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Books > Arts & Architecture > Music > Techniques of music
The Latin American centennial celebrations of independence
(ca.1909-1925) constituted a key moment in the consolidation of
national symbols and emblems, while also producing a renewed focus
on transnational affinities that generated a series of discourses
about continental unity. At the same time, a boom in archaeological
explorations, within a general climate of scientific positivism
provided Latin Americans with new information about their
"grandiose" former civilizations, such as the Inca and the Aztec,
which some argued were comparable to ancient Greek and Egyptian
cultures. These discourses were at first political, before
transitioning to the cultural sphere. As a result, artists and
particularly musicians began to move away from European techniques
and themes, to produce a distinctive and self-consciously Latin
American art. In Inca Music Reimagined author Vera Wolkowicz
explores Inca discourses in particular as a source for the creation
of "national" and "continental" art music during the first decades
of the twentieth century, concentrating on operas by composers from
Peru, Ecuador and Argentina. To understand this process, Wolkowicz
analyzes early twentieth-century writings on Inca music and its
origins and describes how certain composers transposed "Inca"
techniques into their own works, and how this music was perceived
by local audiences. Ultimately, she argues that the turn to Inca
culture and music in the hopes of constructing a sense of national
unity could only succeed within particular intellectual circles,
and that the idea that the inspiration of the Inca could produce a
"music of America" would remain utopian.
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