Chavez

THE PLANO WORKS OF CARLOS CHAVEZ
by
DIME NORDYKE, B.M., M.M.
A DISSERTATION
IN
FINE .ARTS
Submitted to the Graduate Faculry

of Texas Tech University in
Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements for
the Degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
AuDroved
Accepted
May, 1982
Copyright by
Diane Nordyke
1982
l\ C > ^^' ^^;.^ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author wishes to express her appreciation to Professors Paul
Cutter and Thomas Redcay, members of her dissertation committee, who
have given generously of their time and helpful advice.
A special acknowledgment for permission to extract short musical
examples is extended to Boosey and Hawkes, Inc. - Sonatina for Piano -
and to Peer International Corporation - Estudio: Homenaje a Chopin

2
and Tercera Sonata (Third Sonata).
ESTUDIO: HOMENAJE A CHOPIN by Carlos Chavez

Copyright 1949 by Ediciones Mexicanas de Musica, A.C.
Propiedad registrada conforme a la Ley, Mexico, 1949
Copyright Renewed
All'Rights Owned and Controlled Exclusively by Peer International
Corporation for the World Except Mexico
Used by Permission
^TERCERA SONATA (THIRD SONATA) by Carlos Chavez
c Copyright 1972 by Carlos Chavez
Propiedad registrada conforme a la Ley, Mexico, 1972
All Rights Owned and Controlled Exclusively by Peer International
Corporation for the World Except Mexico
Used by Permission
11
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii
CHAPTER I BIOGRAPHY OF CARLOS CHAVEZ 1
CHAPTER II GENERAL MUSICAL STYLE AND OVERVIEW OF HIS WORKS . . U
CHAPTER III SURVEY OF THE PIANO MUSIC 20
CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS OF SELECTED PIANO WORKS 32
Sonatina for Piano 32
Third Sonata for Piano 40
Movement I 41
Movement II 45
Movement III 52
Movement IV 57
"Unity," from Seven Pieces for Piano 66
Prelude X, from Ten Preludes for Piano 82
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra 98
Movement I 98
Movement II 119
Movement III 124
Etude: Homage to Chopin 133
Etude to Rubinstein 145
CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS 157
BIBLIOGRAPHY 163
APPENDIX A LECTURE RECITAL 166
APPENDIX B CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF PIANO WORKS 194

APPENDIX C DISCOGRAPHY 197
111
CHAPTER I
BIOGRAPHY OF CARLOS CHAVEZ
Carlos Chavez (1899-1978) is deservedly the best known twentiet
century Mexican musician. A composer, conductor, pianist, educator,
writer, and organizer, he was for fifty years the indisputable leade
of Mexican musical activity. Chavez was responsible for raising the
Mexican musical consciousness from an almost nonexistent level to on
that can be considered the most sophisticated in Latin America.
He exerted and continues to exert a tremendous influence on the curr
generation of Mexican musicians.
Chavez's journeys to the outlying mountain regions of his home-
land, which began while he was still a child, revealed to him the po
and richness of Mexico's folk music. He was also profoundly affacte
by the social upheaval of the Mexican Revolution (which began in 191
and continued well into the 1930 5) and captured the spirit of it in
his music, and directed Mexican music away from the imitation of
foreign models toward a vigorous nationalism rooted in the native so
However, despite his strong identification with nationalism, he is a
universally-recognized composer. His works have been performed thro
out Latin America, the United States, and Europe, often under the
direction of Chavez himself ,^
Carlos Chavez was b o m in Mexico City on June 13, 1899, and die
in Mexico City on August 2, 1978. The seventh child of a'mestizo
family, Chavez took his first piano lessons from his older brother.
Manuel, and later worked for a short time with Professor Asuncion
Parra. He continued his piano studies from twelve to fifteen years
of age with the composer Manuel Ponce, and then until the age of
twenty-one with the pianist Pedro Luis Ogazon.
As a composer, Chavez was largely self-taught. Autodidactic by
nature, with an analytical and critical mind, he had confidence in
his own resources. He learned harmony, counterpoint, composition, a
orchestration by studying various theoretical treatises and by makin
detailed analyses of many of the musical works of Bach, Beethoven,
and Debussy, among others. In a letter to his biographer, Roberto
Garcia Morillo, the composer stated:
I never wanted to have a composition teacher

because I considered them extremely dogmatic
and because I believed that the best teachers
would be the "great masters," whose works I
studied in great depth.1
In September of 1922 Chavez married Miss Otilia Ortiz, "a woman
of the most extraordinary musical perceptivity."- Immediately the
couple departed for Europe, where they spent five months in Berlin
and made brief visits to Vienna and Paris. .Although Bote ^ Bock
accepted some of his works for publication, Chavez's reaction to
Europe was generally negative, He did not return there until 1949,
and then only for two months. By contrast, his first visit to the
•^Roberto Garcia Morillo, Carlos Chavez; Vida y Obras (Mexico:

Fondo de Cultura Economica, I960}, p, 13,
2
Robert Stevenson, Nhjsic in Mexico (New York; Thomas Y. Crowell
Company, 1952) , p, 239.
United States (December 1923 to March 1924) began a lifelong and
highly productive association, marked by lasting friendships (es-
pecially with Aaron Copland), repeated engagements as guest con-
ductor, important commissions, publication of his music, and numerous
honors.
Chavez began an enduring connection with the Mexico City news-
paper El Universal in August 1924, continuing to write articles on
music and art almost every year thereafter.
On his return to Mexico in 1928, after living in New York
for two years, Chavez entered a new and very important phase in
his career. At the age of twenty-nine he accepted the director-
ship of the newly-formed Symphony Orchestra of Mexico. He succeeded
in building the first permanent orchestra in Mexico mainly because
he knew how to win government as well as private support for the
enterprise. His talent for organization, as well as his energy
to overcome bureaucratic inertia, insured his success in this
conductorship.
From the very start he showed his determination to make the
Symphony Orchestra a national institution; unlike other conductors,
he played orchestral works for young Mexican composers and gave
Mexican performing artists the opportunity to be heard. Through
the Symphony Orchestra, Chavez created an interest in Mexican and
other contemporary music, During his tenure as conductor, the
Symphony Orchestra premiered in Mexico more than 250 works of the

3
international repertoire. In addition the Orchestra premiered
A
eighty-two works by contemporary Mexican composers.
Chavez also invited some of the best known conductors and
composers to Me.xico, making Mexico City an important Latin American

music center.
Albeniz: 2; C. F. M. Bach: 1; J. C. Bach: 1; J. S. Bach: 16;

Bartok: 5; Beethoven: 3; Berezowsky: 1; Berg: 1; Berlioz: 2; Bliss: 1
Bloch: 2; Boccherini: 1; Borodin: 1; Brahms: 2; Buxtehude: 1; Car-
penter: 2; Castro: 1; Copland: 8; Couperin: 1; Cowell: 1; Creston: 2;
Cherepnin: 1; Cherubini: 2; Debussy: 8; Delius: 1; Dukas: 1; Dvorak: :
Elgar: 1; Falla: 5; Faure: 1; Fernandez: 1; Gabrieli: 1; Garcia
Morillo: 1; Geminiani: 2; Glazunoff: 3; Gluck: 1; Goossens: 1; Handel
8; Halffter: 1; Harris: 1; Haydn: 6; Hindemith: 5; Honegger: 4; Ibert
1; D'Indy: 2; Joachim: 1; Johnson: 1; Kabalevsky: 1; Kodaly: 2; Lully
1; McPhee: 1; Mahler: 1; Milhaud: 7; Mossolof: 1; Mozart: 5; Mus-
sorgsky: 6; Pittaluga; 2; Poulenc: 2; Maria Teresa Prieto: 7; Prokofi(
8; Purcell: 2; Rachmaninoff: 3; Rameau: 1; Ravel: 10; Respighi: 2;
Rimsky-Korsakov: 2; Roldan: 1; Rossini: 1; San Juan: 2; Santa Cruz: 1
Satie: 4; Schechter: 1; Schoenberg: 2; Schubert: 1; William Schuman: 1
Scriabin: 1; Shostakovich: 5; Sibelius: 8; W. G. Still: 1; Richard
Strauss: 3; Stravinsky: 23; Tchaikovsky: 4; Tnorason: 1; Turina: 1;
Varese: 1; Vaughan-Williams: 1; Villa-Lobos: 2; Vivaldi: 6; Vivaldi-
Bach: 1; Wagner: 2; Walton: 1.
4
Adams: 1; Aldana: 1; Ayala: 1; Bal y Gay: 2; Bernal; 2;
Contreras: 3; Chavez: 19; Dominguez: 1; Elias: 1; Franco: 1; Galindo:
3; Rudolph Halffter: 2; Hernandez Moncada: 2; Huizar: 6; Jiminez
Mabarak: 1; Malabear: 1; Mariscal: 1; Mendoza:l; Moncayo: 4; Nuno:
1; Pomar; 2; Ponce: 8; RevueItas: 6; Rolon: 5; Rosas: 1; Sandi: 3;
Tello: 2; Villanueva: 1.
Ernest Ansermet, Pierre Monteux, Sir Thomas Beecham, Sir

Eugene Goossens, Otto Klemperer, Dmitri Mitropoulos, Leopold
Stokowski, Pedro San Juan, Gustavo Pittaluga, Vladimir Golschman,
Juan Jose Castro, and Alfred Wallenstein.
Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, Paul Hindemith, and Darius

Milhaud.
In an effort to bring the music to the people, Chavez arranged
concerts in various Mexican cities, some of which had never before
seen or heard a symphony orchestra. He also organized concerts
for workers, children, and radio broadcasts. The success of Chavez's
leadership of the Symphony Orchestra is described in the following
excerpt:
Before 1928 the public was sparse, inconstant,

and unilateral. The Symphony Orchestra has
created a public that is numerous, permanent,
heterogeneous, and accepting of all musical
repertoire. It is a public of all strata:
economic, social, and intellectual. Tnis
public fills two halls each week of the con-
cert season and fourteen or fifteen theatres
each year in eight or nine different cities in
the Republic, Hundreds of thousands listen ro
the Symphony Orchestra on the radio. The
seas'on-ticket holders have grown year by year
and now number more than 2200... Tae Symphony
Orchestra is the only Latin American Orchestra
that appears in the Victor Master Works catalog
of recordings ."^
In December of 1928 Chavez was appointed Director of the
National Conservatory of Music. For five years he occupied this
educational post and exerted himself to the utmost for a renais-
sance of nationalism in music.
Chavez found in the National Conservatory a

disorganized imitation of those European
academies in which inflexible, lengthy, and
antiquated courses produced, year after year.
^Francisco Age a, Cirques t a S in'fonic a "de Mexico - Boletin No. 2

(Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1948), p, 4.
hundreds of dilettantes and amateurs. He
restructured the courses around contemporary
methods of instruction adapted to Mexico's
particular needs. He oriented the conserva-
tory toward the production of professional
musicians, capable teachers, and a body of
trained music lovers. He put the student
orchestra on a new basis, formed groups of
performers to give as wide a hearing as pos-
sible to music of all epochs, formed a chorus,
started historic, scientific, and artistic
research, and instituted concerts in public
parks. He all but abolished free pupils'
recitals, and substituted for them recitals
for which small admission fees were charged.
Soloists of promise were afforded appearances
with the Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, and
the Qiorus became a body able to acquit it-
self brilliantly in Palestrina's Missa Papae ^
Marcelli and Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms.
Once the general_ reorganization of the Conservatory had been
established, Chavez instituted a special program for the training
of young composers. His program followed the lines of originality
and independence which had been taking shape within his mind for
the preceding ten years. Chavez describes this course of study:
To that class there came, in 1931, a

few older, established musicians; including
Vicente Mendoza, Candelario Huizar, and
Silvestre Revueltas, as well as four boys
under twenty--Salvador Contreras, Bias
Galindo, Jose Pablo Moncayo, and Daniel Ayala,
Two of these, Galindo and Ayala, were full-
blooded Indians.
We used no text. All the students

worked tirelessly, writing melodies in all
of the diatonic modes, in a melodic scale of
Herbert Weinstock, "Carlos Chavez," Music Series No, 10

CWashington D,C.: Pan American Union, 1944), p, xvi.
twelve tones, and in all of the pentatonic
scales. Hundreds of melodies were written,
but not merely as exercises on paper. We
had instruments in the classroom, and the
melodies were played on them, and found to
be adequate or inadequate to the resources
of the specific instruments. The result
is that the young boys (above) in particular
now write with amazingly accurate musical
feeling.^
In 1932, Chavez relates that the pupils, "out of their own
sense of necessity," began to write melodies for two or more in-
struments, achieving new skills."
Chavez also formed a Research Academy within the Conservatory
to conduct extensive ini'estigation into Indian music and instruments
Chavez was named Giief of the Department of Fine Arts in the
Secretariat of Public Education in March of 1933. In this position
he directed the collection and notation of indigenous music, some
of which was made into simple arrangemen-s for distribution in the
schools. He was instrumental in the development of schools of art
for workers as well as a children's theatre.
In 1937 Chavez's first book. Toward a New Music: Music and
Electricity, was published. Trie basis for this book was a report
originally published in El Universal about his observations on
Q
Carlos Chavez, "Revolt in Mexico," Modem Music XIII (March-
April 1936), p. 38,
0. L, Igou, "Contemporary Symphonic Activity in Mexico with
Special Regard to Carlos Giavez and Silvestre Revueltas" (?h.D,
dissertation. Northwestern University, 1946), p.. 367.
electrical sound reproduction during a visit to the United States
in 1932.
Chavez arranged several concerts for an exhibition entitled
"Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art," held in New York City in 1940.
These concerts, which presented a panorama of Mexican music from
the past to the present, included some of his own works, as well as
pieces by various other Mexican composers, and contributed greatly
to the diffusion of Mexican music and art.
Chavez drafted the plans for a National Institute of Fine
Arts and was named its first Director General upon its founding
in 1947. The Institute was chartered to encourage the development
of the Fine Arts and to create and oversee the activities of such
organizations as the Academy of Dance and the National Opera. Up
to this time, ballet and opera had mostly been performed by foreign
companies visiting Mexico, and opera (especially the National Opera)
had for some time been overshadowed by orchestral music. The
activities of the new Institute resulted in an increase in perform-
ances of music for the stage, accompanied by a continuing surge in
orchestral activity.
Chavez resigned from the conductorship of the Symphony Orchestra
of Mexico in 1948 in order to devote his time to composition, and,
to a lesser extent, to conducting, teaching, writing, and lecturing.
Some of his aesthetic ideas are outlined in the book Musical Thought,
a publication of his lectures while occupying the Charles Eliot
Norton Chair of Poetics at Harvard University in 1958-59. He received

many commissions during this period, most of them from the United
States.
Chavez, in 1960, founded the Composer's Workshop at the National
Conservatory, which ranks with the Center for Advanced Musical Studies
in Buenos Aires as one of the two most important centers in Latin
America for the study of composition.
Chavez's many honors include the titles Officer of the Legion
d'honneur. Commander of the Order of the Pole Star (Sweden) and
Commander of the Order of the CrowTi (Belgium), the Star of Italian
Solidarity and honorary membership of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences, the National Academy (USA), the National Institute
of Arts and Letters (USA) and the National Academy of Arts (Argentina)
He was a founder-member of the Colegio de Mexico and of the Mexican
Academy of Arts, and he also received the National Prize of Arts
and Sciences.
In summary, Carlos Chavez distinguished himself in almost
every field of endeavor open to a musician. He established himself
as a composer of the highest caliber without any Mexican precedent
or tradition to follow. His works have made a unique and varied
contribution to the repertoire of twentieth-century music, He
worked tirelessly to expose the entire Mexican public to both foreign
and Mexican music; he created opportunities for young musicians
and made music an integral part of the Mexican culture. His leader-
ship of the Symphony Orchestra, the National Conservatory, and the

10
National Institute of Fine Arts is responsible for the current
healthy state of the musical environment in Mexico.
Every facet of the growth of contemporary music in Mexico for
the past fifty years, whether it be from the standpoint of com-
position, performance, or the training of musicians for either, has
been associated inextricably with the dynamic genius of Carlos
Chavez.
CHAPTER II
GENERAL MUSICAL STYLE AND OVERVIEW OF HIS WORKS
It is possible to generalize about a particular epoch in
Chavez's creative career, but not the whole of it. Although his
works are the inseparable facets of a continuing self-realization,
they may be classified into unified style periods. This overview
will proceed along chronological lines.
Carlos Chavez was a progressive composer, always ahead of his
Mexican contemporaries. Despite his strong nationalistic bent,
his style at times is imbued with romantic or modernistic elements
unrelated to any type of folk or popular music.
As is true of many of the great composers, Chavez's output
falls into three stylistic periods. First are the works of a
strongly romantic character, the early works, followed by the
nationalistic works, and finally the works of neoclassical orien-
tation,
Chavez's first compositional period lasted approximately until
1921, and includes piano solos, one symphony, one sextet for
piano and strings, vocal music, and one string quartet. These
pieces reveal on the one hand an innate tendency toward large forms,
and on the other hand, a precocious restlessness for an art of
Mexican orientation. In these works we can already see vitality,
formal sense, and solid construction.
11
Chavez's musical style was not yet clearly defined. He was
imitating European styles, and was under the double influences of
the romanticism of Schumann and Chopin, and the modernism of Debussy.
The Second Sonata for Piano marks the end of this early period.
According to the composer himself, "It is a good indication of the
style of the first years . . . It is the consequence of all of my

, .,'
prior work. 1
The Sonata shows rich harmonies and brilliant pianistic writing,
full of octave passages and bravura. It is, as a whole, a very
somber piece, filled with descriptive score indications, such as
agitato, doloroso, and con serenita ma dolente, and changes of tempo.
Chavez, at twenty-two, turned with the ballet The New Fire (1921)
toward an. indigenous, nationalistic style, influenced by Mexican-
Indian idioms. Chavez also developed his own very personal style
during these years. Steadily Chavez proceeded to emphasize more and
more the Aztec in himself--the Indian in his heritage--with the re-
sultant strengthening of domestic sentiment on behalf of his music,
Chavez's own assessment of the ballet is seen in an article written
in 1954:
In The New Fire, for the first time I express the

true depth of my subconscious, I remember that I did
not want to make "arrangements," and I did not look
for "Indian" melodies; everything in that piece is my
own invention. The New Fire was a drastic and unex-
•Garcia Morillo, Carlos Chavez: Vida y Obras, p. 14

13
pected change of all that I had written before. . ,
For me the special thing of The New Fire is that

for the first time the influence of the Indian music,
truly traditional, that I had heard in Tlaxcala since
my childhood, is expressed. It had never been re-
vealed before because I was full of Bach, Beethoven,
Schumann, and Debussy.2
Chavez's nationalism is manifested not in a literal way, through
the presence of some specific Indian or Creole motive, but through
Indianesque rhythms, melodies, and details of general construction
that produce a special, unequivocal Mexican character.
Chavez praised the pre-Columbian virtues o^f Indian music as
expressing "what is deepest in the Mexican soul.""^ He also thought
the musical life of the Indians to be "the most important stage in
the history of Mexican music. We have found ourselves by going back
to the cultural traditions of the Indian racial stock that still

4
accounts for four-fifths of the people in Mexico."
In Chavez's attempt to rediscover pre-Conquest Indian musical
practices, the crucial factor was not so much an authenticity in
reviving those practices as it was a subjective evocation of the
remote past, or of the character and physical setting of ancient
Cand, for that matter, contemporary) Indian culture. The composer
Ibid., p. 21.
3
Joseph Machlis, Introduction to Contemporary Music, 2nd ed,
(New York: W.W, Norton ^ Company, 1979), p. 424.
'Îbid., p. 424.
14
expressed his basic ideas concerning the pentatonic melodic system
of the Aztecs:
The Aztecs showed a predilection for those inter-

vals which we call the minor third and the perfect
fifth; their use of other intervals was rare...This
type of interval preference, which must undoubtedly be
taken to indicate a deep-seated and intuitive yearning
for the minor, found appropriate expression in modal
melodies which entirely lacked the semitone. Aztec
melodies might begin or end on any degree of the five-
note series. In discussing their music one might
therefore appropriately speak of five different melo-
dic modes, each of them founded on a different tonic in
pentatonic series.
Since the fourth and seventh degrees of the major

diatonic scale (as we know it) were completely absent
from this music, all of the harmonic implications of
our all-important leading tone were banished from
Aztec melody. If it should seem that their particular
pentatonic system excluded any possibility of "modu-
lating" --which some feel to be a psychological even in
monody--we reply that these aborigines avoided modulation
(in our sense of the word) primarily because modulation
was alien to the simple and straightforward spirit of the
Indian...
For those whose ears have become conditioned by long

familiarity with the European diatonic system, the "poly-
modality" of indigenous music inevitably sounds as if it
were "polytonality." (Polytonality in music we might
say is analogous to the absence of perspective which we
encounter in aboriginal painting. The paintings of the
pre-Conquest codices show us what this absence of per-
spective means.)^
Some generalizations can be made about Chavez's use of what he
considered to be indigenous musical features, keeping in mind that
^Robert Stevenson, Music in Mexico (New York; Thomas Y. Crowell

Company, 1952), pp. 6-7.
15
many of them can also be found in several of his nonrnationalistic
works. He makes abundant use of modal melodies, both pentatonic
and diatonic. Several rhythmic features may be related to his ideas
of indigenous music. These features include the use of ostinato,
a consistent underlying rhythmic unit, and frequently changing meters
and tempi. Shifting accents, especially as seen in hemiola, and
syncopation are used, and Chavez seems to have a predilection for
the triplet as a fast underlying rhythmic unit.
The polyphonic texture of most of Chavez's music reflects the
importance of melody and rhythm rather than harmony in primitive
Aztec music, A particular timbre is sometimes an indigenous feature,
as when he calls for the use of Aztec wind or percussion instruments.
Harmonically, the most important contribution to a native char-
acter in Chavez's music is his avoidance of functional harmony as
such in his compositions. His vocabulary includes parallelisms and
percussive use of dissonance, abundant octaves, sevenths, ninths,
and quartal and quintal chords,
Examples of Chavez's indigenous or nationalistic-flavored works
are: Seven Pieces for Piano (1925-30), Sonatina for Piano (1924),
and the ballet The Four Suns (1925), the first two of which will
be discussed in detail in Chapter IV,
The ballet HP"(Horse Power), premiered in Philadelphia in 1932
with Stokowski conducting, contains the largest gathering of folk
elements of any score by Chavez, A large variety of timbres,
rhythmic drive and complexities, contrapuntal elaboration, and

16
sudden contrasts of dynamics are used to depict the warm, sensuous
life of the Latin American tropics contrasted to the North American
industrialized society.
Chavez is the most accomplished practitioner of the Mexico
nationalist movement. His nationalistic or indigenous production
attains its peak in the 1930s, although such works also appear
thereafter. Chavez's basic concern has been to incorporate the
essence of previously assimilated folk elements, through the use of
melody, harmony, rhythm, or instrumentation, to confer on a piece
of music a distinctly national flavor, IVhether in his works of
indigenous character or in his most abstract compositions, his highly
personal style and Mexican sense are so intimately connected that
Chavez accomplished what his contemporary, Bartok, did in Hungary:
he found in the radical vocabulary of his homeland the means to ex-
press universal sentiment.
During the 1930s and 40s Chavez's works rely more and more on
contemporary European techniques, The Symphony of Antigone (1933),
the Ten Preludes for Piano (1937) , and the Concerto for Violin and
Orchestra C1948«-50) are examples.
The Concerto for Violin and Orchestra provides some of the best
examples of Chavez's mature compositional processes. His attachment
to neoclassical techniques of composition is much in evidence.
Melodic inversion, variation, virtuosic writing for the solo instru-
ment, and palindromic formal design are the most conspicuous elements
In one long continuous movement, the first half of the work consists
of four contrasting sections leading to the cadenza, which acts as a
pivot point to the final four sections (in retrograde repetition of
the beginning) with considerable modification and inversion of the
elements presented in the first portions.
Prelude X, from Ten Preludes for Piano and the Concerto for
Piano and Orchestra will be examined in Chapter IV.
Chavez's production from the 1950s to his death in 1978 is
dominated by four symphonies (the last, no. 6, 1962, being com-
missioned by the New York Philharmonic); the opera originally titled
Love Propitiated but renamed Tne Visitors (1956); the cantata
Prometheus (1956) ; Resonancias (1964) for orchestra; Clio, a symphonic
ode (1969); the ballet Pyramid (1963); several chamber pieces, such
as Invencion II for string trio (1965); and several piano pieces,
such as Invencion (1958) and the Sonatas No. 5 and 6 (1960 and 1961).
Symphony No. 3 (1954) is wTitten in a modal, austere style dominated
by a polyphonic texture. Symphony No. 4, subtitled Romantic and
commissioned by the Louisville Orchestra, is, in contrast to earlier
works, lyrical and emotional in character. It is largely tonal and
rather classical in formal design. Its contrapuntal texture, with
frequent imitation and ostinato, shows similarity to that of the
Piano Concerto, The Fifth Symphony was commissioned by the
Koussevitsky Foundation and completed in 1953. Written for string
orchestra, this work confirmed Chavez's affinity for neoclassicism,
with classical forms, dissonant polyphonic textures, and polytonal
harmonies,
18
The cantata Prometheus, for solo voices, chorus, and orchestra,
received its world premiere during the Cabrillo Music Festival in
California (1972) . Chavez himself characterized its music as simple,
melodic, lyrical, and reflecting his own feelings toward the Aeschylian
Prometheus--"the forethinker, the kind god who champions mankind,
who protects the feeble, and who, heroically, rebels against tyranny
9
and injustice." In most of Chavez's subsequent works, he ceased to
rely on such extramusical themes.
Among Chavez's most significant works of the 1960s are Soli II,
III, and rv (respectively 1961, 1965 and 1966), Soli III calls for
bassoon, trumpet, timpani, viola, and orchestra. Soli IV for French
horn, trumpet, and trombone, and Soli II for wind quintet. The titles
are justified by the appearance of each instrument as soloist in
each movement. Nowhere had Chavez's concern with clarity, terseness,
and novelty of instrumental timbre combinations found a better ex-
pression than in these works, Chavez has explained that the directing
principle in these pieces is that of nonr-.repetition-.-the avoidance
of standard sequence, symmetry, and recapitulation and of the "re-

