in the work and careers of Latin American musicians will help in rethinking the way Latin American art music has been historically understood. Reframing the study of Latin American art music as a consequence of an European education, that is, as a western product, can open up new avenues for interpretation within the field of musicology, but also in the way that music has been addressed in cultural and art histories.

Drawing by Emilio Pettoruti for the Grupo Renovación (c. 1929)