Evoking the Mayan world:
Symbolism in Alberto Ginastera's Cantata para América mágica
| Conference paper to be presented at Society for American Music, national conference, Denver, CO, March 2009 Alberto Ginastera's Cantata para América
mágica (1960) evokes the Mesoamerican world in three ways:
quotations of Mayan and Aztec texts; sonic references to Mexican
indigenous music; and -- most impressively - the use of serialist
techniques to symbolize the symmetrical, cyclical nature of the Mayan
world view. First, the layout of the movements represents a cycle, with
the first and sixth movements illustrating creation (quoting Popul Vuh) and destruction (Chilam
Balam), and are symmetric, with the second and fifth
movements being soliloquies using similar rows. More symbolically, the
combinatorial D-hexachord represents destruction: it is the sonority of
the climax of the work, when the prophecy of destruction is proclaimed.
This chord is also the progenitor of all eight rows used in the Cantata
through transposition, inversion, rotation, and repartition. Hence, the
D-hexachord represents both creation and destruction, making it
symbolic of the Mesoamerican concept of a cyclical universe, where one
world was destroyed so that another may arise. Furthermore, each row is
symmetric in that it is either constructed from a single hexachord,
tetrachord, or trichord, or two Z-related hexachords. Sonic references
to Mexican indigenous music are made by a percussion ensemble including
the Aztec ceremonial drums teponaxtle and huehuetl, the latter evoked
by timpani; shifting, odd-numbered metric groupings reminiscent of
Aztec drum syllables; and ornamental vocalizations. The analysis builds
upon work by Heister, Kuss, and others by identifying source texts for
all movements, showing the rhythmic analogy to drum syllables, and
explaining the symbolic meaning of the D-hexachord. |
Noriko Manabe www.norikomanabe.com Contact nmanabe at gc doc cuny doc edu