,,10
petitive procedures implicit in the Viennese serial technique." The
harmonic language, while still based on tonal centers, avoids any
traditional tonal functionality through the insistent presence of
harsh dissonances.
q
Gerard Behague, Music in Latin America (Englewood Cliffs,
New Jersey; Prentice-Hall, Inc,, 1979), p, 288,
^°Ibid., p. 288.
19
Soli II, consisting of a prelude, rondo, aria, sonatina and
finale, shows the composer's technical command of contrapuntal
writing, harmonic invention, rhythmic variety, and timbre blendings,
In summary, Carlos Chavez was a versatile and prolific composer.
His output encompasses a broad spectrum of genre, including works
for instrumental and vocal solo and ensemble, symphonies, ballets,
and one opera. In surveying the total output of Carlos Chavez, we
find that his works are the inseparable facets of a continuing self-
realization. There appears to be a logical but very gradual evolution
from his earliest romantic and modernistic leanings to a basically
nationalistic attitude, to, finally, the predominantly neoclassical
style of his later works, Throughout his career, Chavez increasingly
showed his affinity for* neoclassicism, with the use of classical
forms and dissonant polyphonic textures, sometimes reflecting strong
pri.mitivism as well.
CHAPTER III
SURVEY OF THE PIANO MUSIC
Cnavez began to compose while still a boy. He wrote his first
small pieces for piano between the ages of nine and twelve. .At
age twelve he began his independent study and analysis of the great
Western master works, and at the same time continued composing un-
interruptedly. Chavez wrote forty-six works for solo piano and one
piano concerto. More than one-half of these works are, unfortunately,
still unpublished. In addition, he arranged nine traditional Mexican
folktunes for solo piano. Chavez manifested a strong interest in
idiomatic music, as shown by these arrangements. He even went so far
as to express his nationalistic point of view in writing, in an article
published when he was only sixteen years of age, entitled "The Actual
Importance of the Flowering of National Music."
Since the three stylistic periods enumerated in Chapter II
apply to Ciavez's piano music as well, these works will be reviewed
in chronological order.
The piano works of Chavez's early period, which includes the
years 1917 to 1922, revealed strong romantic influences, especially
from Schumann. Despite the fact that this nineteenth-century Western
Carlos Chavez, "The .Actual Importance of the Flowering o:

National Music,'^ Gladios (January 1916).
20
21
musical language may have been inappropriate for his nationalistic
endeavors, these pieces do reveal an early tendency toward the great
works of such composers as Bach and Beethoven. Already we can get
a glimpse of Chavez's immense potential in the vitality, formal
sense, and solid construction of his early efforts.
Chavez wished to discard most of the pieces of this early period,
though to do so would greatly reduce the catalog of his piano works
as well as preclude an accurate view of his output. A collection
called First Notebooks includes all of the solo piano pieces that
Chavez wrote between 1917 and 1923, most of them otherwise unpub-
lished. They are extremely varied, ranging from brief pieces of
general or nationalistic character to compositions of broad dimensions,
A list of the pieces in this collection includes; Prelude and
Fugue, 1917, an eighteen-minute work of large proportions; Sonata
Fantasia, 1918, which is chronologically his first sonata; Carnaval,
1918, twenty pieces on "ACSH"; Simple Pieces, 1918-20; Various Pieces,
1918'20; Mexican Songs, 1918-20, arrangements of songs of the Mexican
Revolution; Madrigals for Piano, 1921; Sunrise: A Mexican Image,
1921; Four Nocturnes, 1922; Jarabe, 1922, a traditional Mexican dance
arranged for piano; Mexican Images, 1923; and Aspects I and II, 1923.
A major work of Chavez's early compositional output is the
Second Piano Sonata (1919-20) which is, according to the composer,
"a good indication of the style of the production of the first years,"
and "the consequence of all my previous work, and of five years of

1-1
study."*" This Sonata, a product of European rather than Indian in-
fluences, consists of three movements and is written in a virtuosic
piano style with abundant octave passages and other displays of
bravura.
The Sonatina for Piano, a small master work written in 1924,
marks the beginning of Chavez's progression toward the indigenous,
nationalistic tone of his middle period works. Paul Rosenfeld, a
critic and astute observer of Chavez as a composer for oiano, de-
scribes the Sonatina as "Indian in its rigidity and peculiar earthy

3
coarseness." A closer examination of this work will appear in
Chapter IV.
Chavez's Seven Pieces for Piano (originally entitled Mexican
Pieces) > 1923-30, were first published in Henry Cowell's New Music
in 1936, and are written in a very complex, avant-garde style. Tnis
style is marked by highly chromatic and dissonant harmonies that
result frequently in an ambiguous tonal feeling reinforced by the
simultaneous use of extreme registers, polyrhythmic texture, and
metric irregularity.
The first Piece, "Polygons," is a loud, percussive, rhythmically
complex piece, with frequent changes of meter and tempo. There is
an incessant repetition of very small motives. Within a wide range,
numerous sevenths, octaves, and ninths appear, and sharp dissonance
2
Garcia Morillo, Carlos Chavez: Vida y Obras, 1960, p. 14.
3
Behague, Music in Latin America, 1979, p. 134.
23
prevails. The favored three-note chord (a perfect fourth stacked on
top of an augmented fourth) occurs frequently in the first Vivo
section, and although the piece is quite chromatic, modal scale
passages are used in the middle section, perhaps reflecting the
modality of Indian music.
The second of the Seven Pieces for Piano is entitled "36" and
was composed in 1925. This piece has a character similar to that
of "Polygons," with a relatively constant triplet figure, frequently
changing meters, and irregular accents, Many of its melodic figures
are diatonic, but the harmonies are chromatic. Its beginning measures
reveal a conjunct, diatonic triplet figuration that is found in much
of Ciavez's music.
In 1926 Chavez wrote "Solo," the third of the Seven Pieces. Tnis
short piece, only twenty-eight measures long, is simple in structure,
very melodic in character with a two-part texture. "Solo" shows the
beginning of an evolutionary process toward a more sober writing
style,
"Blues" and "Fox," the fourth and fifth Pieces, were written in
1928, Despite the descriptive titles, "Blues" and "Fox" were written
as absolute music, with no programmatic intent. "Blues" is written
in a two-part texture with each voice displaced almost systematically
by wide leaps. In a similar style is PFoxV" a piece bristling with
difficulties of execution. There is great rhythmic diversity, with
displaced accents, irregular superimposition of groupings over the
barline, and artistically varied repetitions of motives. This is
one of the most notable facets of Chavez's compositional technique.

24
Chavez composed the last two of the Seven Pieces for Piano
"Landscape" and "Unity," in 1930. "Landscape" is a minuscule creation
of only thirteen measures. Its language, somewhat less harsh than
the other Pieces, evokes characteristics of the composer's native
land.
"Unity" is discussed in Chapter IV,
The Third Sonata for Piano of 1928 is inscribed to Aaron Copland
and shows strong indigenous influences, After hearing Chavez perform
the Third Sonata, Paul Rosenfeld reported:
As for the Piano Sonata, it is as dry as a plant

lost in the sands. The leanness of the sound, the un-
compromising harshness of the counterpoint, the strict-
ness of its beat, are at first almost intolerable.
The themes are at once childlike and precise, drumlike
and decisively rhythmical. There is no voluptuousness
in the score; at moments, when the composer himself is
at the piano, we seem to listen to modal, polytonic
music executed as if the music were Bach and the per-
former a pupil of the French Conservatory. Tae fugue
is bald; the scherzo a savage dusty bit, one of those
flighty, glittering, rhapsodic passages in which we
hear an echo of the atrocious rattling and scratchings
of the Aztec instrumentalists. Yet there is perfect
logic here, and a source of new delight.^
This piece shows a percussive treatment of the piano with a
deliberately austere and abstract character, conveyed through angular
phrases and strident harmony (often the result of cross-relations).
There are four compact, contrasting movements including a four-voice
"^Paul Rosenfeld, "Carlos Chavez," Modem Music, vol. IX, no. 4

(May-June 1932), pp. 157-8.
25
fugue with intricate rhythmic combinations. The Third Sonata for
Piano will be further discussed in Chapter IV.
Ten Preludes for Piano, composed in 1937, is quite different in
treatment from Chavez's earlier piano works. Both in form and in
the natural pianism of the Preludes, Chavez renounced some of his
former stridency and created instead a modem counterpart--terse,
linear, and percussive--of Bach's preludes. The composer wrote:
My plan was to write one for each of the seven

white keys. I composed, then, a Prelude in each of
the Gregorian modes. Thus I started with the Dorian
and followed with Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Hypo-
dorian, Hypophrygian, and Hypolydian, These seven^
modes taken care of, I decided to expand the series
to ten and continued with a kind of bimodality in
the eighth and a mixture of modality-tonality in
the ninth and tenth. In almost all of my previous
works there is evidence of procedures that are
classic.or academic, such as imitations, progressions,
sequences, etc. In these Preludes I indeed followed
some of these procedures, since I felt that at least
here they were capable of going beyond traditional
effects,5
The Ten Preludes possess a hypnotizing monotony, the kind
associated with the ritual music of the Aztecs, Instead of attempting
to reproduce a direct reflection of the spirit of Mexico, Chavez has
created a synthesis of that spirit. As Paul Rosenfeld pointed out,
"This music has an original whispering, a buzzing, rustling, cackling
^Harvey E, Phillips, "Carlos Chavez," Chavez Piano Concerto,

RCA, ARL 1-3341, Maria Teresa Rodriguez, soloist, The New Phil-
harmonia Orchestra, Eduardo Mata, Conductor.
26
quality that evokes the desert, the rattling of dry pods, the
cackling song of the red man in his dusty pueblos."
T[\e first two Preludes, Andantino expressive and Vivace, reveal
a link to tradition with a glimpse of Chopin in the first and an
echo of Scarlatti in the second. The third, Poco mosso, is serene
and tranquil, with insistent syncopation. The fourth, Animato, of
greater dimensions, is largely written in a two-part texture. Its
long chains of parallel sixths (that in one instance is maintained
for forty-one measures) seem to evoke medieval organum or perhaps
fauxbourdon. The fifth, Cantabile, indulges in a rocking rhythm
within its j measures and carries with it a suggestion of the spell
of an Indian lullaby. The sixth, Calmo, is replete with ascending
lines of sevenths that resound curiously in the open two-part writing,
at times in inverted counterpoint.
The seventh Prelude, Lento, is, on the other hand, of a dramatic
and clearly orchestral hue. Its heavy, dense sounds of long duration
and its anguished melodies are elements that contribute to an im-
pressive and sonorous climax.
The eighth Prelude, Vivo, is one of the most delightful pianistic
creations of Chavez, and deserves to be better known. Its tonal
ambiguity (a combination of Lydian and Mixolydian modes on a C tonal
center) lends a definite charm which is enhanced by the graceful
^Harvey E. Phillips, "Carlos Chavez," Chavez Piano Concerto,

RCA, ARL 1-3341, Maria Teresa Rodriguez, soloist, Tae .New Phil-
27
melodic figures and the liveliness of the accompaniment. This type
of writing is very characteristic of Chavez, with its dichotomy of
legato and staccato, and broken quartal and quintal chords. The
final chord is a major tonic triad, but with both an augmented and
a perfect fourth, two intervals distinctive in the harmonic language
of Chavez.
Also of particular merit is the ninth Prelude, Moderate, molto
cantabile, that begins with a beautiful and elegant phrase of trulyV
classical serenity. It is developed with great breadth, first on
the subdominant and later on the tonic level. The middle section,
Doppio movimiento, is more agitated, with persistent repetition of a
rhythmic-melodic formula over a dominant (A) pedal point.
The tenth Prelude is discussed in Chapter IV.
In 1938 Chavez was commissioned by the Guggenheim Foundation to
compose the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, a task that was completed
on the last day of 1940, This Concerto is one of Chavez's greatest
compositions,
The high level of national sentiment stands out in this work;
it offers a valuable synthesis of diverse folkloric elements of
Mexico. However, these elements appear as no more than an aura, since
they are completely assimilated by the composer's personality, which
has permitted him to create a work of universal significance with a
Mexican accent. The Concerto does not use actual themes from Mexican
or Indian sources, yet from the beginning of the Largo non troppo
introduction, its indigenous flavor is obvious,

Several features related to Indian music are evident in the
Concerto. Diatonic and sometimes pentatonic melody, linear poly-
phonic texture, rhythmic drive through a constant flow of the basic
rhythmic unit (not unlike that of a Bach Brandenburg Concerto) , re-
petition of melodic fragments and rhythmic patterns, percussive
treatment of the piano, and a very clear orchestration that displays
an interaction of many sonorities. The harmonic vocabulary is
similar to that of many of Chavez's works, with many fourths, tritones,
sevenths, octaves, ninths, and openly-spaced chords.
The e.xtensive first movement proper, Allegro agiiato, is con-
structed in a loose sonata form. Chavez gives to the piano and
orchestra two separate sets of themes, develops both antiphonally,
and unites them in the Coda. Throughout the movement there is
brilliance, often linked to a syncopated iazziness that both recalls
the suavity of Ravel and predicts the vigor of Bernstein.' The piano
contribution is jagged, spare (octaves and single notes rather than
chords), and toccatar-like in its rhythmically insistent eighth-note
patterns.
Following without a break is the second movement, Molto lento,
which relaxes the intensity as well as the pace. This movement dis-
plays Chavez's deftness as an orchestrator and is at times reminiscent
of impressionism in its use of timbre. Yet some of its dissonances
Harvey E. Phillips, "Carlos Cnavez," Chavez Piano Concerto,

RCA, .\RL 1-3341, Maria Teresa Rodriguez, soloist. The New Phil-
29
are harsher than those of Debussy and its rhythmic vitality reasserts
itself somewhat as the movement leads into several repetitions of
the theme from the first movement.
The more conventional scherzo finale, Allegro non tronoo, asain
follows without a pause. It is notable for the intricate cross-
rhythms and for the references to previously-heard elements.
Tae Concerto will be discussed further in Chapter IV,
Chavez composed several works between 1940 and 1943 that were
left unpublished: To Juanita, 1940; Sonata IV, 1941; Miniature, 1942;
Tae Weeping Woman, 1943; and Dance of the Feather, 1943.
In 1950 Chavez arranged five Chooin Etudes in left hand inversion
These arrangements give to the left hand the more difficult material
originally written for the right hand by Chopin. The Etudes that
Chavez arranged are Opus 10, Nos. 1, 2, 5, 7, and Opus 25, No. 9.
Ciavez wrote Four New Etudes for Piano in 1952, which exist only
in manuscript form.
Invention, written in 1953, is an imposing twenty-minute one-
movement work inscribed to Aaron Copland. In this work Chavez experi-
mented with form in an unconventional way, Instead of writing a
composition with a certain amount of regularity and recurrence of
material, he aimed for the contrary. The resulting form can be
called "anti-symmetrical" or "anti-regular," and "anti-repetitive,"
This idea is supported by frequent changes of tempo and texture. It
is of an extreme emotional range, defying consistency and reveling
in contradiction.
30
Sonata V for Piano was composed in 1960. This work, in three
movements, was modeled harmonically after Mozart's Piano Sonata K.533
and has not been published.
The Etude to Rubinstein, 1964, is an ingenious study in minor
seconds. It is a nonstop virtuoso display in which the hands inter-
weave, cross each other, and play simultaneously in parallel or
contrary motion. The manuscript of this work was presented to Arthur
Rubinstein on the occasion of the first international piano competition
held in his honor in Israel.
Five Capriccios for Piano is an unpublished work commissioned
by the pianist Alan Marks in 1975. Chavez's angular and severe style
lends a new interpretation to the term "capriccio," which is by de-
finition a light, spontaneous piece. Essentially, the faster
movements (Nos. 1, 3, and 5) are full of starts, hesitations, and
changes of intention--in a word, capricious. But Nos, 2 and 4 are
slow, sustained, and unusually evocative in the lower registers of
the keyboard. The melodic design is full of major sevenths and minor
seconds, and the character is either stark or playful. Each Capriccio
is through-composed, with no repetition of musical idea. The Capriccios
are Chavez's last compositions for piano.
In sumjnary, Chavez's works for the piano are adeptly suited to
the distinctive nature of the instrument. A consummate pianist him-
self, Chavez utilized the medium in an extremely e.xpressive way, His
strong and clear writing shows great originality, while reflecting
deep respect for the works of master composers, Chavez's works for
31
piano run the gamut from romantic to modernistic and neo-classical;
from strongly nationalistic to broadly universal; and from program-
matic to absolute. In Chapter IV we shall examine the most repre-
sentative in detail.
CHAPTER IV
ANALYSIS OF SELECTED PIANO WORKS
The pieces chosen for examination in this chapter were selected
because they represent various facets of Chavez's creative career,
from the primitive to the strongly neoclassical, and from the very
early to the very recent.
The works that will be analyzed are:
Sonatina for Piano (1924)
Third Sonata for Piano (1928)
"Unity," from Seven Pieces for Piano (1930)
Prelude X, from Ten Preludes for Piano (1937)
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1940)
Etude: Homage to Chopin (1949)
Etude to Rubinstein (1974)
The limited availability of scores and recordings was a major
determining factor in choosing these works. A surprisingly small
number of Chavez's works for piano has been published, and an even
smaller number recorded (see Appendix).
Sonatina for Piano
The Sonatina for Piano, composed in 1924, is a compact work with
clear and concise writing and is characterized by such "indigenous"
features as modal melodies, the repetition of meIodic-rhythmic
motives or cells that are continually expanded, contracted, or
32
JO
otherwise varied, the driving rhythmic impulse, and the crescendos
to the end of each of the main sections.
The Sonatina is modally centered on A, and the absence of
functional tertian harmony is a notable feature. The largely diatonic
harmonic vocabulary is manifested through quartal and quintal
sonorities and a dissonant contrapuntal te.xture. The importance of
the linear aspect of the writing is emphasized by the composer's
score indication: "The same intensity in all of the voices."
The ternary form of this work is clearly delineated in the score.
Each of the three main sections ends with a cadence and a double
barline, the next section beginning with a new tempo indication.
The entire piece is based on two motives, each expanding to
become one of the principal themes. The first motive. Motive A,
is initially seen in the top voices (ml) and later throughout the
Sonatina, sometimes rhythmically altered. Motive A consists of four
scalewise descending notes, often with the first three notes in an
eighth-note triplet figure, as shown in Example 1.
Example 1, measure 1.
{••••ie«iii|
fh 1•'} ^^1^(i^m
*. ]
f—GT-
Tae second germinal motive. Motive B, is a rhythmic unit of
four eighth notes, as shown in the lower part of Example 1. The

34
motive is frequently seen as the interval of an ascending second,
once repeated. Example 2. This simple idea is later fully exploited
through inversion, sequence, and augmentation. The secundal Motive B
is initially seen in the top voice of measure 7:
Example 2, measure ".
Section A, marked Moderate, begins in — meter with the six-

•+
measure Theme A which grows out of Motive A. As the melody is
presented in the top voice, horizontal movement in fourths and
fifths can be seen in the lower two voices, especially the bass.
Seconds, sevenths, fourths, and fifths are frequently seen vertically,
and a chain of sevenths in two lower voices descends (ram 5-7, down-
beat) to the cadence which ends Theme A. The last four beats of
the chain show the soprano moving in parallel fifths with the alto
(mm 6-7, downbeat). Motive B may he noted as an accompaniment to
Motive A in measures 1 and 3. The entire Theme A is shown in
Example 3.
35
Example 3, measures 1-7
Moderate J = s*
(semprej^^ffr23amente in tevt-po)
M=^
I ^
r u-f. If-
f la stessa t7Uensita per tutte le voci
r A riiniiaiitif
^ ^
tutto legato B^M.M.........

•i #- «—^^ * - ^
hm 1 0- -1 \—I-
^ -<» !
=?
Bt.
mr M ' l-ar
7
^J-J
r r
» ^.TTTT
^ :>* ?:
. ii^
3 *
"i
*
*
* * -#- r
liiiiiiiiiMlf i
A
Besinnins in measure 7, Motive A is seen in a bass ostinato
figure, while the upper voice introduces the secundal Motive B,
which quickly grows into the oscillating Theme B, full of changes of
direction and composed entirely of seconds and thirds. Tlie melody
is doubled at the octave by the bass voice on beat 3 of almost
every bar. Example 4 shows Theme B.

36
Example 4, measures 7-13.
« . ^ .
ostinato:A/B
iiiiiii«iiiiiif
fi ' r '^' * f ' *

^ i> '
,—\ r\
a - * - ^ ' •• i i
zJ u-tr r cr
^ t^
y 4 i I I
^ I
•*s. .1 I. -? ;*:
Theme A returns [^ 13) , slightly altered melodically, and builds
steadily to the great climax of Section A, measures 20-22. A rising
melodic line (mm 17-20, downbeat) and the climbing and then plunging
bass, often moving in fifths, leads to this climax. Another tension-
producing device is the ostinato pattern over an E-flat bass pedal

3 3
4 measures becoming one —bar, bracketed
point (mm 16-17), these two j
in Example 5
Example 5, measures 16-17,
if 3 0"=^ \u ^ &
SE
'"^r-.rj r
•# i
A_ 0\ I li.'j
L.
* \".m
T if—^n
J'
The first section closes with a climactic return of Theme A
(mm 1-7, beat 1 essentially = 23-29, beat 1), with the descending
chain of sevenths slowing and building to the triple forte chord that
suggests an A minor sonority. tVhen the other notes are released,
the soprano E' is held, as a melodic thread connecting to the next
section.
Section B (mm 31-71) is divided into three parts, each based
mainly on Motive B. The three parts show a progressively increasing
tempo and dynamic level.
The first part of Section 3, Andantino (mm 31-40), displays a
new meter, —, as well as a contrasting piano dynamic level and an
essentially two-voiced texture. Motive B, partially augmented, is
sequenced in the upper voice (m 31) while Motive A appears in the
lower voice,'first in augmentation (mm 31-32, beat 1), then in sequence
(mm 33-34). A fragment of Theme B follows (mm 34, beat 5 - 37) a
perfect fifth lower than before (mm 8-9) , accompanied once more by
the Motive A bass ostinato, now a perfect fourth higher. Tliis ostinato
3
creates the effect of j meter (mm 34, beat 3 - 37), though the meter
does not actually change. This first sub-section is really a little
a-b-a form, since the ending measures 38-39 repeat the beginning
measures 31-32. The first part of Section B cadences (m 40) on a
widely-spaced four-note chord, whose notes can be arranged in
seconds (G,A,B,C) or sevenths (C,B,A,G).
Next is the Allegretto, the longest of the three parts. Con-
trast is now provided by a thicker te:xture of four voices, and the

od
A modal center. Obsessive rhythmic repetition and static harmony
give this section a "primitivistic" sound. Motive B is expanded and
sequenced in the upper voice, using only the pentachord B, C, D, E,
F, from measure 42 on. The material of measures 42-44 is repeated,
slightly altered, in measures 46-48, where the melodic pattern
seems to begin afresh with its hypnotic fluctuation. A rhythmic
ostinato in the lower voices uses Motive A in augmentation, first in
the alto (mm 46-49), and then in the bass (mm 47-30). Example 6
illustrates this augmentation.
<J ±3 I T~iyTrT
7^ I 0 'j*r 1 ~
>T
^
i
•J/-nn J
LA i
•^M.<^ r 7C
W ^
Throughout this middle sub--section the tenacious rhythm shows
the bass accented on the downbeats Cand often on beat 3), and the
39
alto emphasizing beats 1 and 3. The tenor's main thrust comes on
'the afterbeats of 1 and 3, thus effectively propelling the rhythm
in a forceful way. A slight slowing of the motion occurs at the
climactic, six-voiced Poco meno mosso (m 54), the obstinately driving
rhythm continuing all the while.
The last of the three sub-sections (mm 63-71) is marked Vivo,
Sempre fortissimo e marcato. It displays the C quartal chord in
ostinato with Motive B. The first measure (m 63) recalls measure
41 with the seconds, thirds, and diminished fourth intervals in the
soprano line. Measure 63 is immediately repeated twice.
At measure 66, and repeated in measure 67, only the seconds are
seen in the top voice, moving to the alto in measures 68-69. All
of this is over an ostinato bass line of seconds and sevenths.
Seconds and sevenths are reiterated to the point of frenzy at a
triple forte dynamic level, until a sudden stop abruptly ends Section
B (m 71) .
The note B which terminates the B Section leads to the return
of Theme A (m 72). Section A , marked Lento, is an exact repeat
of the first 22 measures of Section A, but at the slightly slower
tempo, and with a steady dynamic increase to a shattering final
cadence. An accented descending bass line (m 91), an augmented ex-
tension of Motive A, slowly moves stepwise from Great F to Contra
A, the final note of the piece. This progression gives a rather
functional feeling to an otherwise enigmatic closing cadence.

