indiana university press juan bautista plaza and musical nationalism in venezuela jul 2007

Marie Elizabeth Labonville JUAN BAUTISTA PLAZA AND MUSICAL NATIONALISM IN VENEZUELA INDIANA JUAN BAUTISTA PLAZA AND MUSICAL NATIONALISM IN VENEZUELA Labonville IND IANA University Press Bloomington & Indianapolis http://iupress.indiana.edu 1-800-842-6796 Music Latin America Juan Bautista Plaza (1898–1965) was the central composer in Venezuela for much of the twentieth century. In addition to writing numerous masses and several large orchestral works, Plaza was the leading fi gure in Venezuelan music education and musicology. His efforts to improve musical institutions in his home country parallel those of other contemporary Latin American composers, including Guarnieri in Brazil. Plaza’s life and music are little studied; there is only one book, in Spanish, about the composer. Labonville’s ambitious work is the fi rst to use Plaza’s extensive collection of writings and compositions in an English-language study. Parts of the book look exhaustively at Plaza’s music criticism, his relations with the Venezuelan press, and his activities as a choral director. As evidenced by these artifacts, Plaza fi lled numer- ous roles in Venezuela’s musical infrastructure including researcher, performer, teacher, composer, promoter, and critic. Labonville examines Plaza in these roles in an attempt to assess how the nationalist spirit affected art music culture in Venezuela and what changes it brought to Venezuela’s musical landscape. Marie Elizabeth Labonville is Associate Professor of Music History at Illinois State University. Her research interests center on the life and work of Juan Bautista Plaza (1898–1965), one of the most important fi gures in the musical history of Venezuela. Her other interests include the music tradi- tions of India and the Middle East, choral music performance, and the Spanish language. Jacket illustration: Plaza at the microphone of Radio Caracas, ca. 1940. Used by permission of the Fundación Juan Bautista Plaza. JUAN BAUTISTA PLAZA AND MUSICAL NATIONALISM IN VENEZUELA Marie Elizabeth Labonville The fi rst English-language study of a critical fi gure in the development of Venezuelan music “A path-breaking work that will be of great use to American scholarship in mapping out what remains, to our shame, largely terra incognita to musical scholarship.” —Alejandro Enrique Planchart, Emeritus Professor of Music, UCSB Juan Bautista Plaza and Musical Nationalism in Venezuela [...]... the information in the present study is drawn from newspaper and magazine clippings preserved in AJBP Most are trimmed and show no printed information about the source and date Instead, items are identified in handwriting on the scrapbook page or in the margin of the clipping Investigation revealed that some of those handwritten identifications are incorrect (the ones in Plaza s handwriting, however, tend... temperament, as expressed by his gestures, his way of talking, walking and moving constantly, and also by the passionate way in which he did everything, even if it was something insignificant.15 Plaza s “passionate” way of doing everything, even insignificant things, was reflected in his exaggerated perfectionism This trait undoubtedly interfered with his work since, according to Gonzalo Plaza, his father... naturalized Latin Americans who fit this pattern include Alberto Williams of Argentina, Amadeo Roldán and José Ardévol of Cuba, Manuel M Ponce and Carlos Chávez of Mexico, and Andrés Sas and Rodolfo Holzmann of Peru Musicologist Francisco Curt Lange of Uruguay, though not a composer, followed a similar path In Venezuela, the quintessential example was Juan Bautista Plaza Astonishingly, Plaza was involved in activities... shared an interest in improving art music culture in Caracas according to European models During the 1920s they began applying their talents to attack “decadence” in the musical life of the capital In later years they also worked to research and promote Venezuelan folk, traditional, and colonial music Their ideas and projects moved slowly at first, partly because of prevailing musical taste and partly... his works in a more “universal” idiom A review of the many advances in Venezuelan art music culture brought about by Plaza and his contemporaries might give the impression that those improvements were steady and inevitable, but nothing could be farther from the truth Many of those developments, in their initial stages, proceeded in fits and starts Financial concerns and lack of continuity in the government... answering many questions about his father’s life and work Plaza s grandson Arturo Gutiérrez Plaza invited me to his home on numerous occasions, sought my opinions on a proposed project to publish some of Plaza s music and writings, and acted as an intermediary when I needed to contact certain individuals in Caracas Further, he answered my questions about the subtleties of colloquial Venezuelan Spanish and. .. facing the arrogance of certain ignorant individuals, he would not react with haughtiness and disdain, but in general, modesty was one of his principal characteristics.18 It is no wonder that Plaza “knew perfectly well the magnitude of what remained for him to learn,” for his interests were wide ranging and his personal library contained thousands of books, magazines, journals, manuscripts, scores, and. .. far from) the school and was instantly captivated He began to devise stratagems to find out about her, and sought to arrange his schedule to have the possibility of seeing her or passing her in the Plaza Bolívar In the beginning, she did not realize what was happening.30 He began courting her in April 1928.31 For a time he endeavored to remain objective and to struggle against the intoxication of love,... music in Venezuela suffered from the same political, economic, and social challenges that affected other expressions of culture and learning To begin with, Venezuela did not enjoy the early flowering of colonial sacred music found in other Latin American regions that had special attractiveness for peninsular monarchs Areas in present-day Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru were interesting... by Venezuelans, much of it in an overtly nationalist style Later the chorus began performing Venezuelan colonial music as well The Orquesta Sinfónica Venezuela, on the other hand, was created to bring the standard symphonic repertory to Caracas audiences Later, it began offering new works by Venezuelans While Sojo devoted much of his time and energy to rehearsing and conducting those ensembles, Plaza . Labonville JUAN BAUTISTA PLAZA AND MUSICAL NATIONALISM IN VENEZUELA INDIANA JUAN BAUTISTA PLAZA AND MUSICAL NATIONALISM IN VENEZUELA Labonville IND IANA University Press Bloomington & Indianapolis http://iupress .indiana. edu 1-800-842-6796 Music Latin. Nationalism in Venezuela Marie Elizabeth Labonville Indiana University Press Bloomington and Indianapolis This book is a publication of Indiana University Press 601 North Morton Street Bloomington, IN. scholarship.” —Alejandro Enrique Planchart, Emeritus Professor of Music, UCSB Juan Bautista Plaza and Musical Nationalism in Venezuela