40
At measure 94 the upper voices move in constant eighth notes,
the tenor making final references to the first three notes of
Motive A (m 94, beat 3; and m 95, beats 2-3). The right hand of
measure 95 displays downward planing of octaves filled in at the
fifth. The final chord resembles the one in measures 39-40, since
these notes can be arranged in seconds (F,G,A,B) or sevenths
(B,A,G,F).
The Sonatina for Piano, though written early in Chavez's creative
career, already contains certain musical elements that are character-
istic of much of his later music. These features, which include
strongly kinetic rhythm, hemiola, full exploitation of short melodic
and rhythmic fragments, and an obvious avoidance of tertian harmonies,
give this music the harsh, brittle sound which undoubtedly springs
(at least in part) from Chavez's knowledge of primitive Aztec music.
Within its relative brevity, the Sonatina is a succinct microcosm
that makes the most of minimal materials.
Third Sonata for Piano
The Third Sonata for Piano of 1928 is characterized by a style
"deliberately angular, sparse, unprepossessing, and almost dialectic
in its uncompromising brevity and compactness." Paul Rosenfeld
Slonimsky, Music of Latin America, p. 231

41
described Chavez's Sonata as "a marvel of contraction and astringenc V
. . . austere, flinty, foreshortened . . . partial to hollow octaves

-?
and single unsupported voices."" This Sonata reveals, in addition,
a percussive treatment of the piano with deliberately harsh counter-
point and harmony, often the result of cross-relations.
The Sonata was dedicated to Aaron Copland who found it "too
personal for ready understanding, too taut, too highly condensed for
popular comsumption." Herbert Weinstock felt that the Third Piano
Sonata suggests "the unsensuous harshness of Mexico's highland land-
scapes . . . magnificent and spacious plateaus of craggy distance,

4
where stolid people wring a livelihood from a forbidding nature."
Movement I
The first Movement, Moderato, is very short, almost seeming to
be an introduction or prelude to the work: It consists of two major
sections linked by a short transition: A (mm 1-32), transition
(mm 53-39), A^ (mm 40-71).
Both of the main sections are based on the eight-bar Theme A.
Tliis Theme is comprised of three distinct short phrase units:
Phrase a (mm 1-2), Phrase b (mm 3-5), and Phrase c (mm 6-8).
^Rosenfeld, "Carlos Chavez," Modern Music, p. 155.
"^Henry Cowell, The Book of Modern Composers (New York: Alfred

Knopf, 1942), p. 123.
"Îbid- , P- 124,
42
Phrase a is a question and answer, with the question in the first
measure and the answer coming in the left-hand part of measure 2. The
notes and rhythm of the upper question (Motive a), G, C, F (R.H.),
are in turn used in the answer, though the pitches are in a different
order, (B) C, F, G (L.H.). This first motive begins with a ninth in
both hands, an interval which is exploited throughout the movement.
The main beat notes of measure 1 (omitting the C) are used in
diminution to evolve into a short melody later in this movement.
Phrase a is sho\>m in Example 7.
Moderato *=^
= ^8
iiiiiiiiaii
t ^ ^
IrfliiTiiii
Phrase b demonstrates polyrhythm, with two eighth notes against
an eighth-note triplet. This begins with the hands three octaves
apart, both, on the note F. They then climb disjunctly, independently,
but arrive at another octave consonance, B-flat (m 4, beat 1). The
right hand then moves down, sustaining a B-flat, and the left hand
falls even farther with a five-note idea in octaves. Ejcamnle 8 shows
Phrase h.
43
E.xample 8, measures 3-5.
^ ^ ^
Phrase c contrasts in rhythmic nature and character from the
first two phrases. Measures 6-" are a simple diatonic melody, using
only four notes, D, E, F, and G, in stepwise motion. The left-hand
accompaniment consists of broken ninths and octaves.
Measure 8 brings a crashing ninth, then four sixteenth notes in
a seemingly random pattern, falling to Great C on the doi^mbeat of
measure 9. Phrase c is shown in Example 9. •
Eaample 9, measures 6-8
l,£ ,»^-> j . ^ ^ ^ X. ,/
^ ^
53
K
"* Ih ^
After Theme A is completed on the downbeat of measure 9, almost
everything in this movement can be directly or indirectly related to
one of the three Phrases (a, b, or c).
In measure 9, Motive a is stated once in diminution, after which
the principal beat notes of the motive (G and F) initiate a four-

44
measure unison melody over an E-flat pedal point. The tune ends with
one measure of — meter, followed by three statements of Motive a in
diminution, over an E bass pedal (mm 14-15).
A bass glissando leads to two ninth dissonances (mm 16-17, beat 1),
similar to measure 8, beat 1, of Phrase c. Motive a is again seen in
diminution, but again turns into the melody seen earlier (last two
sixteenths of mm 9-13). The melody moves down a pentachord to rest
on the note C, while the left hand takes up the rhythm of Phrase c
in a staccato, repeated-note ostinato figure on the notes C-sharp
and G-sharp. This one-measure figure is repeated twice (mm 20-22).
The C-natural against C-sharp is then emphasized and accented.
The glissando and ninth seen earlier are now followed by a quick G, B,
F major-minor-seventh chord that goes to a diminution of measure 1.
A secundal figure taken directly from the left-hand part of Phrase a
(second half) is used to bring a repeat of Phrase b (m 26), which
leads to an apparent cadence (m 27). This cadence shows a sustained
G octave in the right hand over an eighth-note repeated low F octave
in the left hand, again the interval of a ninth. This measure (m 26)
is repeated four times, progressively softer, and comes to rest in
measure 32.
The transition starts with the anacrusis to measure 33, using
the four-bar melody derived from Phrase a, now a step lower, but
still over an E-flat bass pedal (mm 33-36). The transition continues
(mm 37-38) with the first half of Phrase c, an augmented fourth lower
than before. A split octave, E-against E-flat, expands and cresendos

45
in each hand to become ninths leading to the return of Phrase a and
the beginning of Section A . This section is a literal repeat of the
first section until measure 58, when the material from measure 19-32
is now either a perfect fourth or a perfect fifth higher (mm 58-71).
As we will see also in the later movements, Chavez's use of
dissonance is strikingly sharp. This harshness is sustained throughout
the first movement until the end, where a surprisingly consonant
suggestion of a deceptive cadence comes to rest on an implied B-flat
major triad.
Movement II
The second movement, Un poco mosso, is quickly characterized by
the freedom of its contrapuntal lines. There are almost always two
voices, with fluctuating polyrhythm, oscillating in the superimpositions
of groups of two, three, and four notes per beat, sometimes within
changing meters. In form the movement consists of three large sections,
the second a somewhat shorter repeat (or development) of the first,
and the third a much abbreviated repeat of the first. The key is
never clearly defined, but has a definite modal cast, and seems to hover
around an A center.
This movement is chiefly based on one rhythmic motive, labeled X:
2
4 ;
The movement then spins out in a way analogous to much of J. S. Bach's
writing.
46
The motive is varied in several ways throughout the movement
For example, the motive may appear in this form:
9
(mm 8, 14) ;
4
or
3
4 J m mi (m 51) ;
or
. yîmrm (ram 55-36);
or
uu [ r (mm 44-45);
or extended to
s s ]J (.mm 1-2) .
Another rhythmic motive that appears a great deal (though less
frequently than Motive X) is Motive Y:
run
Section A begins with a four-bar phrase, Example 10, initiated
by Motive X in the upper voice and single notes in the left-hand line,
sometimes on the offbeat to emphasize the two-against-three rhythm.
This first phrase ends (m 4) with Motive Y. Both Motives X and Y
use the tritone interval F-B in the initial appearances. This in-
terval, as well as the perfect fourth and fifth, are used both
harmonically and melodically to create the primitive, modal sound of
this movement.
Un poco mosso J = i38 V

iniiimiiiiiii •I r
^
&IIII I >tj=i
?2:
-* »-
^
j V X' S £ rfc: -h- ^ ^

P
^
Measures 5-8, E:<ample 11, display a right-hand pentachord
melody on the notes E, F, G, A, B, above Motive X in a rhythmic
ostinato Cmm 5-7) that is rhythmically reversed in measure 8.

49
Motive X appears over Motive Y, outlining a D major triad in
first inversion, F-sharp, D, A, and is repeated in the next measure
(mm 25-24). A momentary shift to j meter, mandated by accents,
occurs in measure 25, in descending broken F-sharp, G-sharp, A-sharp
octaves. In contrast, an ascent begins immediately (m 26) using the
octaves B, C, D, E (mm 26-28), each sporting the afterbeats F and G.
A bass scale, also in octaves, then climbs a tenth from B to D
(mm 2", last half- 29, beat 1).
Measures 29 and 30 use the rhythm of measures 1 and 2, though
melodically more disjunct, and in the middle range of the keyboard.
The composer changes the meter to — in measure 31, where Motive X is

4
seen with its first beat extended. The octave bass descends in half
and whole steps, recalling the left-hand part of measure 12.
Measure 32 repeats measure 25, then measures 33-34 recall the
rhythm of measures 1-2, as did measures 29-30. Tlie next measure
(m 35) shows a tied, syncopated rhythmic figure similar to that of
measure 21. Measure 36 again recalls measure 1 (Motive X). Low
broken ninths, then seconds, accompany in the left hand (mm 34-36),
stepping down to the lowest A on the piano (m 37, beat 1), while
2
the right hand steps up to .A .
Measure 37 demonstrates a brief imitation, where the right hand
(beat 1) is copied by the left hand (beat 2). Beginning with beat
2 of the left hand, there is a repeat of the lower part of measures
7 and 8, after which measure 1 is recalled (m 59).
Motive Y, in ostinato, is seen in the bass (mm 40-42), accom-
panied (mm 40-42) and imitated (m 43) by high, open triads. Here
30
Motive Y (mm 40-42) employs the interval of a seventh instead of
a tritone.
In measures 44-46 the meter changes to ^. Measure 44 is a series
of scalewise octaves, descending in sevenths via octaves displace-
ment: C, D, E, F, G, finally coming to rest on A. The rhythm of
Motive X is shown in measure 45 (beats 2-3), while measure 46 takes
the left-hand octave idea of measures 12 and 31 and e.xpands it further.
The right hand, in contrary motion to the left, moves in seconds and
thirds.
The meter changes to j in the next measure (m 4") and repeats
beats 2 and 5 of bar 46, after which the four left-hand octaves are
again repeated (m 48), with the last note changed.
Bar 49 begins a new phrase with the right hand introducing a
rhythmic motive in thirds ( from m 35, R.H.), immediately repeated a
ninth higher in quintal planing. This repetition (m 50) is above
more quintal planing, and the hands are in two-against-three rhythmic
opposition.
Measures 53-56 develop measures 53-36, partially a fifth higher
(mm 55-56). The next bar (m 57) recreates the rhythm of measure 30,
a second lower, and in octaves.

3 2
Next we see two bars of j meter (mm 60-61) and one of j (m 62),
all rhythmically very simple and emphasizing vertical sonorities of
sevenths and octaves. These measures are repeated in a higher octave,

and slightly altered, in measures 64-66.
In measures 67-68 there appears an alto figure which relates
somewhat to the oscillating seconds of the pentachord melody from

51
measures 6 and 7, Under this, the bass line moves in seconds and
octaves. The left hand of measure 68 is similar to that of measure
59, with its repeated Great Cs.
The secundal figure and related material continue, often in
octaves, (mm 69-83), with the left hand moving both stepwise and in
large leaps. For example, we see an ascending scale (mm 69, beat
3- 71, beat 2) from Great D to Small G, while the lower parts of
measures 76, "8, and 79 consist of leaps covering an octave or more.
This hesitant, rhythmically-confusing (caused by changing meters and
syncopation) passage leads dissonantly to the next large section.
The beginning of Section A (m 84) is an almost exact repetition
of the first section (mm 1-36 = mm 84-119). More similarity is seen
in measures 116-159, which relate to the earlier measures 53-76,
sometimes a perfect fifth higher or lower than before (mm 118-131).
Tae next three bars (mm 132-134) are an exact repeat of
measures 69-71. The left hand then continues exactly the same
(mm 135-159 = mm 72-76), but the right-hand line is moved a second
higher.
Measures 140-150 constitute a contrapuntal, fortissimo buildup
to the Coda section, using material derived from the pentachord

2
melody of measures 5-8. The last Section, A , begins m measure 151.
Here the melodic intervals are changed from the opening, but the
Motive X rhythm clearly identifies the return. Measures 151-154 cor-
respond to measures 1-4 and 84-87; measures 156-158 are a free re-
statement of measures 5-8; and measures 159-161 are a repeat of

52
measures 9-11, Measures 162-167 are almost identical to measures
31-37; the same similarity occurs between measures 164-175 and measures
33-44.
The final bar (m 177) points to the A center that has been
fairly constant throughout the movement. The hands play in unison,
going from the subtonic note (G) up to the high A octave that ends
the movement.
The preponderance of recurring rhythmic cells with their subtle
modifications, strongly unifies this movement, while the harsh counter-
point and constantly-changing, irregular rhythms result in a starkly
primitive utterance.
Movement III
The third movement, Lentamente, is perhaps the most enigmatic
of the Sonata, reflecting in its four-voice polyphonic texture, at
times with doubling in octaves, the tendencies of the composer toward
pure, absolute music, seemingly "independent of philosophic, literary,
or plastic suggestion."
The movement is a four-voice fugue, in which the subject and
answer are in modal relation. The construction, very solid, rests on
a subject that is repeated almost constantly, accompanied by rich,
dense counterpoint.
^Garcia Morillo, Carlos Chavez: Vida y Obras , p. 64

DO
The two-bar subject first appears in the soprano voice (mm 1-2),
2
starting on F , It is accompanied by a very disjunct left-hand line,
often in dissonant counterpoint.
Another statement of the subject follows immediately in the
tenor (mm 3-4). This tonal answer is at the interval of the fifth
(fourth below), on C. The right-hand accompaniment (m 3) seems to be
a loose inversion of the accompaniment of measure 1; while in measure
4 the accompaniment is a figure consisting of the first three subject-
notes, inverted. Example 12 shows the initial statement of the
subject and its answer.
Lentamente J-72 SUBJECT

|iips«*
-0^
ANSWER
In measures 5-6,. there is a short episode of free counterpoint,
including imitation (m 5, beat 1: R.H.; and beat 2: L.H,), and
quasi-sequence in the right-hand part (m 5, beats 1-2; beat 5-m6, beat
1), all based on the first six notes of the subject.
The next statement of the subject (mm 7-8) is in the alto
voice, on the original level of F. The soprano introduces an ascending
pentachord figure, four sixteenth-notes followed by a quarter note
(m 7, beat 3), that recurs frequently in the fugue.

34
Another episodic passage (ram 9-10) uses motives derived from the
subject, and the sixteenth-note pentachord is seen both ascending and
descending.
The next statement of the subject is seen in measures 11-12 in
the bass, doubled in octaves in the soprano, while the inner parts
provide filler counterpoint. The following three-measure episode
(mm 13-15) employs subject-derived material, especially in measures
14-15.
The left hand (m 14) uses the first three subject-notes, inverted.
In measure 14, sporano, and measure 15, soprano and tenor, we see
motives based on the last five subject notes; the pentachord figure
is also utilized.
Measures 16-17 reveal the subject in inversion, doubled in
octaves in the soprano and alto voices. Stretto occurs in the last
half of Measure 17, when the bass enters with another inverted state-
ment a fourth lower, on A,
The right hand of measure 18 introduces a trill-like accompaniment
figure that is seen several more times before the end of the movement.
The inverted bass statement is finished by measure 19, beat 2,
and the remainder of the bar is episodic, based on the first three
subject notes.
Measure 20 brings yet another inverted subject, slightly shortened
and in the tenor, in stretto with another inversion on beat 2 that
begins in the alto (first two notes). It then leaps to the soprano
voice, as the alto takes up the trill-like figure,

bo
In measure 21 the bass and alto display the trill figure, and the
tenor makes a false inverted entry on beat 2.
The tenor states the complete subject (mm 22-23), doubled at
times in octaves by the alto. Measures 24-25 exhibit stretto with
simultaneous statements: one in the soprano, the other an inversion
in the tenor.
In measure 26 there is a false entry of the subject in the
tenor in augmentation, undoubtedly intended to prepare the listener
for the complete-augmented entry to follow. This is accompanied in
the bass by a descending eighth-note scale, with sequence in the
soprano continuing through beat 2 of measure 27. Measures 27-28
display an interesting example of four-voice stretto. The tenor
enters (m 27, beat 2) with an augmented statement, followed in stretto
on the downbeat of measure 28 with another augmentation, now in the
soprano, along with a bass statement in diminution.
All four voices are in stretto when the alto enters (m 2S,
beat 5), also in diminution. Measure 29 shows the conclusion of the
alto statement, and the continuation of the soprano and tenor aug-
mentations, which end in measures 30 and 31, respectively.
Meanwhile, the accompanying material includes the si:<teenth-note
ascending pentachord (m 29, beat 3: alto) and the trill-like figure
(m 30: alto), This four-voice stretto is shown in Example 13.
Measure 31 brings the final subject entry (beat 2) in the soprano,
doubled at the octave at times by the alto, and the momentary addition
of a fifth textural voice.

56
•a J j - % n i A
i9J f :«=»:
^ -*—*-
^m
if
* ~ » ^ » ^
y-!
/)JW y?>r/c
i ZJfc
m
^*#^
:?!» »
fr
Measures 32-33 complete the soprano statement, with the alto in
sequence, and the bass descending and ascending in the pentachord
figure, in eighth and sixteenth notes.
The final cadence descends to an A in the bass, while the B in
the alto and D in the soprano produce the sound of an unresolved
double 2'^ suspension.
In performing this fugue, care must be taken to emphasize the
subject in its various forms and derivations, in order to give the
listener an impression of unity and coherence.
Although Chavez followed a traditional and highly-structured
compositional process, the freely dissonant polyphony creates a
beguilingly exotic aura in this movement.

Movement IV
The fourth movement, Claro y concise, is in a fast tempo that,
along with the triple meter, at times suggests a scherzo. The sharp
contours and harsh dissonances offer a character further defined by
the use of short and incisive motives.
As in the first and second movements, Chavez concentrates his
efforts on the exploitation of rhythmically-identifiable motives,
more than melodic ideas.
The motives used in this movement include:
^ 11 (ml), labeled Motive X;
and
nnnu (mm 19-20, beat 1) ,

Motive Y
These are merely two of the main motives that we see in this
movement. They are varied and mutated in numerous ways, resulting
in a tightly-woven piece of music.
Another factor that this movement shares with the others is its
unclear tonality, emitting instead a primitively modal flavor. The
extreme registers of the piano are used, at times simultaneously,
to produce full, strong sonorities.
Formally this movement is comprised of four sections, with the
last three being developments or altered repeats of the first
(mm 1-35). The second (mm 36-70) and fourth (mm 96-126) sections
i8
also closely resemble each other. This structure suggests a theme
and variations format.
The movement begins in j meter with Motive X in both the right-
and left-hand parts, the former surrounded by a C octave. Although
the rhythm in both hands is the same, the notes and intervals are
different, creating harsh dissonance.
The right hand of measure 2 is a sequence of measure 1, up a
second, but the left hand descends stepwise through measure 3. The
right hand is an E, A, E sonority, except for a lower-neighbor-tone,
G, in the middle voice. This upper hollow chord is repeated in
syncopation, while the left hand moves in straight quarter notes.
Measures 4 and 5 again state Motive X, the right hand a second
higher each'time, as in measures 1-2, At measure 6, both hands
reach A's by contrary motion. The right hand began in measure 1
with the C octave, stepping up on the downbeat of each measure;
whereas the left hand began in the middle of the keyboard (B') and
arrives at Contra A by both skip and step. E.xample 14 shows these
first five measures.
Measures 6-8 consist of very disjunct movement in both hands,
syncopated rhythm, and sharp dissonance. Measure 8, beat 3, shows
the hands in unison on E's. These E's move to D's (m 9) that retum,
in parallel movement, to another statement of Motive X (m 10).
In the left-hand part (mm 10, beat 3 - 14, beat 1), there is a
rather long descending quarter-note scale, part of which demonstrates
hemiola. The two-note phrases (mm 12-13) group the notes so that
59
they equal one bar of j meter. Meanwhile, the right hand of measures
12-13 also illustrates hemiola, though of a different type. The
eighth notes are grouped in threes, so that there seem to be two
beats per bar, or - meter. This hemiola is illustrated in Example 13
CIATO y Conoko J -126 u _ >A .^^^j-^^-v \ ^<ri>v
•% r w — ^ • — r ijf • " r-m 'M •—iM •—m—
jTrin îts:
9J
m^
f^ «j ^.
Measure 14, beat 3-measure 15, beat 2, displays the first part
of Motive Y in the alto voice. This is accompanied by the left
hand, ascending stepwise in quarter notes, and framed by octaves, as
was Motive X (mm 1-2). Measure 15 also uses the initial notes of
Motive Y, this time in the soprano voice.
In the following two measures (mm 17-18), the left hand, over
an open fifth in the bass, starts a figure that recalls the three
60
eighth notes from the upper hemiola of measure 12. This figure follows
the outline of an A-flat major pentachord. The right hand plays in
repeated and neighboring octaves and unisons on the notes D, E, F,
and G.
Measures 19-20 bring Motive Y to the alto, again encased by
octaves, over a left-hand C, G, F chord. A three-note left-hand
cluster expands to five notes, then disintegrates to single notes,
and steps down to B.
Measures 21-22 give a varied repeat of measures 1-2, the left
hand an octave lower, and the right hand in open octaves, an octave
higher.
Measure 23 resembles measure 3, with the inner alto part a
derivation of Motive Y. The following two measures (mm 24-25) vary
measures 17-18, with the right-hand octaves now ninths, and the
left hand moving from the A-flat pentachord to B-flat broken octaves.
These lead up to a high B-flat octave (m 25) that is sustained over
a statement of Motive X in left-hand octaves (m 26).
Measure 27 varies measure 9, the left-hand part a third higher,
and the right-hand part inverted melodically. Measures 28-29 recall
measure 1-2, omitting the upper octaves, with very high quarter-note
octaves in the left hand, so that the hands are crossed. Measure 30
repeats measure 26,
In measure 31 there appears the material from measure 9, with
the left-hand notes changed, and similarly, a statement of Motive X
in both hands follows (m 32), With the resolution (beat 2) of a left-
hand ninth, octave B's completely surround the motive.

61
In the next measure (m 33), Chavez indicates that each note
in a left-hand ascending triplet scale is to be played with the third
finger. This technique, necessitating the use of arm weight, is an
overt demonstration of Chavez's strongly percussive treatment of the
piano. Over this hammered scale is a broken ninth resolving to an
octave, a figure repeated in the next measure (m 34).
Measure 35 restates measure 3, the right hand a second higher,
the left hand a second lower. Measures 36-37 repeat measures 4-5,
with the addition of a Contra C octave (m 36).
Measure 38 shows Motive X in the upper part, as the lovver part
rises in broken octaves. Measures 39-41 illustrate a series of triplet-
figure imitations. These imitations occur every two beats, and create
the impression of three bars of ^ meter.
The alternating imitations begin on: ra 38, beat 2, L.H.; m 40,
beat 1, R.H.; m 40, beat 3, L.H.; and m 41, beat 2, R.H. The imitation
ends on the doimbeat of measure 42, on a B, A-sharp, B chord, widely-
spaced over a repeated sixteenth-note Contra A (beats 2-3).
Another example of hemiola is seen in measures 45-44. An ostinato
triplet pattern based on E is grouped by two-note slurs and accents
to indicate three bars of j meter, as shown in Example 16.
! » I I ' I -•' « II I 1 'I ' ' 't =

62
Measure 45 exploits two-against-three rhythm, with a Motive Y
derivation above and an accented triplet descent to Sub-contra A

4
below. Measure 46, in j meter, shows loose imitation of the descending
right-hand scale by the left hand, which begins as an inversion of
that scale.
A moment of repose occurs (m 47), with the notes tied through
this j2 ^^^- Measures 48-49 are a sequence of measures 46-47, with
the right hand a second lower and the left a third higher.
Hemiola is again seen in the right hand of measures 50-52,
again effected through ostinato. The notes are grouped into six bars
2 4 3
of J (or three bars of j) and one bar of -5-.
4
Measure 55, in j meter, shows downward planing of right-hand
quintal sonorities, while the left hand answers on beats 5-4. This
measure' is a variation of measure 46, but the right hand is now
doubled at the fifth and octave, and the left hand is doubled in
octaves, a fifth lower than before.
A momentary cadence occurs in measure 54, marcato, pointing to A.
The action quickly resumes in measure 55, with a repeat of the
percussive scale from measure 33, the right-hand notes a fifth or
fourth lower. Measure 56 repeats measure 34.

3-'
In measure 57 the meter changes to -~. Chavez did not use the
equivalent -^ meter, most probably because he wanted the beat value

o
to remain constant. This right hand shows quintal and quartal chords
(beats 2-3) using a syncopated rhythm derived from measure 3 (alto)

63
in diminution. Beat 3 is Motive X in diminution. The left hand
accompanies in single eighth notes.

2h
Measure 58, m —-meter, displays the right hand in an eighth-
4
note triplet, followed by another syncopation resembling that of
measure 57, this time in thirds and unisons. The left hand descends
in scalar eighth notes from G to C . Measure 59 is a quasi-sequence
of measure 58, altered melodically, with the right hand basically a
third higher, while the left-hand line, totally different, is a
disjunct series of eighth notes.
In ~- meter, measure 60 exhibits Motive Y in diminution over a
repeat of the lower part of measures 19-20, beat 1, also in diminution
Measure 61, in -7- meter, employs the triplet figure from measures
58-55 in-augmentation.
Motive Y is used in the right hand of measures 62-63, emphasizing
the notes C, D, and E, while the next two measures (64-65) step up
in accented eighth notes from A to E. The left-hand part of measures

3
62-65 is an ostinato, climbing from Contra A to E in ninths, ana
repeated three times (mm 65-65).
Measure 66, in j , shows a right-hand sixteenth-note ostinato
pattern that is repeated every three notes, making this measure
sound like four groups of triplets.
Measure 67 is an altered repeat of measure 54, the left hand now
on G-sharp, against the right-hand G-naturals and As.
Measure 68 repeats 57 an octave lower, while 69 repeats 60, the
right hand an octave lower.

64
Measure 70 refers to measure 62, with its use of Motive Y,
followed by a sudden thinning of the texture (ra 71), where a single
small C-sharp is repeated in eighth notes. The disjunct left hand
of measure 59 is recalled by the right hand of measure 72, pointing
to octave E's on the last two eighth notes of the bar. The left
hand (m 73) now seems to loosely imitate the right hand of the
preceding measure, accompanied by octaves filled in with thirds. The
lower part (m 74) shows Motive Y diminished, and then imitated, in
the alto voice (m 75),
In measure 76 the notes B and C are emphasized, as well as a G
octave in the right hand. The rhythmic activity slows down in this
measure, then picks up again in measure 77, In this measure, the
right-hand octaves step up from G to'C, melodically doubled by the
left hand on the last two eighth notes. The right hand (m 78) again
uses Motive Y, and is imitated by the left hand (ra 79), under a
secundal right-hand chord, F, D, E, similar to that of measure 76.
Measure 81 uses the right-hand material of measure 58, slightly
altered intervalically. The left hand accompanies with a secundal
construction, E, F, D, related to the right hand of measure 79.
Measure 82 employs the rhythm of measure 54, but the right hand is
doubled in fifths and fourths instead of octaves. The last eighth
note is a B, doubled at two octaves. The top voice shows an inverted
mordant that is repeated a second higher on the second eighth note of
measure 83; this measure also makes a quick reference to the syncopated
figure first used in measure 57,

65
Measure 84 is a melodically-altered statement of the rhythm of
measure 78, over a sustained ninth and single eighth notes in the
bass. Measure 85 is yet another statement of the diminished Motive Y,
with a dotted-sixteenth-thirty-second-note left-hand figure, descending
chromatically on the last one and one-half beats.
Motive X appears in C and D octaves (m 86), accompanied by broken
B and A-flat octaves, building to measure 87, a repeat of measure 57.

2k
Measures 88-89, in -r- meter, are measures 58-59 in invertible
counterpoint. Measure 90 restates measure 61, the right hand melodically
changed, while measure 91 is a repeat of measure 86 with the right
hand an octave lower.
Measures 92-93 almost exactly repeat measures 68 and 85, re-
spectively.
Measures 95-125, which take us to the penultimate measure, are
an exact repeat of measures 35-65. Measure 125 is extended, to end
the piece on a sustained G and E, tied through measure 126, when a
low E octave implies an E minor final cadence.
In describing this final movement, Paul Rosenfeld wrote:
The scherzo is a savagely dusty piece in which

we hear an echo of the rattlesnake and the raspings
of the Aztec instruments. On the other hand, the ^
piece possesses lyricism and a profound, austere beauty.
Garcia Morillo, Carlos Chavez: Vida y Obras, p. 66

66
In the Third Sonata for Piano Chavez has once more elicited a
great deal of use from the barest of elements. The harshness and
vigor of indigenous influences is ever present, even amid such tradi-
tional compositional processes as fugue. The adherence to conservative
formal structures sets boundaries within which the rampant tonal and
rhythmic freedom are contained and controlled. As in the Sonatina for
Piano, the movements (except for the fugue) are each based on short
motives that not only serve as powerful unifying factors, but also
act as an ingenious means of variation through Chavez's adept handling.
"Unity," from Seven Pieces for Piano
"Unity" is the longest and most substantial of Chavez's Seven
Pieces for Piano, composed in 1930. It is in a direct incisive style,
in which the writing is linear and austere, with a unity of procedures,
as indicated by the title and Chavez's own notes:
The unity of this piece comes from its consider-

able general cohesion and its well-integrated archi-
tecture. ^
Sonata form is a manifestation of its tightly unified structure.
"Unity" is a piece of splendid pianistic writing. Its very fast
tempo and superimposed rhythmic groupings give it an intoxicating drive
that persists to the very end.
'^Garcia Morillo, Carlos Chavez: Vida y Obra_s,p. 68

The Exposition, measures 1-57, opens with Theme I, Example 17.
This theme begins with Motive lA, a right-hand quartal triplet figure
on beat 1, using the melodic notes B-flat, C, F-sharp, against a B-
natural in the left hand. The two parts then move in contrary triplet
scales, coverging on the do\^mbeat of measure 2. This motive is re-
peated in measure 2, with the left-hand scale then beginning a step
lower. The left hand of measure 3 shows a stepwise Motive, IB, an
eighth-note triplet followed by two quarter notes. This motive is
manipulated throughout the piece. The right hand of the measure
(beat 2) begins a dotted-eighth-sixteenth-note pattern, IC, that pro-
vides sharp rhythmic contrast to the heretofore prevalent triplets.
Measures 4-5 continue Motive IC over the detached, accented
left hand that steps down in quarter notes until measure 5, beat 5,
when the left-hand Motive IB begins.
Example 17, measure 1-5.*
ÎvO J = 160 lA
3E: ts. -0^-r
3 4
#7»# ^-C—«-
mS^
121
-r±-
-jn*- v*~^ • I -# ^^
IB
Measures 6-7 contain both triplet and dotted rhythms in the
right hand F Lydian pentachord, beginning with a repeated-note triplet.
Reprinted with permission of Belwin-Mills Publishing Corp.

68
Motive IB, later imitated by the left hand (m 7, beat 1). Measures
8-11 display the first example of hemiola in this piece. The notes are
in two-beat groups, so that the four ^ bars seem to be three - bars

4 4
Measures 12-15 (through beat 2) introduce a new Theme, ID, Example
18. Here the right hand is a descending A Aeolian pentachord in
alternating quarter and half notes, doubled at the seventh by the
middle voice. This Theme is an augmented form of the upper voice of
Motive lA (m 1, beats 2-3). Accompanying in the bass is an ostinato
triplet figure related to Motives lA and IB.
Example 18, measures 12-15.*
ostinato
Motive ID is immediately varied in measures 15, beat 3-19. The
melody, now an F Lydian tetrachord, doubled at the octave, is ac-
companied by Motive IB in the bass and alto, moving at times in
parallel fourths, and at other times in contrary motion. The bass
octaves (m 18) show Motive IB in repeated notes, as in measures 6-7.
This figure is repeated on C-sharp in single notes (m 19, beat 3) ,
and then walks down in quarter notes to cadence on E.
•Reprinted with permission of Belwin-Mills Publishing Corp

69
Measures 21-24 introduce the second theme of the Exposition,
Example 19. This is a tune based on the right-hand notes. A, C, and
D. Chavez has taken a simple motive, repeated it, and turned it into
a waltz-like melody. This plaintive ostinato gives the Theme its
primitive sound.
Theme II
The left hand, suggesting an A Aeolian mode, moves in a waltz-
like accompaniment of broken octaves, in which the upper note is
sustained and the lower note is repeated on beats 2 and 3, This
pattern is inverted in measures 26-30, with the lower note sustained
and the upper note repeated. Measures 25-28 repeat Theme II, thus
becoming an eight-bar theme of four-plus-four.
The gentle waltz accompaniment continues on B-flat while (m 29)
Motive IB occurs in the alto between .A and C octaves, immediately
repeated (m 30). Measures 31-38, a short transition, demonstrate
another use of he.miola. The Motive IB alto and bass voices of measure
31 remain in —, while the soprano, doubled in octaves by the tenor,
is in -3-. Similar rhythm is seen in measure 32.

o
Reprinted with permission of Belwin-Mills Publishing Corp

"0
Measures 33-36, beat 1, show the simultaneous use of —, y, and ^

8 4 4
meters in combination with ostinato patterns, as shown in Example 20.
The soprano and tenor voices are in a - C, D, ostinato. The alto is in

o
— o
a J ostinato, and the bass is in a disjunct j pattern. All of this
happens at a frenzied fortissimo dynamic level. Tlie last half of
measure 36 begins a scalar eighth-note descent in the right hand,

3
clearly back in T- meter, above left-hand octaves that drop by perfect
6
fourths, m j meter.
Exam.ple 20, measures 33-56.
I' ""I {•••.•••.••I
^ # ••<» '•'m.m * * *'•*

- J — ^m.M' 0 •* \ * mm*'
"H T / I
i^ I : » ; ^ •X :< :# ' I—#-

:zi
littauaiiiil
^*-^ W }>*v V>•] :
:K
*-^' W p#y '^
Both hands stop on E (m 59), for another statement of Theme II,
an octave higher than before, and with the accompaniment beginning
a sixth lower, suggesting an F major mode. The Tneme is stated once
(mm 39-43), then twice used in fragment as a sort of echo (mm 44-46,
47-48) .
The mood abruptly changes (mm 49-50), when the rhythm demonstrates
2
more hemiola. The right hand descends in a j pattern that spells a
Reprinted with permission of Belwin-Mills Publishing Corp.

C major triad plus an added sixth, A. This is above Motive IB,
stated twice in the left hand, in ^.

4
Measure 51 is in -meter, followed in the next three measures by
a combination of j in the upper voice, j in the middle voice, and y
in the left hand. Measures 49-54 are seen in Example 21.
S.
8%
r — I w-Z ' 1 . 1 1 a. J ^ •—^'-^
* M ^
: ' ^_J> ^ty \^'^ r* • * • *. 't '^
«w 4
Measures 55-57, marked fortissimo and marcatissimo, end the Ex-
position. They consist of an accented eighth-note right-hand part
that steps down to a Sraall E, D, ostinato. The left-hand part, also
accented, is an augmented derivation of the triplet accompaniraent
figure of Motive ID. The next four measures (mm 58-61) begin the
Development, and reveal a pattern of broken octaves: eighth notes in
the upper part, doubled a seventh below by single quarter notes in
the lower part. This parallel stepwise movement, as seen in Example
22, resembles that of Motive IB. These four measures are immediately
repeated in measures 62-65.

72
i n :=^M
,• I »'
.'-^^
*i #f^
a ^^.-^^^
-#4
^^^t^p3f
ji * i^ h — u
^ ^ .^<;>^^=^
VV #
^ ^ 'U ^ ^ *j rj-t3—-sr- W *!
m i 4
t !
1 ^ H ^ >-
Measures 66-68 are a repeat of the hemiola in measures 33-35,
except that the left hand is now staccato. Measure 69 is similar to
measure 56, with the texture inverted, followed (m 70) by a descending
C-sharp diminished-seventh arpeggio that lands on a left-hand C
octave (m 71, beat 1).
Measures 71-72 show a right-hand scale that climbs to a fleeting
reference to Theme IIA, (m 75) , melodically altered, and initiated
by an F major chord. Measures 74-75 are similar to measures 49-50, the
left hand stating Motive IB on Great D, below an Fraaiorbroken chord.
Measure 76 is similar to measure 51, a perfect fourth lower.
Measures 77-79 state the material of measures 52-54 a step lower,
except that the left hand is now a Lydian pentachord figure.
The meter changes to j at cantando molto (m 80), and a new melodic
figure of three notes, E, A, and G, appears, intervalically parallel to
Theme IIA. This melody is at times accompanied at the octave in the
*Reprinted with permission of Belwin-Mills Publishing Corp.

/o
tenor voice. The alto voice accompanies in eighth notes, at times
syncopated, in a figure related to Motive IB, while whole-note
octaves are in the bass on G, F, and E (mm 80-82, first half),
reminiscent of the long notes at the beginning of each measure of
Theme II.
One and one-half measures of secundal material intervene before
another statement of measures 80-82 occurs, an octave higher (mm 84-
85) .
At measure 86, more hemiola begins as the written meter returns
to —. The rhythm of measures 86-91 resembles that of the right-hand
part of measures 53-38. Here the entire texture is planed downward,
with parallel fourths between the upper two voices, the alto in a
sequenced pattern based on three notes (two descending seconds).
The left hand moves in octaves, forming an F Lydian pentachord, the
tenor sounding a seventh above, on the second half of each bar.
A descending scale divided between the hands (mm 90-91) leads to
a left-hand octave motive (mm 92-93), that seems to clearly point to
an A minor center with the leading-tone G-sharp.
Measures 94-96 repeat measures 52-54, while measures 97-98 re-
peat 92-93, with an additional bass octave E on the downbeat (m 97)
and an F held out in the soprano.
Measures 99-100 are a shortened statement of Motive ID, the
upper voice a fourth lower. Measures 101-106, first half, exactly
repeat measures 12-17, first half. Ascending and descending scalar
material related to lA (mm 107-108) , appears against the ID Motive
in the tenor voice (mm 107-108).

74
Measures 109-110 develop measures 1-2, the right hand an octave
higher, the left hand a step higher. Measures 111-112 employ two-
against-three rhythms, partially based on the initial Motive from
Theme lA, the left hand moving up by step, then down in broken octaves
a second apart. In measure 113, the meter changes to -, the bass
continues to descend, now in solid octaves, and the right hand is in
a triplet four-note ostinato, so that the accents sometimes fall on
the offbeat.
Measure 114, in j meter, repeats the right-hand C major scale of
raeasure 108, the left hand in two-part contraryraotion,a fifth con-
tracting to a third.
Measure 115, in -meter, is an extension of measure 111, the
left hand now in quarter notes. Measure 116 repeats 112, with the
right hand and beat 1 of the left hand an octave lower. The right
hand ofraeasure117 repeats the Craajorscale from measures 108 and
114, an octave lower, this time with the left hand in descending bass
octaves.
Measure 118 climbs in triplets, broken octaves, and seconds
in the upper voice, while the left ascends in quarter notes.
Both hands begin to descend in measure 119. The left hand
(m 119, beat 2) begins a triplet scale that quickly plunges to
Great C, where the scale continues downward in quarter notes to
Contra A (m 122, beat 1).
The right hand of measure 120 uses the beginning melodic triplet
figure of Motive lA in augmentation. In the following-measure (ra 121)

"5
the right hand accompanies the bass scale with a written-out alto
trill in triplets on Small B and A. This triplet idea continues in
the next section (mm 122-124) , planed in fourths under a soprano
melody that is derived from bar 80. Measures 125-126 recall measure
113, the upper intervals inverted.
Measures 127-129 develop the first bar of Theme lA, now a perfect
fifth lower. This Motive is repeated twice an octave higher, partially
accompanied by a two-octave F Lydian scale.
At measures 129-130, the two hands play in unison, one octave
apart. The dotted rhythms and melodic structure of measure 131 are a
development of measure 4.
Measure 152 again refers toraeasure1 in altered forra. Measure
133 is a sequence ofraeasure131, a second higher, and the left-hand
quarter notes now moving in contrary motion rather than in unison.
The following measures (mm 134-136) move in triplet rhythms in
the lower voices, while the soprano has longer note values. Measures
135-138, beat 1, show hemiola in the soprano, which steps down in
half notes, sometimes tied over the barline.
The triplet background stops on the last two beats of measure
136, with a three-note, E, F, G cluster repeated, then tied over the

2
barline to the next measure, a j bar. The three-note chord changes
to D, E, G, before the rhythmic motion resumes in measure 138,
where the meter changes to j. A rush of sixteenth-notes in descending
scales are seen here, first in the upper part (D Dorian), then the
lower (A Aeolian). These scales move quickly to an A, E, sonority on

the downbeat of measure 139. This bar corresponds to measures 112
and 116, the upper part now emphasizing the note B-flat instead of
E-flat.
Measures 140-144 are an exact repeat of measures 114-118, beat 2.
At measure 145 the meter is changed to j , and another rush of si:cteenth-
notes leads to the next section, first in the upper part, which ascends
by octaves and seconds, then descends with an E Phrygian scale.
Below this, the left hand plays an accented quarter-note scale segment
(starting on beat 2, m 144).
In measure 146 the altemation of sixteenth notes continues,
the upper part descending in an incomplete scale from D"^ to E". The
lower part, in quarter notes on Small B and A (beats 1-2), quickly
sweeps downward (beats 5-4), landing on an F octave (m 147, beat 1).
Measures 147-149 develop material from measures 58-61, extended
and in diminution, as shown in Example 23.
i • • *
± A A
#i * •
I 3J
Scalar gestures retum in measures 150-151. Here the left hand
ascends in an A Lydian scale, then descends in an A Aeolian mode.

The right-hand accompaniment is mainly in single notes, with an
augmented reference to Motive lA (m 120). Measures 151-152 are similar
to mm 120-121.
The trill and descending bass scale of Measure 152, sempre
fortissimo, are similar to measure 121. However, measure 152 uses
a sixteenth-note trill in place of the triplets, and the bass scale,
here in octaves, stops on C, not A.
Measures 153-154 restate measures 147-148 a fifth higher (or
fourth lower) . The jraeterofraeasure154 allows the upward movement
to be extended through the additional beat.
.An example of cross-rhythms is seen in measure 155, beats 1-3.
The upper si.xteenth notes are in groups of three, with an accent on
the first note of ea.ch group, over regularly grouped sixteenths in
the left hand. This dry, frantic ccmmiOtion stops on beat 4, similar
toraeasure136, beat 4, and the followingraeasure136 corresponds to
raeasure 137, with the addition of doubling at the octave and ninth.
The upper part ofraeasure157 is a repeat ofraeasure138 an octave
higher, while the left hand is a second lower.
Measure 158 restates measure 139, sixteenth notes replacing
triplets. The left hand of measure 158, beat 3, begins an ascending
scale that travels two octaves, basically in the E Phrygian mode.
The right hand ascends with the left hand, (m 159) using the
dotted-eighth-sixteenth rhythm of Motive IC. The hands reach G's in
octave unison (m 160, beat 1). Both parts immediately reverse direction,
running down until the beat 1 of the next bar (m 161).

^3
2
The meter changes to j
^ at
ai. measure
inâ.3tij.c 161,
xux , and
diiu the
LJic right
rigoi: hand
nanc tak(
taKes
up the sixteenth notes, briefly recalling Motive IC, first melodi-
cally (161), then rhythmically (mm 162-164, beat 1). The left
hand of measure 161 uses the last two notes of Motive IC in diminution,
then exhibits the three-note alto motive from measure 88-89, also in
diminution (mm 162-164, beat 1).
The meter changes to — at measure 165. The upper material from
measures 86-89 is developed, in four groups of three notes each, against
a rising eighth-note scale, starting first on Contra B (ra 165), then
on Great E (ra 166).
The right hand shows the downward planing continuing through
beat 1 ofraeasure166, then we see upper scalarraaterialfrom raeasure

2
161. In bar 167, —meter, the right hand moves in fourths and octaves,
the left moves down by step.
The right-hand part of measure 168 is taken from bar 133, a
second higher, while the left hand has an ostinato, the interval of
a second, B and A.
Measure 169 repeats bar 160, the right hand an octave, the left
hand two octaves, lower. Measure 170 fleetingly refers to measure
4 (Motive IC) in the upper part. Tae left hand fills in the two
sixteenth-note pulses that are vacant in the right hand.
Measure 171 presents more alternating scalar material, with an
E Phrygian scale descending in the right hand, and an F Lydian scale
ascending in the left hand.

"9
.An obvious reference to Motive IC comes in measure 172, followed
by an exact repeat of measures 4-10, beat 1, in measures 173-1~9
in an obvious anticipation of the Recapitulation.
The Recapitulation begins with Theme I returning (m 180), and
an exact repeat of the beginning measures (mm 1-18 = 180-197).
Measures 198-200 retain the triplet background rhythm. In measure
198-199 the right hand hesitantly climbs, using seconds and octaves,
eventually reaching E . Tae left hand steps down, sometimes coin-
ciding at the octave with the right hand. Measure 200 displays broken
octaves in both parts, alternately. Each of these octaves is a
diminished octave or a seventh below the previous one, giving a fast
descent, and creating three measures of y.

4
In measure 201, beat 2, - measure 202, the right hand begins to
ascend again, now in octaves a sixth apart that are filled in with
fourths and seconds, at times in syncopation. The left hand walks
down in quarter notes from Sraall C to Great F leading to the next
section.
Measures 203-205 recall the hemiola of measure 53. The soprano
line, doubled at the octave, moves down in a D Dorian pentachord. The
alto voice has a sequenced pattern of fifths and seconds. Tae left
hand walks up in broken ninths.
Measures 205 ^. 223 recapitulate measures 32-50 a fifth higher or
fourth lower, while measures 224-231 are an e.xact recapitulation of
measures 76-83,
so
The Coda, sempre legato and forte, measures 232-248, is strictly
in two independently-moving voices, at times in imitation. The
triplet rhythm is constant, and the Coda uses only the white keys of
the piano.
The hands begin a fourth apart, high on the keyboard (B and E"^) .
The right hand moves completely by step for two measures, while the
left hand moves in seconds, sevenths, and octaves, with irregular
phrase groupings, against the more regular phrases in the right hand
(mm 232-233).
Motive IB is used in the right hand (mm 233, beat 2 - 234, beat
1). and is immediately imitated by the left hand (m 234) . Tae right
hand becomes somewhat more disjunct (ra 234), and moves in both parallel
and contrary motion to the left hand. Some two-against-three rhythm is
used: mm 235, beat 5 - 256, beat 2'.
Motive IB is again seen in the upper voice (m 235) and loosely
imitated by the lower (m 255, beats 2-5). The motive occurs again,
this time in the left hand of measures 236, beat 2 - 237, beat 1.
In measures 237-238 the right hand increases its span, using
ninth leaps, as well as its usual stepwise progressions. Tae left
hand is seen in quartal intervals (m 237, beat 2; m 238, beat 2),
but basically moves by second.
Measure 239 consists almost entirely of contrary motion scales,
and Motive IB turns up again in the lower part of measure 240, under
an upper part that moves in seconds and octaves. Measure 231,

4.
although written in j meter, is grouped into three beats and shows
4
81
the left hand in a planed series of quartal constructions, the right
hand climbing very high, until it reaches E"" on the downbeat of
measure 242. In this -^measure, the hands, now widely separated,
again begin to converge in scalar material. .Measure 243, in -meter,

4
shows the right hand with an A .Aeolian scale, accompanied by an ex-
panding, then contracting left-hand line. Something of an inter-
change of voices follows in measure 244. The upper melody is taken
by the left hand, now on an F Lydian scale, accompanied in a similar
manner by the right hand.
At poco a poco meno mosso, measures 245-247 show the left hand
falteringly plunge by ninths and tenths. Then the lower part ascends
in seconds, thirds, and fourths. The right hand begins each raeasure
with a seventh, fourth, and third, then scales down toward the left
hand. Each of theraeasures(mm 245-247) has one more beat than the
previous one in a broadening gesture, and each starts a second lower
than the previous one.
Measure 247, in j meter, shows the two lines converging loudly
at measure 248 on an open fifth: a bass A octave and an E'.
The Coda begins at a forte dynamic level, and continually builds
in intensity with the poco a poco crescendo at measure 245. The tempo
slows slightly at measure 242, pochissimo meno mosso, and even more at
measure 245, poco a poco meno mosso. The final rallentando in measure
247 results in a loud and dramatic final cadence.
"Unity" strongly illustrates Chavez's deft handling of Sonata
form. He exhaustively develops small musical bits of e.xposition

82
material, in effect squeezing every last drop of potential from each
idea. Despite the contrast that is inherent in any Sonata forra, the
entire piece is heavily steeped in the stark, native flavor that is
so notable in most of Chavez's piano music, from the driving dis-
sonance of the first theme to the somber desolation of the second.
Here again Chavez has used short, simple rhythmic and melodic motives
as building blocks to construct an autonomous musical statement.
Prelude X, from Ten Preludes for Piano
The tenth Prelude, composed in 1937, the only one of the Ten
Preludes with a key signature, is more or less in A major despite the
tenacious presence of the D-sharp that gives it a Lydian flavor.
Although it is the longest Prelude, with 329 measures, the performance,
due to the fast tempi, lasts only three and one-half minutes.
This delightful Prelude is a highly unified, masterfully con-
structed piece of music. Chavez used techniques prevalent in the
music of Bach, in combination with a tonal vocabulary that is at
times charmingly Mexican in essence. The two-voice contrapuntal
texture in perpetual eighth-note motion, and at times in invertible
counterpoint, is reminiscent of the two-part Inventions of Bach.
Rhythmic interest is produced by varied groupings and displaced
accents, with a great deal of independence between the two parts.
Occasionally there is some syncopation in one voice at a time, but

3
3_
a constant rhythmic base is maintained within the j
4 meter by the
ever-present, driving eighth-note pulse
84
mainly in seconds and sevenths, at times with the Lydian D-sharp
against upper D-naturals. Measure 6, in — meter, is a right-hand
scale that ascends to another statement of Motive A, the left-hand
part now delayed one-half beat.
vr'
i^m
^
i
f martellato leggero
M : 0 '
i€J
•>-i
# m
T*
'—•—**-m ^r-
^ ^^nry m
In measures 8-11, hemiola is used in the upper voice, against
the constant eighth-note scalar and quartalraaterialof the left
hand. Instead of four bars of | meter, the phrasing of the right-
hand line indicates three bars of |. Tae hemiola is bracketed in
Example 25.
85
The right-hand pattern is sequenced a second lower in measures
12-15, accompanied in broken quartal groups, superimposed over the
barline. Measure 16 brings a shortened return of Theme A, the right
hand a perfect fourth lower than the original, and the left hand an
octave lower. This statement is interrupted in measure 18, beat 2,
when a transition begins. The right hand starts a five-note ascending
scale pattern consisting of four staccato eighth notes followed by a
quarter note.
The right-hand figure is sequenced upward in seconds (except in
mm 18-19) over a left-hand six-note descending scale that is sequenced
downward in seconds (mm 18, beat 2 - 2 5 ) . The sequence ascends to
another statement of Motive A (m 26), now a perfect fifth higher
than the original. The left hand raoves up in a staccato A raajor
scale, doubled at the fifth (m 27) by the right hand, which eraploys
the Lydian D-sharp.
Measure 28 shows the left hand moving in fourths and fifths, the
right hand doubling it, often at the fifth or seventh. Hemiola is

6 ^
also demonstrated here, since the accents create g- meter.
86
Next (mm 29-52), the right hand provides an almost constant
eighth-note propulsion. The left hand (ram 29-50) moves in seconds
and sevenths in syncopated quarter notes, then doubles the right-
hand secundal pattern at the ninth (m 31).
In measure 32 the right hand, grouped in two beats to the bar,
shows a three-note pattern melodically related to the right hand of
measures 8-9, against three left-hand quarter notes that climb in
accented seconds. Measures 33-34 display an instance of pseudo
double counterpoint as well as another instance of hemiola. The
right hand ascends in accented quarter notes, while the left hand
descends in three-note broken quartal patterns, accented to divide
each bar in half.
Measures 35-34 move by contrary motion to measure 35, sempre
forte e molto legato, where we see a sudden contrast in touch from
the heretofore staccato, accented articulation. The upper voice is
an A Lydian pentachord pattern, first using the rhythm of Motive A
(mm 55-58), then in quarter notes (mm 39-41). The left hand moves
up and down on an A major pentachord in seemingly unmeasured eighth
notes, until more hemiola occurs in measures 40-41. The lower-part

6 . 3 . ,
sequenced three-note scales are m -r- meter, against ^ m the upper
voice. The entire transition accelerates into the Piu mosso at
measure 42, where the tempo stabilizes and Section B begins.
Section B (mm 42-120) opens with Motive B mezzoforte, legato
cantando, in sharp contrast to Motive A. Motive B (mm 42-43) is a
short idea outlining the interval of a third in the upper part, ac-
companied by broken thirds in the left hand. The motive itself is
only two bars, but it is sequenced three times, both voices a step
lower each time, which expands the motive into the charming Theme B
(mm 42-29), as seen in Example 26.
Motive B
'1 r
i^
iJ
**' •
T—
3 1 ^ 1
» ' B
:rz:
In measures 50-51, the left-hand thirds continue their downward
progression, while the right hand uses a three-note scale segment in
the rhythm of Motive A.
The left hand then begins a rising Lydian scale on A (mm 52-53),
that begins to emphasize the dominant, E, as it is taken up by the
right hand (mm 54-55), above the | bass, in falling Es and Bs.
The scale crescendos into a fortissimo restatement of Theme B
(mm 56-63), the upper part a sizcth higher and in octaves. The left-
hand accompaniment, marcatissirao, shows widely-spaced raajor and minor
broken triads in | meter, planed down in seconds.

ss
The A Lydian/E major scale from measures 52-55 is repeated an
octave lower in measures 64-67. Measures 68-71 recallraeasures50 and
following, and show the right hand in a C-sharp minor pentachord,
using the Motive A rhythm, while the left hand recalls the broken-
third accompaniment from Motive B, stepping down in staccato eighth
notes.
Measures 72-75 reveal more hemiola and are similar to measures
40-41. The right hand descends stepwise in quarter notes; the left
hand is in j meter, using an inversion of the three-note figure from
the right hand of measure 52. Measures 76-77 repeat measures 66-67.
At measure 78, legato, sempre forte, the two voices move in
parallel motion, usually a seventh apart. The right handraovesby
step, the left hand by seconds and sevenths.
A right-hand pattern (ra ''9) , one quarter note followed by four
eighths, is octave-doubled by the perpetual eighth-note left hand.
This is sequenced in measure 80, with the right hand a second lower,
the left hand a third lower. The left hand sequences once more (m 81),
another third lower, while the right hand scales up in contrary
motion. In measure 82 the right hand outlines a C-sharp major triad
in two-note slurs, and the left hand leaps up in staccato quarter
notes.
The upper part (m 85) then contains a three-quarter-note motive
(two ascending steps) that recurs several times transferring from one
hand to the other. The figure is accompanied by the left hand motive
from measure 79.

39
The right hand of measure 84 recalls that of measure 82, now
mainly outlining a D major triad.
The three-note motive of measure 85 now appears in the left
hand, a sixth lower, creating cross-relation between the lower F-
natural and the upper F-sharp.
Measure 85 again utilizes the three-note motive, in the upper
voice, a third lower than inraeasure83. The left hand is the sarae
as that ofraeasure81.
Once more the three-note motive is seen in the lower voice (m 86) ,
here a tenth below the original. The upper voice recalls the —
8
material seen in the right hand of measure 32. This motive is closely
related to the three-note motive fromraeasure85, since the eighth-
note sequential figure is "an inverted diminution of the quarter-note
pattern.
Some invertible counterpoint occurs in the next few bars. Tae
right hand (m 87) outlines a D major chord in staccato eighth notes
as the left hand moves down in quarters. In the following measure
(m 88), the left hand repeats the right-hand part of measure 87,
while the right hand imitates the left hand of measure 87, changing
the last note. This right-hand part is immediately repeated in the
lower part (m 89), while the upper part uses the hemiola from
measure 86, a step lower and sharply articulated.
The right hand (m 90) recalls the chordal outline of measure
87, with the popular three-note motive in the left hand, but with
the first note displaced an octave.

90
Measure 91 is an inversion (at the tenth) of measure 89. The
right hand is now a sixth higher, the left hand a fifth lower.
The left hand of measures 92-95 repeats the right-hand part of
measures 87-88 while the right hand accompanies in a rising A major
scale.
Hemiola again appears in measure 94, the right hand outlining
a C-sharp minor triad, then a G major triad in two beats, against a
three-beat chromatic scale that continues to measure 97, beat 1.
Broken fourths, mostly perfect, descend in the right hand until
measures 97-98, where the right hand ascends in an A Lydian scale
over an E, D-sharp ostinato in eighth, then quarter notes.
Measures 99-101 use the three-note motive fromraeasure85,
both inverted and in its original form, and again show invertible
counterpoint. Measure 99, upper voice, displays the motive, expanded
and in inversion, over a left-hand accompaniment resembling the chordal
pattern ofraeasure87 (R.H.). The right hand sustains its final note
through measure 100, the left hand shows the motive in its original
form, and an added alto voice imitates the hemiola rhythm and triad
outlines of measure 94 (R.H.).
.Again the original motive is seen, this time in the upper voice,
accompanied by the hemiola figure from measure 86. These three measures
(mm 99-101) are immediately sequenced, rather freely, a second lower,
in measures 102-104.
Measures 105-106 seem to be faster sequences of ra 99, but the
right hand walks down to begin a statement of Theme B, a perfect

91
fifth lower than the original, with the G-natural suggesting a
D major tonality which is negated by the Gr-sharps in the left-hand
thirds. Theme B lasts through measure 114, after which, raeasures
115-120 correspond to measures 50-55,first implying A major (mm 117-
118), then C-sharp Aeolian (mm 119-120). The ascending scale now
bridges smoothly into Section C (mm 121-165).
The C Theme, shown in Example 27, at times suggests the A
Aeolian mode with the C-naturals that appear from its outset.
Theme C, forte, sempre legato, is broader and more lyrical than either
of the previous themes. It is also more extended than Themes A or
B, being spun out sequentially so that the end of the Theme is not
clearly delineated. The first two measures of the right-hand melody
imply the tonic (minor) (m 121), then the dominant (122) triads,
accompanied in broken octaves that are filled in at the fifth, in

6 ^
J meter.
The next two-bar pattern (mm 125-124) then forms the basis for
the rest of the Theme. These two bars seem to imply a dominant-
seventh (m 125) to tonic (124) chord progression, and are loosely
sequenced (R.H.) three and one-half times in measures 125-152, beat 1,
each time a step lower,
The implied chord progression from measures 125-124 is strengthened
by the left-hand pentachord accompaniment in the sequences. The
left-hand root movement in each of the sequences is up a perfect
fourth, in a simulated dominant-tonic function, or a circle-of-fifths
movement.
92
\± ± ^±
:gr
f sempre legato
^ 25C3C:
-tr
^
-^ ^ ^ m • ^ •—•
9)
i If.
In measures 132-133 the right hand is a quarter-note scale
that becomes a melody (mm 132-137), seen later in the bass. The
left hand resumes (mm 132-133) the filled-in | octave accompaniment
from measures 122-124. In measures 134-137 an Eraajorpentachord and
triad are outlined in the left hand, with measures 136-137 an e.xact
repeat of measures 134-135. The right hand states a melody that is
later seen in the bass voice.

Measures 138-139 sequence the | figure from measure 32, the
hands a tenth apart.
The left hand (mm 140-145) picks up the melody from measures
132-137, a fourth lower, while the right hand accompanies in penta-
chord patterns (mm 140. last half, -143) and scales (mm 144-145).
93
X right-hand six-note ascending scale appears over a broken
third (m 146), and is sequenced three times, upward by seconds, in
measures 147-149.
Measures 150-153 display F-sharp Mixolydian scale patterns, in
contrary (m 150) and parallel (151) motion, then in sequence and
hemiola (mm 152-153).
A shortened statement of Theme C, a seventh lower, occurs in
measures 154-160. The D Lydian scalar material (ram 161-163) leads
into Section B (mm 164-209).
This section begins with an incomplete statement of Theme B,
the right hand a seventh lower, the left hand a fourth lower than
the original. The nextraeasures(ram 170-181) are an exact repeat of
measures 56-67 from Section B.
Measures 182-185 display hemiola, the right hand in - raeter
with the sequenced three-note pattern ofraeasures132-155, and the
secundal left hand forming one bar of y meter. This counterpoint is
then inverted (mm 184-185) at the ninth.
Measures 186-191, right hand, closely resembleraeasures140-
145, with the scalar material and irregular accents. The left
hand of measures 186-188, beat 1, shows a descending scale, recalling
measures 140-142, beat 1, Measures 199-193 reveal the left hand as
three bars of |, and include an ostinato that consists of a broken
ninth on G-sharp followed by a broken seventh on D.
In measures 192-193, the right hand becomes one bar of j in
rhythmic agreement with the left hand. At measure 194, piu forte,
94
the tempo begins to slow very gradually to the Tempo prirao at
measure 210.
More hemiola permeates these measures (ram 194-209), beginning

3 .
with one bar of - m the left hand (mm 194-195) under right-hand
scales. In measures 196-197 both the left hand and the right are
one bar of y. The left hand continues with two bars of - (mm 198-201);
the right hand plays running scales in j (mm 198-199), then retums
to f (™n 200-201), as in measures 192-195.

_ ^ 2
The upper part of measures 202-209 constitutes six bars of -
meter, resembling measures 8-15, and anticipate the return to A.
The lower part (mm 202-203) is one bar of —, followed by two bars of
— quartal planing (mm 204-205). Next, the left hand shows one bar
2 6 2
of y (mm 206-207, beat 1), then two bars of — and one bar of j (209,
beats 2-3). Tae -^measures are superimposed over the barline (ram 20",
beat 2, - 209, beat 1), lending further intricacy to the rhythm.
This ingenious use of hemiola creates tension, which is relaxed
at the retum of A.
The beginning of Section A ( mm 210-235, beat 1) is an almost
exact repeat of the beginning of the piece (mm 1-26, beat 1).
Beginning at Piu mosso, the right hand(mm 235-240) is an exact
repeat of measures 36-41, while the left hand is an almost exact
repeat of measures 35-37 and 39-41.

Hemiola is once again exploited in measures 241-244, the right
6 . . 3
hand sequenced downward in g-, the left scaling down in j .
95
Measures 245-256, beat 1, exactly repeat the right hand of
measures 140-151, beat 1, while the left hand (ram 245-250, beat 1)
repeats mm 140-145, beat 1, a fourth lower; measures 250, beat 3,-254
return measures 145, beat 3,-149 a second higher; and measures 255 -
256 return measures 150-151 a fourth higher.
A fleeting reference to Tneme B is made (mm 257-^58), followed
by a repeat of measures 241-251, beat 1, inraeasures259-269, beat 1,
with the left hand an octave lower.
Measures 270-273 show the right hand ascending more than three
octaves in an A Lydian scale, leading to the Coda. The left hand also
4 2
climbs, m a repeated pattern that forms three bars of -T- or -r- meter.
4 2
The Coda, at Poco piu mosso, is marked triple forte, legatissimo,
and begins with Motive A (m 274) then recalls Theme A (mm 276-280),
with the rhythm slightly altered. The left-hand accompaniment is a
seven-note A Lydian scale in ostinato (mm 274-281).
The legato touch employed here is in sharp contrast to the
original detached appearance of Theme A. Measures 282-298, beat 1,
are an exact repeat of measures 19-35, beat 1, again with drastically
different articulation.
Measures 298-504 repeat the left hand exactly and refer to the
right hand of measures 35-41, while measures 505-308 are a repeat of
259-262, the left hand an octave higher.
Hemiola continues (mm 309-310) , with the upper voice in g-, re-
calling measures 152-153, and the lower voice m one bar or j m
descending broken thirds.

96
.At measure 311, a gradual slowing of tempo and increase in accents
begins, and lasts until the end of the piece in measure 329.
The upper part (mm 311-512) recalls measures 241-242 in -, then

- -, 8
returns to f (mm 513-314). The left hand, in i restates measures
270-273, a fifth lower. Example 28 shows the manipulation of meters
in measures 311-316,
The right hand changes to | again (mm 315-316), using material
from measures 86 and 138-139, above a ^ bar in the left hand that is
loosely related to 188-189.
•A *
3S^ 0 r
?
• • ^
i A
2t
^trrr"
rallentando e rinforzando
3
•4
molto sradualmente
^^
sine fj-ne
^g^
i^4 S
•^Cnr
97
The upper part of measures 317-318 exactly repeats measures 311-
312; measure 319 resembles 313-314. The upper material of raeasures
320-322 relates to measures 141-143 and 187-189, while the left hand
4
forms one bar of y meter (m 320, beat 2-m 322) .
Measures 323-328 constitute a descent to the final cadence. The
right hand is a two-bar pattern based onraeasures311-312, stated
three times, an octave lower each time, above left-hand octaves, a
two-measure pattern repeated down a step two times (mm 323-324 =
mm 327-328). The patterns slowly and forcefully arrive at the
enormous A major chord (m 329) , and thus conclude this exciting
Prelude.
The form of the Tenth Prelude raay be summarized as follows:
Section A, mm 1-18, beat 1; Transition, ram 18, beat 2 -41; Section B,
mm 42-120; Section C, mm 121-163; Section B , mm 164-185; Transition,
ram 186-209: Section A ,ram210-234; Transition, ram 235-273; Coda,
mm 274-329.
In this Prelude we see Chavez's predilection for contrapuntal
writing and the perpetual rhythmic motion that such linear textures
can produce. The driving rhythms may be related to native as well
.as classical influences, since this constant pulse is seen in such
works of J. S. Bach as the Brandenburg Concerti, The percussive
nature of the piano is exploited more here than in the previous
pieces.
A key center is somewhat more clearly defined than in the
previous piano works, and the dissonances seem less strident, perhaps
98
because the texture is only two voices most of the time. However,
the familiar harshness and primitive aura still emerge as the strongly
recognizable characteristics of Chavez's keyboard music.
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
In 1938 the Guggenheim Foundation commissioned Carlos Chavez to
write a piano concerto, which he finished on December 31, 1940. The
Concerto was premiered on January 1, 1942, by the New York Philharmonic
under Dmitri Mitropoulos with Eugene List as piano soloist.
A synthesis of Mexican folk music elements was apparently the
composer's aim in this work, according to Mayer-Serra.^ While many
features can be considered folk-derived, they are indeed blended into
a personalized style that is universal in character.
When the Concerto was premiered, the music was called "powerful,
9
primitive, and barbaric." The Concerto played that New Year's Day of
1942 was of unusual length, of structural and technical complexity,
and of an idiomatic individuality that set it far apart from both
North American and European models, traditional or contemporary.
Movement I
The opening movement is an unusually lengthy one, lasting twenty
minutes and taking 1117 measures of notation. This movement is a loose
Ôtto Mayer-Serra; The Present State of Music in Mexico (Washington

D.C.: Pan American Union Music Series, 1946) pp. 40-41.
Stevenson, Music in Mexico, 1952, p. 243.

99
sonata form framed by an Introduction and Coda. Perhaps the most
striking features in the organization of the movement, reminiscent
of Mozart, are the two long sections for the solo piano which con-
stitute the closing of the Exposition and the Recapitulation, while
a long passage for orchestra alone comes at the conclusion of the
Development. The piano solos are not cadenzas in the sense of being
showy displays of technique, but have more of a "Bach Invention"
flavor. However, the entire Concerto makes a great demand on the
virtuosity of the soloist and the orchestra alike.
The movement begins with a slow Introduction, Largo non troppo,
very sustained and mysterious in character. The quintal and quartal
chords seem to begin on an A center, but the tonal base soon becora.es
unclear. This Introduction displays two short themes or motives.
The first is an oscillating series of eighth, notes, Example 29; the
second is a simple tune in changingra.etersthat fills in the interval
of a perfect fourth. Example 30. This brief thematic idea reappears
later in varied rhythms.

100
E.xample 29, measures 1-2
Largo non troppo • znn Intro A
v^sxY -,,^ iUX, L-C^^

/ cantando, sempre legato e molto sostenuto
S -•<&-
•«9-
I "Stb. '5a. ^.
Largo non troppo «: es
n \
i
€> Tnf legato sempre
^ ^
i :*=
Intro B
20
^ ^ ^ ^ . :=^:^^:±^ g/^
•>
*V. l* •!* î ^ ^ ^ — 0 -
^ Tsrr,
\=^h^^ s rfTT
4* m 0\i 0
â ^
rrf cantando
m
^ ^
101
The Introduction leads directly and smoothly into the Exposition
(mm 31-345), which starts with an Allegro agitato marking, and im-
mediately presents two distinct themes. Example 51. One of the themes
is in the piano, the other in the orchestra, amid constant eighth-
note activity in |- meter. Theme lA in the piano is made up of three
elements: lAx is a repeated-note quartal figure; lAy is diatonic
scalar material doubled in octaves and fifths; and lAz appears in the
left hand as a hemiola figure, here of broken quartal chords. The
orchestral Theme IB, occurring against Theme lA, is a somewhat more
lyrical A Aeolian melody, though none of these themes can really be
considered a singing line.
Example 31,raeasures31-35.
Allegro cL^MatO. in uno i,7<i 33 I Ay . ^ — l A r i ' . a u^""/In ^ ^
i —0
/
•
,
•
0—0 0
-0—•-
0 — » : i » » Z ' . # * - : . z m
m senza pedaie
0 0
^"^
# a
j "" ittiamitiiifitttiiMiMiii
Allesrro asritato. in uno J.: 79 IA2
X> .îMiiiHiiiititiiiiiMiaiiiiiiiifliiiiiiii«iiii(a«iiiiii«ii*tiiiittiiaiiiifiiiiiiiiiiiiii*i(«ii
^^= •l8__ . ^
mffl -^^^>' 0 ! »
[cantando f
n^ ^J^
•sdf •0i9-'
^)- br;. Sf TTTi * q ' m»— -^<9*

^ ^
F=^
102
Measures 56-41 show the piano sequencing Motive lAz in contrary
motion, until the left hand begins to descend chromatically in quarter
notes (mm 59-41), The orchestra continues its statement of Theme IB.
.An altered Theme lA then appears in the piano with occasional
orchestral references to Theme IB (mm 42-45).
Measures 53-57 bring a bass statem.ent of the orchestra's Thera.e IB,
accompanied in the piano with a slightly altered Motive I.\x (mm 55-55)
and lAz (mm 56-57). Theme I.A retums in measures 58-68, beginning
with Motives lAx and lAz together (mm 58-59). The left-hand chromatic
scale from measure 59 is now in both the piano and the orchestra,
leading to the low D-sharps (m 69) that start the extended bass ostinato
(D-sharp, C-sharp) of measures 69-76.
Measures 77-78 lead to another return of Theme A, featuring re-
peated-note bass octaves in the piano, and a suggestion of Theme IB
in the orchestra (mm 79-80) . Both parts state Theme' IB in unison
(mm 81-90) over a repeated bass-note figure, moving to a transition at
measure 91.
.Augmented statements of Theme IB in the orchestra make up
measures 91-117. The piano accompanies with repeated-note octaves and
tone clusters as the dynamics increase, building to a large climax at
measure 115. Measures 91-115 are shown in Example 52.

103
91 92
sempre in tempo
\W -W -9 -9-9-9
F'.d. tenuto sempre
i
IB sevipre in tempo
n^ r
22:
nzir
-G- .m 1 JL - • — i - -9^
/
m zr
-* ^-0-
zai ~0 • *~
rTzr. -9-0-
98 99 100 101 102 103
0 • i :i«- •f >< *8 >"*i *f »f

^ *
j j _
'» »
-•—0- ^
^-^^-^g=^g=^=^^-*t-^
-9 -9 -9
'~o.
ô-
•)
n J2-
-rrr -&-
'rr
108 JOT
104 105 sempre in tempo 108 109
g 1
•» ,*
r
g
> i j> 'fT|
T=HF g
I • • m \ 0 —0-
-^-!T-X>
g ua;î»_it-st-4^g:aM^ti
^ :3; !^S> !Bl rf
•^ : \ ' 1
- 9 - 9 - 9
sempre in tem,po
±. ^ ^:^ ±
2~Z ^ ' •'#77 —5
(fe^.* ~0~Zi
n<
-r-rS-
-rr -TT"
104
Example 52, continued
no 111 112 113 114 115
0 0 0 ' 'm m—w
•S^ ^ \ j f Si^ffipn
i r
F2< tf tf ^ :^g-il-S^
3tt:
-9-9-9 - 9 ^ - 9
n<
a ^?^
t^
Jm
-»^
^
2ac
?r3
:?«: I22Z. -?-•- im
/ :
^ im ^ ^ ^
-^^9- )m- "" » -TTT
— ^9- j . .a ^' . ^ ^
^^ V^ 7-9-
Tne orchestra then takes up Motive lAx while the piano recalls
Motive lAz (mm 115-120). Measures 121-125 vary measures 42-44, as the
next measure (m 125) recalls the oscillating melody of the Intro-
duction. Fragmented use of Theme I ideas continues in both parts
(mm 127-165) , with great emphasis on hemiola in both the piano and
the orchestra.
The orchestral material in measure 166 anticipates the approaching
Theme IIA which finally appears at measure 175 (orchestra), while
the piano displays contrary motion counterpoint, Example 53.

105
j^.. c o u n t e r p o i n t , 7 t o IIA 175

ill
A notable feature of this Theme is its stepwise descending bass
lines (often in hemiola) in both the piano and the orchestra parts,
producing a sense of melodic, if not harmonic, functionalism. An
extended line is seen in measures 173-181, beat 1, where it starts
another descent of fourths in measures 181, beat 2-183, beat 2.
Another descending bass line occurs in measures 199-202.
Measure 206, beginning a transition, recalls Motives lAx and lAy
(mm 206^215) and lAz (mm 216-217) . The orchestra makes a quick re-
ference to lAx (mm 222-225), but the piano then takes it over while
the orchestra moves mainly in half-note hemiola (mm 224-225).

106
Dynamics and tension are ever increasing, and atraeasure232, a
driving, obsessive passage over a pedal point appears, using Theme I
motives, as shown in Example 34.
lAx
i9-' iS-
—a- •Q^ -&^
^ ^ - r:.
\
fp /
S JCL
il-' : ^ ,• :-s^
lAy
239
J36 23- !38
-*-i:
.a • • •
'^jj êmprK
10'
Example 34, continued.
240 241 24i !43

^î^
-0—0- -0—m-
*
*^ - ^ ^ • • • ! "" — -*. i^> • •
• • i.t
^ zr izc
,-•• 3 ^
5S
IB
r
n<
i ±ir
±-' ^ ~± 'i± -:» '*:5:
i^ J9 :^
The Poco meno mosso (mm 256-261) presents a new melody in the
orchestra, Them.e IIIA, marked molto cantabile. The piano accompanies
in constant eighth notes in hemiola, and the two parts move in unison
melodic lines and ascending bass lines in measures 265-267. Tlie
piano (m 268) climbs with Motive lAz, while the orchestra quietly
fades with high octaves, dying away completely by measure 271.
The piano has a long solo section in raeasures 271-345. Mea-
sures 271-272 are one bar of -jraeter,the left hand descending by
step (on the raain beats). Measures 257, beat 2 - 275, beat 1, dis-
play a persistent right-hand C, D second that leads into a new
Theme, IIIB, Example 55.

108
IB
275 j 276
poco ritenuto rail.
0*0— \—r—"^^^
^ 7" — cresc.
fcantando
^,^^1-4*! r, — '^
- 1 . — f f ^ « — ^ — ^ — > — 0 — '
• • • • - • • • • •' • -
-A fragment of Tneme IIIB is used in the two middle voices, a
seventh apart (mm 280, beat 2- 284, downbeat). Another statement of
Theme IIIB follows, a step higher (mm 284, beat 2- 286). Measures
4
289, beat 5- 290, show a hemiola pattern in — that is immediately
sequenced twice (mm 291-292, downbeat; mm 292, beat 2- 293, beat 2).
A syncopated right-hand melody is heard above Motive lAz in
measure 295. Measures 296-299 recall (somewhat) the mood and raaterial
of the Introduction (Motive A). Measures 500-503 are an altered
repeat of 295-298.
At measure 304 the syncopated melody of measure 295 begins once
more, over the D-sharp, C-sharp ostinato from measures 69 and
following. The bass ostinato continues through measure 307, then
occurs an octave lower in measure 309, and a fourth higher in measure
310. These ostinato statements are frequently below quartal sonorities
(m 306) and tone clusters (mm 307, 309-310).

109
In measures 311-513 we see yet another example of hemiola, with
the right hand in three measures of j meter and the left hand in two
bars of j and one bar of -. Measures 314-315 recall measures 256-257.
Another bass ostinato emerges in measures 316-320 on the notes
D-sharp, C-sharp, and B, serving to accompany right-hand material from
measures 304-508. 321-323 continue the quartal and scalar elements
related to measures 307-508. Arpeggiated chords, the lower a B
major triad, the upper on the notes E, A-sharp, and D, climb in one
4
bar of J meter (mm 324-325, downbeat). Measures 525, beat 2- 527
recall measures 296-298, beat 2, over a descending bass line grouped in
two bars of — meter.

o
Preparation for the Development section begins in measure 528, over
still another bass ostinato, this one a two-bar pattern that is stated
twice (mm 528-529; mm 550-551). A return to the left-hand D-sharp,
C-sharp ostinato from measures 304 and following appears in measures
333-536. The bass pattern then moves up a third to F, E (mm 357-343,
beat 2) and becomes a stepwise descending line (mm 345, beat 5- 345)
leading to the Development at bar 546. The right hand of raeasures
528-545 anticipates the Development material, notably with the quartal
and quintal chords of measures 328, 330, 333, 356, and 558-343.
Octaves step down to the Development in measures 344-345.
Theme IVA, at the Allegro in measure 346, appears in the piano

2
(mm 346-350), as seen in Example 36. The y meter and lighter
orchestration serve to provide a marked contrast to the Exposition.
110
In measure 370 we hear in the piano a suggestion of the orchestra
theme that appears at bar 379, Theme IVB, Example 37. Theme IVB also
appears in the piano part (ra 398), Example 38. In both of its an-
pearances Theme IVB is similarly accompanied in the other part, with
quartal, quintal, and secundal chords (ram 579, 383-388; and 399,
402-404).
346
Allegro -J z 1- 347 348
IVA
-9-
• 2Z
* W=''
W-^ *-
: ^^ In
-^ 1—^ = f =^^
H=Hg=^^^^==^^:'
I
"•'
u,
^ ,
-/^•T - f »0—A'
'^ ^^^'T. i = / - i = : r ^-z
- = r : : =^: » 'm—— 'A
>x. Jî^rrlZr I Z _ 1 :
Allegro 'J z lu
fT^ ' * "^0

î/ ^ ^ '^^ — ' ^ ffT
i0-0-0-0--::r-m
r T r ^ 0 0
m I J' staccatissimo
'V^?~S-»-^,*J:
Ill
349 3nO
2: n.
'^-^-^ T=?r
9J
J^ se7nprf.
ar • ^
381 382
380
\ ' 90 ' ')i d^:

9J t;^-^ •e- -&•
r/;
10 1 ?l
*'—• ^* -r r y
• "i
IVB,
• H 5 ± ^
3C fe
£ ^—rr 22:
! O
Hx mf cantabile
^ •
112
398 399
400 401
I sempre in tempo 'J -. w*
f?^' • ^
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1
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i
i
, ' 0
î=j= '• 1—^* ^~-^—• /_• -
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77
Tne piano movesraiainlyby seconds and thirds in constant eighth-
note movement in measures 404-408. At bar 409 the rhythm becomes
quarter notes, climbing in octaves and ninths, while the orchestra
falls, often by fourths.
Measures 413-418 reveal sustained quartal and quintal chords
in the piano, against staccato quarter notes in the orchestra. High
secundal right-hand chords and a detached left hand raise the piano
part to a very high register (mm 419-422), only to descend scalewise
(mm 423-424) to a G, A-flat trill (mm 425-426).
Bar 428 is divided assymmetrically into three- plus- three- plus
two eighth notes. .Measures 429-450 then show five groups of three
113
eighths, plus one. .Another scalar descent (similar to mm 423-424)
occurs in measures 431-432.
Theme IVA is recalled (mm 435-439), building to a great climax
at measure 440. Theme IVA (as in m 349) continues in measures 440-
447, over an orchestral bass ostinato, G, A-flat. In measures 448-
450, first half, we see right-hand quartal chords stepping down over
broken left-hand chords (largely quintal) or scales. Measures 451,
last half-452 show the right hand scaling down in octaves over a
left-hand broken pattem of thirds, octaves, and fifths. Motive lAx
is recalled in m.easures 453-454, first half, with a varied repeat of
measures 451, last half-452 appearing in 454, last half-455. Tae
orchestra in measures 448-455 states an augmented version of Tneme IVA
(as in mm 349 and following), doubled at the fourth below.
Measures 457-459, down beat, varies Motive LAz over a bass line
that descends by step. The left hand makes another scalewise descent
in measures 460-461, below a right-hand quartal ostinato pattern in
groups of three eighths (similar to that of mm 428 and following).
Measures 462-488, first half, reveal a peripatetic left-hand line
that is a constant run of eighth-note motion. The right hand and
the orchestra accompany with various chords and octaves, but the main
interest lies in the left hand of the piano. At bar 487 the piano and
orchestra state the melody from measures 296 and following m augmen-
tation.
The piano resumes its perpetual eighth-note movement (m 490, last
half), periodically in groups of three (^similar to right hand of
m 457) as in mm 492-494, left hand; 495-597, right hand; 507-510, right

Hi
hand; 513-514, right hana; 516-517, right hand; 527-529. right hand;
550-532, left hand; S34, left hand. When the niano is not encâcred in
these triplet groups, it often has scalar material, as seen in mm 490,
last halt- 491, left hand; 494, right hand; 496-497, first half, left
hand; 498-499, first half, right hand; 501-505, first half, both hands;
505, last half-506, right hand; and 507-510, left hand.
The melody fromra.easure296 is again heard in augmentation, now
in the orchestra (mm 505-508, first half). Then Tneme IVA is stated
in augmentation by the orchestra (mm 508, last half - 512), followed by
another augmented reference to the melody from measures 296 (mm 515-
516, first half). Theme IVA becomes obstinately present in the
orchestra in measures 516, last half - 535, all the while accompanied
by the piano's perpetual raotion in eighth notes.
L'istesso tempo (m 536) begins a long section for orchestra
alone, including coloristic and solo passages. In effect, it develops
Theme IVA, and in this section we see key signatures for the first
time (mm 544, 576, 627, 660). Measures 556-543 rhythmically alter
the second part of the Theme (mm 349-350).
Another altered statement of measures 349 and following is seen
(mm 546-549), followed by six bars that recall the secundal and quintal
melodic material from measures 564-367, over descending bass lines.
A varied Theme IV.A reappears in measures 556-565,
Expansion occurs in both the upper and lower parts of measures
564-565. The next three bars (566-568) group the upper quarter notes
into four bars of f meter, above a half-note ninth ostinato which

•4
115
continues through measure 571. The upper part of measures 569-575 moves
disjunctly, ascending and descending as the lower ninths step doi>m
(mm 572-575) and then gradually contract to a third (mm 5'*4-575) .
The next sub-section begins (m 576) molto cantabile with a
legato upper line and a staccato lower line (mm 576-581, downbeat).
This sub-section emphasizes the interval of a descending second
(usually a quarter note followed by a dotted-half note). This ti.me the
motive appears throughout the next measures, including ram 581-582, lower
part; 587, 589, 590, 595, 597, 600, 602, 605, 607, 610 (first half)
611 (last half), 613, 614 (last half), 618, upper part; and 620, 622,
624 (last half), lower part. This motive is possibly derived from
the second phrase of Theme IVA (m 349).
Measures 591-593 are slightly related to measure 427, after
which 594-598 recall measures 467-471, Measure 599 continues the
expanding-contracting lower line of measures 596-398. The secundal
motive is further exploited, now at various upper levels (mm 600-603).
The lower line of bars 605^606 is grouped in three eighths,
similar to that of measures 480-481, under upper expansion derived
from measure 471. Measures 607-612 show the lower line in running
eighths, with the upper part periodically stating the descending-
second motive. Measures 613-615, first half, resemble measures 595,
last half '• 597. Constant eighths continue, often in both parts,
through measure 626,
At bar 627 Theme IVA is once again present, and we see a varied
retum of measures 346-378, down a perfect fourth (mm 627-659).

116
Measure 660, cantando, brings a slowing of rhythm and thinning of
texture, and a melody in measures 660.665 is repeated (now beginning
in the middle part of the bar, mm 667, last half - 672). Measures
673-676 recall measures 517 and following.
The melody from measure 296raomentarilyreappears at bar 677,
over a descending bass pattem (mm 677-680, first half). A bass
ostinato begins in the last half of bar 680 and is stated five times
(through m 687), while the upper line alternately rises and falls.
Inraeasure688 we hear a quick hint of the approaching material
in measures 694 and following. The bass line steps down (mm 688-692)
to the low Es that begin the preparation for the Recapitulation at
bar 697. These repeated broken octaves are from Motive lAx, and
gradually accelerate and crescendo (mm 697-714) to a lengthy false
return of Theme lA in the orchestra (mm 715-786). The treatment of
the Theme is limited to Motives LAx and lAy (Motive lAz is missing) .
Theme IB makes an appearance at measure 75 2, as the tension builds
to herald the full-fledged Recapitulation at measure 787, where the
piano enters with Theme lA and the orchestra makes an initial bass
statement of Theme IB, Measures 787-846 are a varied retum of
measures 31-90, with some orchestral scoring modifications and re-
interpretation at the beginning (IB transposed),
At measure 849, L'istesso tempo, we encounter a fugato-like
recap of Theme III, a second lower. The entries include: mm 849,
piano and orchestra; 858, piano and orchestra; 859, piano right hand;
866, piano and orchestra; 875, piano; and 880, a false orchestral
117
entry. Measures 881-889 imitatively use a motive from the fugato
subject: J J | . This motive is often used in a transition
(mm 890-917) that leads to a recap of Tneme IIA (M 918). Tae retum
of Theme IIA is one-half step higher, over quintal chords in the left
hand and orchestra (mm 918-921). The Theme is then heard on its
original level in fugato form, the piano beginning, and the orchestra
following (mm 922-926). Melodic fragments from Tneme IIA are used
to lead to an inverted suggestion of the Theme in the orchestra (m 943).
The Theme appears again in measures 950, beat 3 - 954, beat 2. A re-
capitulation of measures 173-204 occurs in measures 957-988.
The second section for solo piano begins inraeasure982,
starting with Intro Motive A in contrapuntal writing (ram 992-994).
Measures 995-997 feature Motive lAz climbing down in ninths to more
development of Intro Motive A (mm 998-999), immediately repeated an
octave higher (mm 1000-1001).
Motive lAx then appears in the right hand (mm 1002-1003), followed
by a brief reference to Motive lAy in the left hand (m 1004) and a
retum to Motive lAx (m 1005). Measures 1006-1007 repeat 1004-1005,
and 1008 is another repeat of 1005. Measures 1009-1010 repeat 1004-1005,
and 1011 repeats 1004.
Bar 1012 refers to Intro Motive A (alto). Further repetition
occurs when measures 1013-1016 repeat 998-1001 (exact except for the
left hand of 1016) . Intro Motive A is again heard in measures 1017-
1018, interrupted by Motive LAz (mm 1019-1020). Tae two ideas are
combined (mm 1020-1021), Motive LAz in the right hand, Intro Motive
118
A in the left hand. Motive lAz emerges in the right hand of raeasure
1023, and a hint of Intro Motive A is in measure 1024. Measures
1025-1026, right hand, refer to Intro Motive A, which is then re-
peated in the left hand of measures 1027-1028. The following measures
continue in a similar vein, using Intro Motive A (ram 1029-1056).
At measure 1057, Theme IIA is heard on its original pitch level
(mm 1057-1060), but soon Intro Motive A retums (mm 1061-106^) to
lead to the Coda (ra 1065), which is begun by the piano alone. The
Coda, Largo non troppo, now states the Intro Motive A material at
its original tempo. The contrapuntal texture begins rather thinly
(mm 1065-1073), but soon is doubled in fourths, fifths, and octaves
(mm 1074-1080), anticipating the orchestra's entrance (m 1081) at
L'istesso tempo. Here the Intro Motive A is continued in quartal and
quintal sonorities (mm 1081-1097, downbeat). The piano takes up
the Intro material with measures 1097-1106 corresponding to the
earlier measures 16-25.
At Pochissimo meno mosso (m 1110) the beginning of the raovement
literally retums, withraeasures1110-1111 repeating measures 1-2.
Measure 1112 is a repeat of measure 1111 (m 2) .
Over a C, B, A descending bass, the movement closes with quartal
and quintal fluctuations that further recall the Introduction, ending
on a fortissimo quintal chord built from the notes A, E, B (mm 1113-
1117). A low A in the piano (m 1117) is struck to sound through to
the next movement, with attacca indicated in the orchestral part.

119
Movement II
The second movement, Molto lento, releases the intensity of the
first movement. This movement displays Chavez's deftness as an
orchestrator of the most delicate stamp. At the end of the movement,
various combinations of sonorities eventually build up before a fade,
over sustained strings, into a quiet dream vision. Tnis last sequence
of moods, perhaps more than any other in the Concerto, comes closest
to a direct reference to Mexican imagery.
Two balanced sections constitute the binary form of this movement,
with the first part giving an impression of being a preparation for
or anticipation of the second part. Drastic contrast between the two
sections is avoided, but the te.xtural modifications and the use of
themes contribute to the differentiation.
Quartal and quintal chords and arpeggios are a unifying device
for the movement, and also relate it to the first movement which
contains similar material. The two theraes identified in this movement
are closely related to each other with common figures in each of
their two halves. These and other similarities are probably a result
of a common stock of musical ideas rather than any deliberate effort.
There is more chordal and homophonic texture in this moveraent
than in the first; nevertheless, counterpoint retains its importance,
with a continuing sense of unified mood. The avoidance of cadence
during this movement also contributes to the homogeneity.
The pedal point on D at measure 1185 and then the one on
G from measure 1226 to the end of the movement provide a stronger

120
sense of key center for the second section. As in the first raovement.
several measures for solo piano signal the conclusion of the first
section.
The movement opens in measure 1118 with a rhapsodic section for
harp, with piano chordal accompaniment (quartal and quintal harmony).
The harp part hints at figures coming in Themes I and II; there is
also a feeling of similarity to first movement material: raeasure 1139
of this movement recalling the hemiola ofraeasure36, for exaraple.
At measures 1144, Poco meno lento, Taeme I is introduced in the
oboe, the harp has quintal arpeggiation, and the piano continues
quintal chords. Example 39.
Beginning in measure 115 3, the piano alone now has a freer
rhapsodic section. Example 40, starting similarly to the harp part
at measure 1136. Theme I is in the top voice of measures 1157-1158.
1144
1145
Poco meno lento • : co
Theqie I ,£*i^S;"i'„nieno lento : 50
itfmf espress.
0 ^
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121
1146 1147
pochiss. affret.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ — ^ — ^ ^ — ^
1155
1153 1154 jWOiÔ
' affrtftando .
Tempo I J: io^^^"""'^ ^ i I
. cednndo. •••ûi^..^t^^.î;;Ai..aii...-.>s...........M....,...,
115-
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122
Measure 1171 brings transitional material, beginning like measure
1136. This is followed by a monophonic line, doubled at four octave
levels by the piano, bassoon, and flute.
Measure 1185, Poco meno lento, begins the second section with
Theme II, Example 41, in the horn, closely related to Theme I of this
movement. It also resembles Intro Theme A of the first raovement. The
strings have a sustained seven-tone whole note quintal chord on a D
petal. The piano has quintal arpeggiation and solid chords.
Theme II moves to the piano at raeasure 1192, with lower brass
counterpoint, which also uses this therae (ra 1194). The piano and
brass entries are shown in Example 42.
Andante tranquillo, at measure 1203, reveals several statements
of Theme II in the brass (mm 1203, 1207, 1209), as the piano adds
freer counterpoint. The emotion is heightened to a climax at
measure 1221.
The concluding measures, beginning withra.easure1226, feature
several imitative entries of Theme II between the piano and brass,
while the strings sustain a seven-tone quintal chord of the G natural-
minor scale over a G pedal. The movement ends in raeasure 1259, again
followed by the attacca indication.

12.
•.•.^5 V.Si^
Poco meno lento . : •••i
124
Exampe 42, measures 1192-1194
Movement III
Formally, the third movement is constructed in three sections:
once started, the motion and drive are seemingly continuous. One
slight break is felt at the Meno mosso (m 1342) to begin Section B,
and it is also possible to hear the inception of the final long drive
at measure 1464, where Section C starts.
Motivic and figural devices are plentiful, and they appear
and disappear quickly, in various combinations, so that a constantly-
shifting mosaic of ideas results. There is more emphasis on leaps
in the designated motives of this movement than in the first two; yet
stepwise, diatonic activity in a narrow range remains important, and
is a similarity among the motives. Motive Ic is derived from lAx of
the first movement; Motive IIlb is from the orchestral melody in half
125
notes in measure 389 (Movement I); also the figure from measure 4 ^
of the first movement ( ^ J l J ~ ] ) occurs in this movement, first
at measure 1502. This analysis can only suggest a few of what must
be countless permutations, combinations, and modifications of the
basic motivic material of this Concerto.
There is no extended section for solo piano in this raovement;
the piano is tacet from measure 1454 to measure 1479. The Finale,
Allegro non troppo, starts with a theme consisting of two motives,
Example 45.
Example 45,raeasures1260-1261.
Allegro non troppo •
ij^?":ij"M J' I
Allegro non troppo • : [-zr,

--• ,-i,-\-Tr3=—^
M^l.
"t-ZZ"
Cvm.
n< #
#
~v—^
^
After the statement, la is given continuing contrapuntal treatment,
with lb also being expanded into sixteenth-note scalar passages.
At measure 1278, Motive Ic becomes part of Theme I, preceding Motive
lb at measure 1279, Example 44. Tliis occurs again at measure 1289,
a fourth higher.
126
Example 44^ measures 1278-12"9.
At raeasure 1294, Motive la is heard first in the orchestra, and
then in the piano. lb is seen at raeasure 1301 in sequence and again
at measure 1310, its second intervals expanded to mainly fourths,
fifths, and sixths. Measure 1322 displays Motive lb in the orchestra,
accompanied by tertian polychords in the piano. The tension increases
to a climax in measures 1528-9. In measure 1329, Motive la plus
some scalar material are used as a transition to the next section.
Section B begins at measure 1342, Meno mosso. A new theme,
Theme II, appears in the piano in two-part sixteenth-note counterpoint,
Example 45. There is additional contrapuntal activity in the orchestra.
Theme II makes further entrances at measures 1356, 1361, 1364 (orchestra)
1372-1375, and 1387,

127
At measure 1389 we see two new motives which are combined to make
Theme III, Example 46. This theme is first stated in the piano with
pizzicato counterpoint. Illb appears in measure 1392, and is answered
in the orchestra at measure 1394.
1342 -343 T h e m e I!
- KJe"o*^^"u*a*so"""""'""'"""'"""""'""^^'
12S
1345 1346 1347
_^^>:uJî*
-(-—V
-.^=^ -Tat:
y—r
-f-
II<
;a
Ilia
129
Illb
l\Tiile Ilia continues in the piano at measure 1410, the orchestra
introduces another new theme. Theme IV, Exaraple 47.
ExaFiple 47, measures 1410-1413.
1410 Ilia 1411 1412 ,. , . 1413
jk-^r
Jf "^ A"
1 #
Û-
'' *^ ^ , J ^ •• ——. rr—' .0 'U

/ ^
Theme IV
i^
•j^
W.
^
n^n'm^-jz
espress.
JKC ^0^ 0-
• V. t ^ '^_
^B zzac
130
In measure 1430 and following, we see the piano using Therae IV
while the orchestra accompanies with Ic. Measure 1432 brings Theme II,
introduced first in the piano, and then raoving to the orchestra for
continuing treatment, as the piano drops out for forty-five measures.
The approaching Theme V (the b part of the theme) is anticipated in
measure 1450, while Va is anticipated in measure 1435. A sustained C
major chord comes at measure 1462, ending the B section.
Section C, beginning in raeasure 1464, initiates the final long
drive to the conclusion as the chord changes from C raajor to F-sharp
raaior. Trills, contrary motion scalar counterpoint, and descending
D-flat major scales in thirty-second notes occur above F-sharp, H,
and C major triads.
.At measure 1479, the piano re-enters with contrary motion scales.
Va, Example 48, is stated in the orchestra at measure 1482, accompanied
by scalar counterpoint in the piano. Vb is seen in the piano a-t
raeasure 1486: Va is in the orchestra at measure 1489. As scales and
trills continue, raany other raotives reappear: Ic (raodified) at
measure 1492; la at measure 1496; Illb at measure 1498; lb at measure
1500; a figure from measure 471 of the first movement at measure 1502;
lb at measure 1503; C, F-sharp, E sustained triads beginning at
measure 1512; Va at measures 1518-9; lb in the piano, Vb in the orchestra
at measure 1521.
130
1484
-ZA-
1
*-H—0-
-7*- < > j 3
1 T
7 a
Vb
7
— r» ^ i * •
t ±iW I —
n< T
u
1 •>- ••• -
^ -
^ -
* •
• , '
u. 1
W-—
tf * ' •
• * •
151
Measures 1529-50 hint at a return in diminution, but then
Theme IV immediately follows in the orchestra (m 1531), with scale
runs in the piano. Measure 1544 introduces another new theme.
Theme VI, Example 49, first stated in the trumpet. This short theme
is from Theme II material of measures 1544 and 1441. It is given
several reiterations in the orchestra, then in the piano, during this
final section.
1545
lo44
The sustained triads on F-sharp, E, and C become an ostinato until
the end, as the exciting scales and trills continue. The raovement
132
closes (mm 1565-1572) on the F-sharp major chord in the piano and
lower orchestra, with a sustained A-natural in the upper orchestra.
Looking at the Concerto as a whole, the prevailing contrapuntal,
non-stop texture yields a rather austere style. Even though individual
lines are within diatonic scales, it is less often that all of the
lines are within the same scale simultaneously, so that a dissonant
atmosphere prevails. There is'a great rhythmic vitality, with much
use of cross-rhythms, shifted accents, syncopation, etc. With the
exception of the closing section of the last moveraent, pure, single
tertian sonorities, especially triads, are avoided at any one instant:
when one occurs among some voices, other voices will have a non-
chord tone, often a minor second or major seventh dissonance. Quartal
and quintal sounds occur, with exclusively perfect intervals or with
mixed combinations. Pentatonic scales are occasionally found, with
an accompanying Oriental flavor. The orchestration is highly imagin-
ative and colorful. Key centers are nebulous, except at the conclusion
of the movements; a feeling closer to pandiatonicisra results frora the
interweaving lines.
This all adds up to a highly individualistic style; one which
does not depend primarily on classical patterns for formal coherence,
but derives its unity from the constant contrapuntal flow of the
motivic manipulations. The main debt this Concerto owes to classical
practice is the use of three movements in the generally accepted
mood ordering of fast-slow-fast.

135
Etude: Homage to Chopin
In 1949 Chavez was commissioned by UNESCO to write four Etudes
for the centennial of Chopin's death. These Etudes, especially the
first, reveal an absolute dominion over the technical resources of
the instrument, and the desire to achieve something equivalent to
what Villa-Lobos offered with his Bachianas Brasileiras: a panoramic
vision of the art of Chopin contemplated through a Mexican prism.
Although this Etude, subtitled Homage to Chopin, is much more
dissonant than the Etudes of Chopin, it still requires a great deal
from the performer. It shows a commendable exploitation of the
sound capabilities of the piano. Fleeting traits of the pianistic
style of Chopin are heard, with periodic touches of lyricism amidst
an overall virtuosic character.
Traditionally an etude addresses one or more technical problems
of execution, as do the Etudes of Chavez. The first Etude focuses
on the technical aspects of playing octaves, double notes, and chords,
and on the polythythmic possibilities of —meter. The concentration
on these aspects maintains a certain consistency by the use of the
same type of thematic raaterial throughout the work.
This first Etude is constructed in a three-part forra, A B A ,
with a Coda, as were most of Chopin's. However, unlike Chopin's Etudes,
there is really no important element of contrast. The middle section
employs the first thematic material on a different tonal level, so that
when the material is restated on its original level in the A section,
the listener has the feeling of a recapitulation, even though slight
variation takes place.

134
The Etude begins on a D center, but quickly obscures any key
center with the use of all twelve tones of the octave, though not
serially.
Theme A is seen in the soprano voice, measures 1-4. Initially
(m 1) disjunct and doubled at the second, the tune then breaks awav
to rise and fall in a melodic arch (mm 2-4), as seen in Example 50.
Hemiola is seen even in the beginning measures. Example 50.
The upper Theme A is in - meter, opposing the y bass that is often
doubled at the ninth on the afterbeat.

9
Measure 4, a j measure, shows the right hand continuing its
compound meter, while the left hand has one bar of j meter plus one
bar of f
a (or the entire bar, l.h., could be labeled as —4 ) ^.
Then the hands exchange meters, as the j right hand descends in
e.xpanding thirds and fourths, while the - left hand moves in parallel
.motion, outlining minor and major triads (mm 3-6) .
Tae upper part (ra 7) remains in jraeter,with a short melodic
motive that suggests an A-flat Lydian mode. The lower — part moves
8
in ninths and seconds over a Great B-flat pedal point.

135
Again the rhythms (meters) are exchanged (m 8) , as the right hand
repeats the motive from measure 7. but in -^ meter. The left hand,
now in j , descends three octaves on F's and C s .
The left hand then starts an extended quarter-note ascent of
ra.ore than two octaves (mm 9-14, beat 1). This bass line is in j
meter, again doubled at the ninth.
.Above this marked bass line, the right handraovesalternately
in I- and - meters. Measure 9, in f, displays an alto line that de-

8 4 o
scends from G^ to C-sharp^ Measure 10, still in g-, ascends on C-
sharps and £-sharps to high E-flat octaves (mm 11-12). Tnese octaves
frame a fluctuating C, B-flat, A-flat middle voice, in j meter. The
upper part (m 13) returns to.|, with a descending A-flat major
pentachord in the top voice, to measure 14, where the hands finally move
in similar - rhythm. This bar also features the middle voices descending
8
in parallel fourths, over a D-flat pedal point.
The downward sweep continues (m 13) with both hands now changing
^0 1 meter. The alto steps down in quarter notes, E , D , C , as the

4
left hand moves chromatically in single notes and octaves.
136
Again the hands are in opposition (mm 16-71), as an upper -

8
melody moves mostly in whole steps (until measure 17, A-flat), The
lower ^ unisons and octaves fall in half steps to measure 17, where
a four-note ostinato begins on Contra C-flat, The ostinato pattem
is stated three times, simulating three bars of j meter (mm 17-18).
The upper j part (m 18) then shows chromatically-descending
sevenths on each beat, with C"^ afterbeats.

In measures 19-22, beat 1, the left hand exhibits another j
climb, similar to that ofraeasures9-13, from Great D to B^. Again
a descending melodic pentachord emerges (as in ram 9-10 and 13-14),
here C-sharpraajor,with C-sharp"^ filling in the — rhythra. This is

o
followed (ra 20) by another pentachord, now using an F-sharp pentatonic
scale on the black keys. This five-note scale then expands into
measure 21 to form a two-measure building melody that ascends to t ,
still m — raeter.
For one measure (m 22), the two parts agree rhythmically. Both
parts are in solid octaves, alternately filled in at the fifth. Tae
hands begin a perfect fifth apart, then expand to a ninth apart.
Again the left hand breaks into |- meter (mm 23-24), this time
descending in a manner somewhat similar to measure 15. Here the octaves
are on the main beat, moving one-half step down on the offbeats. The
octaves move in seconds, thirds, and fourths.
The upper |- part of measures 23-24 sees octaves going up in
whole and half steps. Measure 25 brings another meter shift, to j
in the very high top part, and | in the bottom. The right hand shows
contracting intervals on the quarter notes, the top note of each
resolving up one half-step. The contraction continues through the
downbeat of measure 26.
In the lower part, we see a seventh pedal on Great F-sharp, while
the tenor steps up from Small B through F-natural\ to F-sharp^ on
the downbeat of measure 26.
The meters shift once more, for two measures (mm 26-27). The
right hand of measure 26, in -, is related to that ofraeasure14, the
descending scale now an octave plus a sixth higher. Tnis is above a
- left-hand part on a broken F-sharp tritone. Exaraple 51 shows the
shifting meters of measures 25-26.
-Measure 27 is a right-hand repeat of measure 26, an octave lower,
and the left hand is a broken diminished-seventh interval on C-sharp .

158
At measure 28 the right hand changes to j meter, the left hand to
-. The right hand (mm 28-29) then recalls measures 5-6, with its
two-voice expanding intervals.
The single-note left hand of measure 28 moves down in fourths,
fifths, and sixths, before reaching Great F-sharp on the downbeat of
measure 29, where the left-hand meter again changes to y. It moves

-T
chromatically in broken tenths down to a solid tenth on Great D-sharp.
On the sustained D-sharp, F-sharp (ra 50), fortissirao, the left-
hand goes metrically to — and climbs, outlining an F-sharp raajor
triad. The right hand of this sarae bar (ra 30) also changes to — and
o
features raore intervalic expansion that continues to the downbeat of
raeasure 33. The intervals grow and ascend, then fall back and re-
start the process.
Measure 32, right hand, shows expansion sirailar to measures 5-6
and 28-29, with its two-note slurs.
Meanwhile, the left hand continues to outline raajor triads over
bass pedal points. After the F-sharp raajor triad of raeasure 30, we
see A-flat major (m 31) and G-major (m 32) .
Measure 33 brings a slight slowing and a decrease in dynamics,
from fortissimo to mezzoforte. This is done with converging eighth-note
scales, while a Great G, Small B, and A-flat sonority is sustained.
This measure (m 33) signals the end of Section A, and the approach
to the next section.
Section B, at a tempo (ra 34), recalls the beginning of Section A,
the right hand a fifth higher or fourth lower (mm 34-36) . Tae
139
left hand begins a second lower and moves in fairly similar intervals
(as the beginning) (m 54). In the ne.xt tworaeasures(ram 35-36),
instead of moving in ninths, the bass line is doubled at the fifth,
again starting on Small A^ but moving upward, completely by step, to
the downbeat of measure 57.
The fourth bar of the Tneme (ra 57), sees both parts in |- raeter,
with a soprano melody, doubled mainly in thirds, that resembles the
alto line of measure 9, and the soprano line ofraeasure15. Tae bass
is mostly in parallel octaves with the alto, while a tenor D" fills m
the empty beats.
Measure 58 displays an upper C-sharp ostinato, alternating unisons
and fourths, with broken D and then B octaves, all staccato. Measure
59 almost e.xactly repeats the right hand of measure 5", the left
hand somewhat of a retrograde ofraeasure3", with B filling in the
rhythm.
Measures 40-41 consist of quartal planing in the right hand, the
first bar in j , the next a transformation in j . The j left hand (m 40)
is broken and solid octaves and unisons, a second or third apart,
that repeats in measure 41.
Measure 42 resembles measure 13 with its j soprano melody over a
fourth. Rising unisons and octaves (m 42) continue to the downbeat
of measure 44, recalling measure 19. Tae right hand of measure i3
is in J, with fourths stepping down to beat 1 of measure 44. Measure
44 recalls measure 14 in |-. The alto is again doubled, but now at the
o
fifth by the bass, with a slightly thinner texture.
uo
-J-meter retums to the lower part (ra 45), which resembles the
rising bass line of measure 9. The right-hand part states a short
figure that is similar in contour, though a half-step higher, to the
inner voice (R.H.) of measures 11-12.
In measure 46 the tenor becomes the active voice, moving down
in whole steps, and leading to a soprano reference to Theme A (mm 4~-
49). These measures correspond to measures 2-4, but the upper part is
an octave lower here. The left hand of measures 47-48 restates the
"rocking" fifths of measures 35-56, a second lower. The left hand of
measure 49 repeats that of measure 4, a fifth lower.
Measure 50, beat 4, - measure 54, beat 5, develops the initial
sopranoraotiveof Theme A into a broad melody. This is above a lower
part that often outlines triads, and a descending bass line in dotted-
quarter notes.
Inraeasure54 both of the hands begin to ascend, the left hand
still in a stepwise dotted-quarter line, with after-beats usually
provided by the fifth and the octave above. The right hand is in
octaves, moving in seconds and thirds.
Measure 56 and the first half of measure 57 demonstrate two-
against-three rhythm, since the right-hand sub-divisions are duple,
the left-hand, triple.
The ascent reaches its dissonant culmination (m 57, last half)
on hollow sonorities, E, B, E, in the lower part, and F, B-flat, F,
in the upper.
In measures 58-59, first half, the duple-against-triple opposition
recurs, the parts inverted texturally. Each part is a single voice.

141
the right hand plunging in broken octaves a whole step apart, E-flat,
C-sharp, and B. Each octave is filled in at the fourth. The left
hand moves down, mainly in fourths and fifths.
Another ascent starts in measure 59, last half. .An interesting
feature is that the rhythmic groupings are superimposed over the
printed barlines. The y right hand moves in two groups of three
eighth notes, as expected, but the first ascending measure seems to
be the last half of measure 59 and the first half of measure 60,
immediately followed by another superimposed raeasure. Although the
left hand is in — meter, its measure groupings agree with t.hose of
the right hand.
After two such measures, the rhythm changes completely (ra 61,
last half) to simple meter in both hands, as the tempo slows for the
ne.xt section. Tae tenor, then bass lines persistently walk up using
unisons and octaves; the right hand remains stationary on a G-sharp",
G-naturaP diminished octave, while an inner voice moves up chromatically
The dramatic, fortissi.rao measures (ra 61, last half - m 65) slow
down in anticipation of the retum of A. Exaraple 52 illustrates the
striking rhythm of measures 59-63.
The first fourteen bars of Section A (mm 64-77) are identical
to Section A. In measure 78 we see, in j meter, broken thirds, fourths,
fifths, and sixths in contrary motion.

142
cedendo poco raa.
In measures 79-80 the right hand switches to - as it climbs in
octaves, similar to those in measures 58-60. The bass part (ram 79-80),
still in -, moves down to Contra B, under a reiterated tenor pedal

4
on Small F-sharp.
Another metric inversion occurs in measures 81-82, the right hand

" 6
becoming p the left hand, g-.
In the upper part (mm 81-84, beat 1) quartal material is planed,
somewhat reminiscent of measures 40-41. The lower part (mm 81-82)

143
raoves up (81), then down (82) in broken fourths and fifths. This
lower part changes its meter to j (m 83) ,. as the bass moves down in
the same way as in measures 79-80, now chromatically, to Contra E
(m 84, beat 3 ) .
As the bass reaches Contra E, the right hand strikes a hi^rh D
F-sharp, D sonority, then planes up to E, G-sharp, E on the downbeat
of measure 85. The left hand moves in neighboring broken seconds.
Measure 86, poco raeno forte, brings the — soprano raelody frora
measure 15, now doubled in octaves, with a stationary inner voice on 3"^
.Again the bass walks down chromatically in j raeter.
In measure 87 the right hand changes to 7- meter, imitating the
octave motive from measure 85 (R.H.), now with a minor second filling
in the octaves. The — left hand (m 87) leaps up, then walks down,
covering the span of a tenth. This lower pattern is sequenced a
second higher (ra 88), while the upper octave motive froraraeasureS7
repeats, and then leaps up a seventh.
In measures 89-90 the left hand once again ascends in broken
octaves and ninths, in j meter. Tae right-hand accompaniraent shows

2 ^ 1
two sustained chords, rooted on A , then B , ending Section A .
The Coda (mm 91-110) occurs in the upper register of the key-
board, and creates extreme rhythmic conflict through the use of
hemiola. The right hand shows an insistent - raotive in octaves that
are filled in with thirds, fourths, and fifths. The upper voice (m 90)
introduces the motive, then rests in measure 92.
In measure 93, sempre fortissimo, the upper part starts below
the motive and steps up to it (m 94) . The right hand again rests in
144
measure 95, then at measure 96, senza rallentando. the motive is stated
four times (mm 96-99). All of this is above a walking bass line,
. 3
persistently m — meter.
4
The left hand, in j meter (imn 91-92), walks up from Small B to
A-flat , and immediately repeats (mm 93-94).
Measures 95-99 obstinately start on F"^ and chromatically move up
to an A-flat octave (as seen in measures 92 and 94) . These upper and
lower ostinati build in intensity, then abruptly stop in raeasure 100,
serapre in tempo, on a secundal construction using the black-key notes
A-flat, B-flat, C-sharp, F-sharp, and G-sharp.
Tnis chord is sustained untilraêasure102, when the left hand
:".oves up a half-step. A portion of the Coda is shown in Exara.ple 55.
.At measure 104 a low D octave sounds alone until raeasure 10",
where the right hand plays an F-sharp, D, F-sharp chord. This final
D raajor consonance is'a surprising, but forceful end to the extrerae
dissonance of this Etude.
In this Etude Chavez has created a true raasterpiece of cross-
rhythms, stated through a dissonant vocabulary. Although the Etude
was composed as an homage to Chopin, the stringent sonorities, un-
expected meter changes, and strong rhythmic propulsion lend the savage
austerity that we have com.e to expect from Chavez's piano works.
The ostinati of the Coda further intensify the native, primordial
cast of this novel study.

145
Example 5 3 , measures 94-103.

JIM. •I
,9-5- I ' *-*r
^"IM^^ \ 1^ I -y-
<y-
Etude to Rubinstein
The Etude to Rubinstein was written in 1974 for the first
Arthur Rubinstein Piano Master Competition in Israel. When the Israel
Festival decided to establish this competition honoring one of the
greatest pianists of our time, Chavez was invited to participate.
He composed the Etude as a salute to the master pianist, and the
manuscript of this work was formally presented to Rubinstein himself
at ceremonies in Tel Aviv when the first competition took place in
September, 1974
146
In seeking to give the most personal and gracious expression of
his gratitude, Rubinstein wrote a letter in Spanish, in which he
said:
Dear friend,
. . . I have always greatly admired your forceful,

innovative work, of which the composition'that you have
dedicated to me is yet another example ... .^0
'tê Etude to Rubinstein, an ingenious study inraajorand minor
seconds, is still one more of Chavez's imaginative exploitations of a
traditional keyboard form. It is a nonstop virtuoso display in which
the hands interweave, cross each other, and play simultaneously in
parallel or contrary motion.

12
In -r- meter, this Etude is a vehicle through which Chavez demon-
o
strates his great affinity for hemiola. The piece is a frenetic per-
pertuai-motion in sixteenth notes, articulated with contrasting

1 ^
touches. Tae form of the Etude is A A A .
Since the secundal vocabulary does not lend itself particularly
well to any strongly-projected melodic gestures, the interplay between
the hands and vigorous rhythm seem to be the most important elements
of this music.
Section A (mm 1-16) , begins mezzoforte, the initial bar half
le<7ato. half staccato. The first half of the bar has the hands al-
10.
Carlos Chavez, Etude to Rubinstein (New York: G. Shirmer, Inc.,
1976), p. 2.
1J7
ternating in groups of two sixteenths, the groups moving mainly in
fifths or thirds. The last half of the raeasure, grouped in threes,
is a lower-neighbor-tone figure stated four tira.es, each time a half-
step higher, altemating between the hands, as seen in E.xample 54.
Iiiiiii}
Measure 2 starts with a downward octave, as in raeasure 1, but
there the similarity ends. Instead of the first three notes being
slurred, only the first two are connected, and the third, (a repetition
of the second note), is staccato. The ne.xt group of three sixteenths,
a three-note figure that steps down, shows the right hand playing the
first and third notes, the left hand plays the second. Tnis action
is loosely sequenced a tritone, and then a half-step higher.
The next six sixteenths are grouped in four-plus-two, implying
(for the first time) three divisions of the larger beat. This is
negated by the next group of six, two alternately repeated seconds,
all staccato, with an accent on the fourth sixteenth.

148
Measure 3, mostly legato, shows ™ore of the "tossing" tv^ê of
movement seen previously. The right hand lightly tosses seconds down
to the left hand, which retums the toss, and so forth. The third
group of sixteenth notes again shows hemiola, in a two-plus-two
division. The fourth group retums to duple rhythm, three notes legato.
three notes staccato. Here the top notes of the seconds spell a G,
A, B, C, D-flat pentachord.
The first half of measure 4 scales up more than an octave, fol-
lowed by a whole-note descending pattem on the third beat. Tae
fourth beat of measure 4 begins some syraraetrical staccato expansion in
hemiola that continues through measure 5, where it temporarily stops,
and then continues through the first half ofraeasure6. This ex-
pansion begins on an E^ F^ second played first by the left hand, that
becomes an inner pedal point between the expanding outer seconds.
These outer voices begin an octave apart, and expand in seconds
and thirds, always returning to the repeated pedal point. The ex-
pansion pauses when the outer voices are two octaves apart, but makes
one last outward move in measure 6, beat 2, where it ends, still re-
peating the E F pedal. This expansion is illustrated in Example 55.
Example 55, measures 4, beat 4 , - 6 , beat 2.
nil •••• •••• Ifll

. • - ^
•• . :. 1 — - -
«j
m ia*-----—2=at
x.
PP .... ^,I. III. ill*
149
nil
ii.. •Ill
i ^^m.
1
Hf-TT
*1m0"
0 ^ ^f-
^ , nil
^f
Hemiola-occurs once more, lasting only through the third beat of
measure 6, the hands alternately ascending. Hemiola coraprises
three-fourths ofraeasure7, subito piano, where beats 1 and 2 begin
with the same pair of seconds, spelled enharmonically. At beat -i the
hemiola ceases, as in the previous measure.
In measure 8, a stepwise series descends in hemiola. More
hemiola appears, beats 2 and 5, that shows three groups of four six-
teenths each: four Ds (the first a D-flat), four Es, and four Fs,
in various octaves. The hemiola continues, beat 4, with another
four sixteenths, then followed by two sixteenths to retum us to the
downbeat at the beginning of measure 9.
In measure 9, beat 1, we see an upper-neighbor-tone figure in
octave displacement, stated once and then sequenced a half-step higher

130
Beats 2-3, Example 56, reveal hemiola, with three groups of four
sixteenth notes in ostinato.
Beat 4 of measure 9 shows the hands in contraryraotion,though
not in similar intervals. This dissimilar movement continues (ra 10,
beat 1) with the right hand moving up by whole steps, the left hand
moving down a whole, then a half step. The hands move apart one raore
half step, then begin the disjunct beat 2, which spans more than two
and one-half octaves. Beat 5 is similarly marked by wide leaps, and
shows the A, B-flat second in three different octaves.
Beat 4 of measure 10 displays the first time that the hands play
simultaneously. Beginning at the extremes of the keyboard, they
approach each other in similar motion.
In measure 11, beat 1, the right hand is used on the after-beats,
in contrary motion to the left hand. Beat 2 illustrates another inner
pedal point, E, F, in the left hand, A, B-flat, in the right, while
the left hand moves up in half-steps, the right hand down in whole
steps in a quasi inverted cannon. Beat 4 of measure 11 shows the first
of several chromatic scales, the hands moving toward one another.

151
Measure 12 is somewhat similar to the division between the hands
seen in measure 5. Here the two hands contract in half steps (through
beat 3, first four sixteenths).
An interesting rhythm starts inraeasure12 at the subito forte,
where an anacrusis slurs into the first and fourth sixteenths, followed
by a sixteenth rest (beat 4) effectively displacing the barline at the
beginning of the next measure. In measures 13-14, beats 1-2, the
anacruses are continued, and the rests are still on the second and
fifth sixteenths of the groups. Tae occasional single staccato six-
teenth is inserted, as well as one group of three notes (beat 2).
The varied groupings and articulations, and the use of hemiola
make theseraeasuresrhyt.hmically unique in comparison to what has
come before. This notable rhythm is shown in Example 57.
Example 57, measure 13-measure 14, beats 1-2.
Tv^ -f^5i»t_ ^
r i\- i^Z
P-.-"^-.
^ |#^yi<^
I I
m •y-r
St
^
If
riî*«-
J> V
-7-^^^ :;=53C
^
i
y^
<Li
•** ^
325?
152
Measure 14, last half, once again shows three groups of four
sixteenth notes: The first group rises in sevenths, the second grouo
' Ox
falls in ninths, and the third group rises again in sevenths or ninths
A different grouping (four-plus-five-plus-three) occurs in the
first half of measure 15, rising, then falling, in sevenths, eighths,
and ninths, and then hesitantly walking up in whole steps. Tae last
half of measure 15 uses a halting rhythm, a rest on the second and
fifth sixteenths of each group.
Once more, groupings are superimposed over the barline, beginning
with the last si.xteenth of measure 15, but the groups quickly resume
normalcy on beat 2. More hemiola occurs on beats 5 and 4, raeasure
16. Beat 4 is in pairs of notes that are octaves or seconds apart.
Measure 17 begins Section A (mm 17-29), which is, at first,
almost identical to the initial five bars of Section A (rami 1-5 =
ram 1"-21). Measure 22, beat 1, shows the right hand imitating the
staccato left hand, walking up in unison by half steps.
In the last one and one-half beats of measure 22, the left hand
breaks into single notes, moving in sevenths and seconds, and in one
major sixth (enharmonically a diminished seventh). The left hand
continues to move in single notes (ra 23), not always in seconds, below
a fairly conjunct right hand, both parts in hemiola on beats 1, 3,
and 4.
Beginning with the last two sixteenths of beat 3, the two-note
phrases contract in half steps, while the right hand steps down in
syncopation.
153
The entire measure 24, as shown in Example 58, illustrates
hemiola and syncopation carried to awesome heights. The left hand
single notes first move chromatically, then begin to expand (beat 1,
last two sixteenths, - beat 2). Beats 3-4 show the left hand movin<T
mainly in seconds and sevenths. The right-hand part of measure 24,
beats 1-2, is in tied note values, so that the first half of the bar
seems to be grouped in three. ;ên the right hand does move, it is
in seconds and octaves.
The left hand of measure 25, beat 1, makes a dramatic plunge in
a pattern of ninths and seconds. Beats 5-4 show another chromatic
chain, this time with the right hand moving down in seconds (beat 2,
last sixteenth - beat 4), the left hand up in single notes (beat 5,
last sixteenth - beat 4).
In measure 26 the left hand returns to vertical seconds. T-iis
measure shows more chromatic progression on beats 2-4. First, the

154
half-steps move in contrary motion (toward each other) (beat 2 ) , then
in parallel ascending motion (beat 5, last half-beat 4).
The hands play both altemately and simultaneously in raeasure
27, including more parallel chromatic scales (beat 5) and hemiola
(beat 4 ) .
Measure 28 continues the hemiola for one beat, the hands in
altemation (beats 1-5), with another appearance of chromatic scales,
here in converging movement (beat 4).
In measure 29, beat 1, the hands climb to yet another chromatic
scale, expanding (beat 2) to repeated seconds, B, C, then F-sharp,
G (beat 5). Chromatic scales, including a single line in the left
hand, move toward each other, diminishing dynamically, to call at-
tention to the next section.
Section A" (mm 30-50) repeatsraeasures1-5, first half, (ram 30-
54, first half), and measure 6, first half - ra 8, beats 1-3 (m 35,
second half - m 57, beats 1-5). The last half ofraeasure54, subito
pianissimo, shows the notes in groups of three seconds, the left hand
playing one, the right hand, two, until the last half-beat, where the
hands move toward each other in mainly chromatic progression. This
contrary motion continues into measure 55, as the left hand rapidly
moves up chromatically (beat 1), then leaps down (beat 2). The
right hand slowly descends" chromatically in dotted quarter notes
(beats 1-2) .
Measure 37, beat 4, in four sixteenths plus two, exhibits al-
temating repeated seconds, a whole step apart. Measure 38, with its
155
first half in three groups of four, moves in B, C octaves, then in
contracting motion by step, and again in octaves, on F-sharp and G.
Beat 5 of measure 53 shows three statements of a two-note figure, in
two groups of three notes, and in which the right handra.ovesdown a
whole step, the left hand down a tritone.
Beat 4 is the beginning of the final chromatic scale that e.xpands
through measure 39, slowing by virtue of the ritardando indication, as
well as the longer hemiola note values. Tae scales reach the e.xtrera.es
of the keyboard to play E, F (L.H.) and B, C (R.H.), the two white-key
half-steps. IVhile these are sustained, a final seventh, B-flat, A,
now in the middle of the piano, is struck. Example 59 shows the
lengthy chromatic scale and final cadence.
sempre f
Lento
ritardando
5-
156
This Etude is somewhat shocking to the ear, and an extremely
demanding piece for the performer. Chavez has taken a very simple
cell, the interval of a second, and constructed an adroit piece.
Hemiola again asserts itself as a prominent feature of the Etude.
In addition to the varied rhythmic manifestations of -^ raeter,
diverse articulations are employed to affect the greatest possible
e.xploitation of the single interval lie unit. This abstract music,
contemporary in concept, can nevertheless be heard to e.xude a sug-
gestion of the craggy, shriveled contours of the Mexican landscape

CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS
A detailed study of representative piano works of Carlos Chavez
shows that these pieces are a musical synthesis of primitive, classical,
and contemporary features. The distinction of these pieces results
from the fact that they are articulated through a twentieth-century
vocabulary, but with a Me^xican accent. Chavez championed the music
of Indian Mexico; there he found terse, stoic qualities to admire and
emulate. His piano music embodies these qualities with anti-romantic
astringency and directness.
Chavez favored the use of classical forms as a means of recon-
ciling the musical dichotomy that exists between nationalistic elements
and neoclassical techniques. We encounter forms such as the
Sonata Allegro of "Unity" and the firstra.ovementof the Concerto
(where the formal scheme seems to bera.odeledafter Mozart); and
ternary, as in the smaller scale Sonatina and the Etude: Homage to
Chopin.
Strophic form is revealed in the first and second movements of
the Third Sonata and the Etude to Rubinstein; binary structure asserts
itself in the second movement of the Concerto; and the third movement
of the Third Sonata is a fugue. The third movement of the
Concerto is through-composed, while a more modern approach was taken
in the mirror or palindrome forra of the Tenth Prelude.
There are certain qualities that help to produce the primitive,
indi<7enouslv Mexican tone of these pieces. The driving rhythms, in-
157
158
eluding ostinati and rampant hemiola, modal rather than tonal centers,
strident dissonance, and linear te.xtures contribute to the native
aura that reflects influences both of the ancient Aztec Indians and
the revolution-tom Mexico of the twentieth century. The laconic,
forceful style that Chavez developed using stylized Indian-influenced
material culminated in the Piano Concerto, with its aboriginal,
percussive driving force within a classical frame.
Rhythmic vitality emerges as the most striking feature of this
piano music. For the most part, these pieces set a certain basic
pulse unit and continue it throughout. For example, if the eighth
note is initially established as the basic rhythmic unit, running
eighth-notes will be constant throughout a piece, or a section of a
piece.
Such rhythms exhibit the type of incessant rhythmic propulsion
found in much of Bach's music, and are often handled in a similar
manner, transferring the motor pulse frojn voice to voice. This use
of perpetual motion, or a constant underlying rhythmic background,
is especially notable in the Sonatina, the third moveraent of the
Third Sonata, "Unity," the first movement of the Concerto, and in
the Coda of the Etude: Hojpage to Chopin.
Hemiola is undoubtedly Chavez's favorite rhythmic device, since
it appears in every one of these works, most prevalently in the second
and fourth movements of the Third Sonata, "Unity," the Tenth Prelude,
the first movement of the Concerto, Etude: Homage to Chopin, and Etude
to Rubinstein. Because of his affinity for hemiola, Cnavez sometLraes

159
uses compound meters, usually | or f . If simple meters are employed.

O A
such as - or -, they are often transformed into compound meters
through the use of eighth-note triplets. Changing meters are some-
times utilized to create a rhythmic ambiguity, as in the second and
fourth movements of the Third Sonata and "Unity," but more often the
effect of changing meters is produced by rhythmic manipulation.
Within these pieces we see a preference for modal rather than
tonal centers, and a careful avoidance of tertian harmony. Instead,
Chavez shows a predilection for the vertical constructions of fourths,
fifths, seconds, sevenths, and ninths, also using these intervals
horizontally. The vertical structures range from dyads to the im-
raense chords found in the second movement of the Concerto.
Contrapuntal textures may reflect Aztec influences and the pre- '
cedence that melody takes over harmony in that native music. This
preference for linear writing could also stem from Chavez's knowledge
of and high regard for the works of J. S. Bach, especially as demon-
strated in the third movement fugue of the Third Sonata.
.Motivic manipulation is one of Chavez's greatest strengths. He
uses short, simple rhythmic and melodic figures, and then exploits
them to the fullest degree through intense variation. Chavez takes a
very limited amount of motivic material and multiplies it through
constant development. Sequence is seen within these polyphonic te:x-
tures, especially as illustrated in the Tenth Prelude.
The melodies most often consist of a combination of short
motives, or one motive repeated and sequenced. This results in

160
distinctive melodic lines that are characterized more by their rhythm
than their contour.
Chavez has a definite affection for loud, dramatic endings that
close these pieces with unmistakable finality. The cadences are ap-
proached by a slowing of the tempo, the rhythm, or both, usually
along with a crescendo, so that when the music reaches its last
sonority, it seems to be at the most logical stopping point. This
closing technique is evident in the Sonatina, the fourth moveraent of
the Third Sonata, "Unity," the Tenth Prelude, the firstraoveraentof
the Concerto, and Etude to Rubinstein.
Chavez's piano music provides an interesting challenge to the
performer. The idiomatic writing demonstrates his familiarity with,
and respect for, the piano as an autonomous medium of expression.
Such musical qualities require the pianist to have complete independence
between the hands, and a technically strong hand and finger posture,
including a loose, flexible wrist. Since Chavez also freely employs
the extreme registers of the keyboard, the performer must maintain
complete freedom in the shoulders and arms. Running scales are pre-
valent, necessitating a free forearm that can easily follow the hand
as it ascends and descends. A relaxed thumb, smoothly and quickly
tucked at the proper time, is mandatory for evenness.
Chavez exploits the enormous polyphonic capabilities that are
unique to the piano, as well as the percussive possibilities that make
the instrument ezcceptional. The overall character of these works is
virtuosic, sometimes with fairly large sonorities that require moderate
hand ejctension.
161
The damper pedal may be used, with extreme caution, to avoid
blurring the contrapuntal lines. There are many instances when one
should not use the pedal at all.
Finally, the two most important performance suggestions that I

can give are:
1. project the melodic line, no matter where in the texture

it is; and
2. maintain rhythmic stability, since rhythm is the back-
bone of this music.
These two points are foremost in successfully and effectively per-
forming this very challenging and, at times, enigmatic music.
Tnese works for piano may be indicted by the casual listener
for a degree of monotony, but it is a hypnotizing monotony, perhaps
the kind associated with the ritual use to which the Indians of
Mexico put all music. But instead of attempting to reproduce a
direct reflection of this or any other aspect of the spirit of Mexico,
Chavez has created a synthesis of that spirit that accords very favor-
ably with the piano.
To receive all of the rewards of this music, the listener must b.e
willing to suspend preconceived ideas about melody, harmony, tonality,
and rhythm. Repeated hearings of these works breed familiarity when
phrases, cadences, and even the larger shapes of entire movements can
be anticipated, the same as in the works of Bach, Mozart, Chopin,
etc. The traditional tertian-based concept of expression and beauty

162
is changed in these pieces, but if they are approached without condition
or prejudice, the music may then begin to speak.
The present study of the piano works of Carlos Chavez reveals
that these are skillfully written works. Despite the diversity of
genre, certain similarities between these pieces emerge, offering un-
limited opportunity for further study. .Aside from being highly in-
teresting to the analyst, they are distinctive additions to con-
temporary piano repertoire. .Although this music may not establish
Chavez as the greatest piano composer of all time, or even of the
twentieth century, it does e.xhibit an interesting combination of
nationalistic, classical, and modem traits; such an amalgamation has
oroduced a justifiably valid subject for scrutiny.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Agea, Francisco. El Estado Presente de la Musica en Mexico. Washington,

D.C: Pan American Union, 1960.
Behague, Gerard. Music in Latin .America: An Introduction. Englewood

Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1979
Chase, Gilbert. "Creative Trends in Latin American Music." Tempo 50

(Winter 1959) : 26-8.
A Guide to the Music of Latin .America. 2nd ed. Washington,

D.C: Pan American Union and The Library of Congress, 1962
. The Music of Spain. New York: W.W. Norton, 1941.
Chavez, Carlos. "Formulas and Ideas." Perspectives of New Music

(IX-2): 1971.
"Mexican Music." In Renascent Mexico, pp. 199-218. Edited

by Herbert C. Herring and Herbert Weinstock. .\'ew York: Covici-
Friede, 1955.
. "Multiple Heritage: Art of the Americas Has Many Sources."

N'ew -York Tirades, 15 April 1958, sec. 2, p. 9.
''Tae Music of Mexico." In .American Coraposers on .-^raierican

Music, pp 167-172. Edited by Henry Cowell. Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1955,
"La Musica." In Mexico y la Cultura, pp. 475-550. Me.xico:

Secretaria de Educacion Publica, 1946.
Musical Tnought. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961
"Revolt in Mexico." Modem Music XIII (March 1936): 35-40.
Toward a New Music. Translated from Spanish by Herbert

¥einstock. New York: W,W,Norton, 1937.
"The Two Persons." Musical Quarterly 15 (April 1929):

153-159.
Copland, Aaron. "Carlos Chavez: Mexican Composer." In '^^î^^^^J^^'
^ posers on American Music, pp. 102-106. Êdited by Henry Cowell
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 19J3.
Our New Music. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1941.
163
164
°^"^^^' ^J^y^^: "Today in Mexican Music." Christian Science Monitor

XXXI (2 September 1939): 7. —"
Ewen, David, ed. The New Book of Modem Composers. \'ew York- Knopf
1964. " • " ' '
Fles, Barthold. "Chavez Lights New Music with Old Fires." Musical
America 48 (15 September 1928): 5.
Garcia Morillo, Roberto. Carlos Chavez: Vida y Obras. Mexico: Fondo de

Cultura Economica, 1960. ~"
Halffter, Rodolfo, ed. Carlos Chavez: Catalogo Complete de Sus Obras.

Mexico: Sociedad de .Autores y Compositores de Musica, 1971.
Hanson, John R. "Macroform in Selected Twentieth-Century Piano

Concertos." Dissertation, University of Rochester', 1969.
Igou, Orin Lincoln. "Contemporary Symphonic Activity in Me.xico with

Special Regard to Carlos Chavez and Silvestre Revueltas."
Dissertation, Northwestern University, 1946.
Kauffmann, Helen L. "Carlos Chavez: Decidedly no 'Manana' Mexican."

Musical America 56 (September 1936): 11,26.
Machlis, Joseph. Introduction to Contemporary Music, 2nd ed. New York:

W.W. Norton, 1979.
Malmstrom, Dan. Introduction to Twentieth-Century Mexican Music.

Uppsala, Sweden: Institute of Musicology, 1974.
Mayer-Serra, Otto. "Carlos Chavez: una monografia critica." Revista

Musicana de Mexico (7 January 1942): 5-7.
Nfusic of Latin America. Washington, D.C: Pan .\merican Union, 1975.
Nancarrow, Conlon. "Mexican Music--A Developing Nationalism." Modern

Music (November-December 1941): 67-9.
"New Pan .Americana." Saturday Review, 27 July 1957.
"Pan .American Music Festival in Mexico." Yearbook of the Inter-American

Music Bulletin VIII (September 1960): 15-21.
Perkins, Francis D. "Music from Mexico." New York Herald Tribune 100
(May, 1940) : 17.
Rosenfeld, Paul. By Way of Art. New York: Coward-McGann, Inc., 1928.
. "Carlos Chavez." Modern Music 9 (May-June 1952): 153-9.

165
Salzman, Eric. Twentieth-Century Music: .An Introduction, 2nd ed.

Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974.
Slonimsky, Nicolas. Music of Latin .America. New York: Da Caoo Press,

1972.
Stevenson, Robert. Music in Mexico: A Historical Survey. New York:

Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1952.
Music in Aztec and Inca Territorv. Berkeley: University of

Califomia Press, 1968.
Velazquez, Guillermo. Breve Historia de la Musica en Mexico. Mexico:

Libreria de Manuel Porrua, 1970.
Vinton, John. Dictionary of Contemporary Music. New York: E.P. Dutton,

1974.
Weinstock, Herbert. ".About Carlos Chavez," Tempo 51 (Spring 1959

15-15.
. "Carlos Chavez." Composers of the Araericas 5 (1957): 60-S2
. "Music by Chavez." .êricas 5 (March 1951): 10-12, 44-46.
. "Music in Mexico." In Who is Who in Music, pp. 320-1

"Chicago: Lee Stem Press, 1940.
APPENDLX
A. LECTURE RECITAL
B. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF PI.AA'O WORKS
C DISCOGRAPHY
Texas Tech Universify Department-of/1/1usic
Lubbock, Texas
DIANE NORDYKE
Piano
Ph.D. LECTURE RECITAL

THE PIANO WORKS OF CARLOS CHAVEZ
Sunday, March 8,1981, 5:00 p.m.

Hemmie Recital Hall
BIOGRAPHY OF CARLOS CHAVEZ (1899-1978)

GENERAL SURVEY OF THE MUSIC
SURVEY OF THE PIANO WORKS
Sonatina for Piano (1924)
Unity, from Seven Pieces for Piano (1930)
INTERMISSION
VI Sonata for Piano (1961)

Allegro
Andantino
Theme and Variations
Etude: Homage to Chopin (1949)
Prelude X, from Ten Preludes for Piano (1937)
CONCLUSIONS
This recital is presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for

the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Fine Arts. Ms. Nordyke is a student
of Dr. Thomas Redcay and Dr. Paul F. Cutter.
166
LECTURE
INTRODUCTION
Good afternoon. Ladies and Gentlemen. Today we are going to talk
about Carlos Chavez and his works. Carlos Chavez is deservedly the
best known of twentieth-century Mexican musicians.
We will start by reviewing his biography, followed by a survey of
his m.usic. We will then focus on his piano works, concentrating on
the five (5) pieces that I will analyze and play.
The analysis will be illustrated by the examples that you have
been given.
BIOGRAPHY OF CARLOS CH.AVEZ
Carlos Chavez was b o m in 1899 in Mexico City and died in 197S
at the age of 79. A composer, conductor, pianist, educator, writer,
and organizer, he was, for fifty years the indisputable leader of
Mexican musical activity. Chavez was responsible for raising the
Mexican musical consciousness from an almost nonexistent level to
one of the most sophisticated in Latin .America, He exerted and
continues to exert a tremendous influence on the current generation
of Mexican musicians.
Chavez was profoundly affected by the social upheaval of the
Mexican Revolution (whichbegan in 1910 and continued well into the
1930s) and captured the spirit of it in his work. He directed
167
168
Mexican music away from the imitation of foreign models toward a
vigorous nationalism rooted in the native soil.
Chavez assimilated both Mexican and Indian elements into his
music, but despite his strong identification with nationalism, he is
a universally-recognized composer. His works have been performed
throughout Latin American, the United States, and Europe, often under
the direction of Chavez himself.
As a composer, Chavez was largely self-taught. Autodidactic by
nature, with an analytical and critical mind, he had confidence in
his own resources. He learned harmony^ counterpoint, composition,
and orchestration by studying various theoretical treatises and by
making detailed analyses of many musical works of Bach, Beethoven,
and Debussy, among others.
.At the age of twenty-nine Chavez was appointed Conductor of the
newly-formed Symphony Orchestra of Mexico. He succeeded in building
the first permanent orchestra in Me.xico mainly because he knew how
to win government as well as private support for the enterprise.
From the very start he showed his determination to make his orchestra
a national institution; he played orchestral works of young Mexican
composers and gave Mexican performing artists the opportunity to be
heard.
The same year, 1928, Chavez was named Director of the National
Conservatory of Music. For five years he occupied this educational
post and exerted himself to the utmost for a renaissance of nationalism
in music. He introducted new methods of instruction and completely
revised the curriculum.

169
During the 1940s, Chavez, in an effort to bring the music to
the people, arranged concerts in various Mexican cities, some of
which had never before seen or heard a symphony orchestra. He also
organized concerts for workers, children, and radio broadcasts.
Chavez drafted the plans for the .National Institute of Fine
Arts and was named its first Director upon its founding in 194".
The Institute, chartered to encourage the development of the Fine
.Arts, contributed to a tremendous increase in dance, operatic, and
orchestral activity in Mexico.
He resigned from this post as well as from the Conductorship
of the Symphony Orchestra in 1952 in order to devote his time to
composition, and, to a lesser extent, to conducting, teaching,
writing, and le'cturing. Some of his aesthetic ideas are outlined
in the book Musical Thought, a publication of his lectures while
occupying the Charles Eliot Norton Chair of Poetics at Harvard during
1958-59.
In summary, Carlos Chavez distinguished himself in almost every
field of endeavor open to a musician. He established himself as a
composer of the highest caliber without any Mexican precedent or
tradition to follow. His works have made a unique and varied contri-
bution to the repertoire of twentieth-century music. He worked
tirelessly to expose the entire Mexican public to both foreign and
Mexican music; he created opportunities for young musicians, and made
music an integral part of the Mexican culture. His leadership of the
Symphony Orchestra, the Conservatory, and the National Institute of

170
Fine Arts is responsible for the current healthy state of the musical
environment in Mexico.
GENERAL SURVEY OF THE MUSIC
It is possible to generalize about a particular epoch in Chavez's
career, but not the whole of it. His works are the inseparable facets
of a continuing self-realization, not classifiable into unified periods
After the overtly romantic tendencies of his early compositions,
Chavez turned with his 1921 ballet. The New Fire, toward an indigenous,
nationalistic style, influenced by Mexican-Indian idioms.
It is, however, inaccurate to refer to a "nationalistic period"
in his career, for although his Mexican-influenced tendency attains
its peak in the 1930s, it also appears sporadically thereafter-.
Chavez's basic concern has been to incorporate the essence of folk
elements, through the use of melody, harmony, rhythm, or instrumenta-
tion, to confer on a piece a distinctly national flavor. Whether in
his works of indigenous character or in his most abstract compositions,
his highly personal style and Mexican sense are so intimately con-
nected that Chavez accomplished what his contemporary, Bartok, did in
Hungary: He found in the radical vocabulary of his homeland the
means to express universal sentiment.
Some generalizations can be made about Chavez's use of what he
considered to be indigenous musical features, keeping in mind that
many of them can also be found in several of his non-nationalistic
works or even in some modem European music. He makes abundant use
of modal and pentatonic melody, ostinato figures, hemiola, a consistent

I'l
underlying rhythmic unit, frequently changing meter and tempo, and
shifting accents. Functional harmony as such is relatively unim-
portant. Instead, we see a predominantly polyphonic texture which
reflects the importance of melody and rhythm rather than harmony in
primitive Aztec music. His style also embraces quartal and quintal
constructions, often in parallelism, and a percussive use of dis-
sonance.
Despite his strong nationalistic bent, much of his music,
especially the early and late compositions, has little relationship
to musical nationalism. These works are imbued with modernistic
elements unrelated to any type of folk or popular music.
During the 1930's and 40's Chavez wrote several completely non-
nationalistic works which rely wholly or partially on contemporary
European techniques. The Concerto for Violin and Orchestra is an
example. This work also displays Chavez's increasing tendency toward
neoclassical techniques.
Chavez's production from the 1950s to his death in 1978 is
dominated by four symphonies in various styles as well as such piano
pieces as Invention [1958) and the VI Sonata (1961).
Great diversity of style is exhibited in Chavez's last years,
but some neoclassical element is always present in the majority of
these works.
In surveying the total output of Carlos Chavez, we find that
there appears to be a logical but very gradual evolution from his
earliest romantic leanings to a basically nationalistic attitude, to,
finally, the predominantly neoclassical style of his later works.

1"2
SURVEY OF THE PI.ANO WORKS
Chavez's works for the piano are adeptly suited to the distinctive
nature of the instrument. A consummate pianist himself, Chavez
utilized the medium in an extremely expressive way. His strong and
clear writing shows great originality while reflecting deep respect
for the works of master composers.
Chavez wrote forty-six works for solo piano and one piano con-
certo. About one-half of these works are, unfortunately, still un-
published. Because of the difficulty of classifying his works into
specific styles or periods, they will be considered here in chronological
order.
The piano works of Chavez's early period, 1917 to 1922, reveal
strong romantic influences. .A collection called First Notebooks in-
cludes all of the solo piano pieces that Chavez wrote during this
early period, most of them otherwise unpublished. They are extremely
varied, ranging from brief pieces of general or nationalistic character
to compositions of broad dimensions.
Paul Rosenfeld, a critic and astute observer of Chavez as a
composer for piano, describes the Sonatina for Piano, of 1924, as
"Indian in its rigidity and peculiar earthy coarseness." A closer
examination of this work is presented in the next section.
Chavez's Seven Pieces for Piano, 1950, is written in a very
complex, avant-garde style." This style is marked by highly chromatic
and dissonant harmonies that result frequently in an ambiguous tonal
feeling reinforced by the simultaneous use of extreme registers,
polyrhythmic texture, and metric irregularity.

i , :>
The Third Sonata for Piano of 1928 is inscribed to .Aaron Copland.
.After hearing Chavez perform the piece Paul Rosenfeld reported: "It
is dry as a plant lost in the sands. The leanness of the sound, the
uncompromising harshness of the counterpoint, the strictness of its
beat, are at first almost intolerable. The themes are at once child-
like and precise, drumlike and decisively rhythmical. There is no
voluptuousness in the score; at moments, when the composer himself
is at the piano, we seem to listen to modal, polytonic music executed
as if the music were Bach and the performer a pupil of the French
Conservatory. The fugue is bald; the scherzo a savage dusty bit, one
of those flighty, glittering, rhapsodic passages in which we hear
an echo of the atrocious rattling and scratchings of the Aztec in-
strumentalists. Yet there is perfect logic here, and a source of
new delight." I have quoted Mr. Rosenfeld at length here because
what he has to say of the Third Sonata is appropriate to and typical
of many other piano works of Chavez.
The Ten Preludes for Piano, 1957, is quite different in treatment
from Chavez's earlier piano works. Both in the form and in the
natural pianism of the Preludes, Chavez renounced some of his former
stridency, and created instead a modem counterpart—terse, linear,
and percussive-of Bach's Preludes. The composer wrote: "My plan
was to write one for each of the seven white keys. I composed, then,
a Prelude in each of the Gregorian modes. These seven modes taken
care of, I decided to expand the series to ten and continued with a
kind of bimodality in the eighth and a mixture of modality-tonality

1"4
in the ninth and tenth. In almost all of my previous works there is
evidence of procedures that are classic or academic, such as imitation,
progressions, or sequences. In these Preludes I indeed followed some
of these procedures, since I felt that at least here they were capable
of going beyond traditional effects." Analysis of the tenth Prelude
will be presented in the next section.
In 1938 Chavez was commissioned by the Guggenheim Foundation to
compose the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, a task that was completed
on the last day of 1940,
This Concerto is one of Chavez's greatest compositions, and has
been compared to the Concerto for Keyboard of Manuel de Falla. A high
level of national sentiment stands out in the work, which offers a
valuable synthesis of diverse folkloric elements of Mexico. However,
these elements appear as no more than an aura, since they are completely
assimilated by the composer's personality, which has permitted him to
create a work of universal significance with a Mexican accent.
Of the more recent works, the Etude to Rubinstein, 1974, is
mentionable; it is an ingenious study in minor seconds, a nonstop
virtuosic display. The manuscript of this work was presented to
Arthur Rubinstein at the first International Piano Competition held
in his honor in Israel.
Five Capriccios for Piano was commissioned by the pianist Alan
Marks in 1975. Chavez's angular and severe style lends a new inter-
pretation to the term "capriccio," which is by definition a light,
spontaneous piece. Essentially, the faster movements are full of

175
starts, hesitations, and changes of intention; in a word, capricious.
The slower movements are sustained and unusually evocative. Each
Capriccio is through-composed, with no repetition of musical idea.
In summary, Chavez's works were in tune with the times of
Mexico. The Mexican Revolution brought a surge in national sentiment,
along with a renewed interest in the Aztec origins of the country.
Chavez was the undisputed leader of this new musical movement.
PIECES TO BE PERFORMED
The pieces that I have chosen for the lecture-recital are re-
presentative of the various facets of Chavez's creative career, from
the primitive Indianistic tone of the Sonatina for Piano and "Unity"
to the strongly neoclassical basis of the Tenth Prelude, the Etude,
and even the VI Piano Sonata. The order of the pieces has been
chosen more for the-sake of programming than chronology.
Before I play each piece, I will give a brief analysis of it
using musical examples.
Sonatina for Piano
The Sonatina for Piano, composed in 1924, is a compact work,
formally clear and concisely written. It has a definitely indigenous
flavor, although Chavez has already surpassed his earliest period
of merely elaborating folkloric material.
Features that give the piece its strongly primitive character
are the modal melodies, the insistent repetition of simple melodic-
rhythmic motives, the driving rhythmic impulse, ostinato figures.

176
and the crescendos to the end of each of the main sections. The im-
portance of the linear aspect of the writing is emphasized by the
composer's score indication: "The same intensity in all of the
voices. »t
The Sonatina is centered on A, and the absence of functional
tertian harmony is a notable feature. The largely diatonic vocabulary
is manifested through quartal and quintal sonorities and a dissonant
contrapuntal texture.
The ternary form of this work is clearly delineated in the score.
Each of the three main sections ends with a cadence and a double
barline, with the next section beginning a new tempo indication.
The entire piece is based on two motives, each expanding to
become one of the principal themes. The first motive. Motive A, is
initially seen in the top voice and later throughout the Sonatina.
Motive A consists of four scalewise descending notes, often with the
first three notes in a triplet figure, as shown in Example la.
6ij ^ ^ ^
^
r—tJT
The second basic motive. Motive B, consists of only two notes,
the interval of an ascending second. This simple idea is fully
exploited through inversion, sequence, and augmentation. Initially
it is seen in the top voice, as shown in Example lb.

?X.Ih ( n 7 ^ , ^n^^,r^ ^
r-^ >-
T^—-
^ ^ ^ ^
r
u.l±.
X!: •^—It-
•? /k-rr
(i;)*
Section A, marked Moderato, is a three-part form, aba'. It begins

• 3 • , ,. .
m J meter with the six-measure Theme A, which grows out of Motive A,
as we will hear in Example Ic.
Moderato J = 84
(semvrtî/s^prosamente in tempo)
4-^''
7.\ ("W
\ .
^g-^
t>
•^'r ir-
y^ /a stessa iiUensita jper tutte le vociJ
TT
tutto legato
JZ-
VE5
- • — 1
JL * J
".> • * * - ^
r—)
^
^<>. " J^ - * - * •
"r r^r r
•^^>T
* -•
Motive A is then seen in a bass ostinato figure, while the upper
voice introduces the secundal Motive B, which quickly grows into an
oscillating theme, full of changes of direction and composed entirely
of seconds and thirds. This theme is shown in E.xample Id, Notice

178
the ostinato in the left hand, built out of Motive A and half of
Motive B. You may also notice that the rhythm of Motive B already
appears in measure 1 against Motive A. Truly the two motives are the
basic building blocks out of which the entire piece grows.
Sjc.In 'Tnm7-Tl): ^ômo tj

B
F^ I 7-1>—0 •-— -^ ?^—!' 1—• ^ •* » m—^
—^ J -J»—= * - i—' - *—TT—*—•* "—'
pxu J
0 -••
r
II ' f' L _ , J = . . • • . . . . •_-.: • • " - « : - t
-rJ- ^ f 0 Z=±=M====f=^
•i Arr * 3* ; cpvX' '^=^
ostinato , - (ip^ . y ^" (a>y
(^ " '=^^ ,
(x+ B) iiiliilMlimiiliiiiijiijjn lllliJilfliiiiiiiiiiiiiin' nimiiniiiiiiiiiinnf r-^
^ i iS^ m •0 d
fj
t-i ITt7
L>r r uT i i
^^
2^ • ^ - » i -
â^
i * * 0 M * • ' «
wiiiniiiHiimijiiiiiii iiiiiinurtniHimiiiiiir T»»iniiiirnHiniiiiiiii'
Section B is divided into three parts, each based mainly on
Motive B. Tae three parts show a progressively increasing tempo and
dynamic level, and ostinato figures and other repetitious figures
abound, helping to build intensity to the next section.
Section A', marked Lento, retums to the A center and is an
exact restatement of Section A, but with a new ending and at a slightly
slower tempo.
I will now play the Sonatina for Piano.
1^9
"Unity," from Seven Pieces for Piano
"Unity," composed in 1930, is the longest and most substantial of
Chavez's Seven Pieces for Piano. It is in a direct incisive style,
in which the writing is linear and very austere, with a unity of pro-
cedures, as indicated by the title and Chavez's own comment: "The
unity of this piece comes from its considerable general cohesion and
its well-integrated architecture." Sonata form is a manifestation of
its tightly unified character.
"Unity" is a piece of splendid pianistic writing. Its very fast
tempo and superimposed rhythmic groupings give it an intoxicating
drive that persists to the very end. An impetuous initial triplet
figure. Theme I, as heard in Example Ila, sets the general character
of the niece.
Vivo • « 160 — V , "^Tg. \ "jn"' -•-- ^ ; T h S''..

4
Theme I is later interrupted by the contrasting Theme II, more singing
and melodic, somewhat in the mood of a waltz, seen in Example lib.
^x.IIb (rrmZl-?^^! Theme II

130
The entire piece is developed mainly around these two ideas in
various combinations, patterns, and orders.
The melodic motives are treated in a manner different from the
usual type of thematic development. There is not merely an elaboration
per se, but a series of altemating repetitions of the same materials.
These materials are presented in the Development section in diverse
ways with modifications and changes of color, giving the piece an
unflagging, aggressive line. There does occur some typical development,
such as when the material in Example lie is developed in diminution,
Examnle lid.
Ex.lie (min53-63)
^0^1
-iii -1
*>
w^r=r==^
Zx.IId (Tjnl47-8)
^ 0 *L O ^ ^ ^ 0 ± t
ir 0\\ I
_ i FE
) .. L
0 ' * :zd^ -0 1-
0 ^.^^gpc^.u.^ ^——;x=ii
^
181
Even more striking, however, is the rhythmic character of the
piece, animated by the opposition of binary and ternary rhythmic
values, manipulated with great skill and in numerous combinations.
Changing meters are encountered, but the beat value remains constant
so that the continuity is not affected. For example. Theme II dis-
plays, in addition to its simple waltz melody, a second transitional
idea that uses triple-against^duple division of the measure, with
further rhythmic interest added by the grouping of eighth notes across
the barline in the left hand. The combining of these dissimilar
rhythmic patterns gives the effect of =r, ^, and |- meters occurring
simultaneously, as indicated in E.xample H e .
S x . I I e (nun33-35)
-/^—B.a " 0 O'0 ^ * a.J '' o-^x> ^^ g.j-**-<»-i»'*—=^- câ

-r
_^'^ J ^!^_ J\
*-'/:'-.
o
< \ 1 T ! ' j
Wf
^'Ti • ; : ^1 ' ! ^ vj .
^yjv^v v > ' J*-^'—•^ 3 ^^niiiiiiiuii^
l»miniii'*| ^nmiiijinlj îiiiinitHij
' ^ ^yjf*>
.j—U-,
.*.
Vniiiimii'
—r»-4-T
These rhythmic groupings appear often as an effective element of
coherence. Another interesting manipulation of rhythms occurs in
Example IIf. Measures 49 and 50 suggest j meter, with measure 51
changing to -3-. This is followed in the next two measures by a combin-
ation of j in the middle voice, -r- in the upper voice, and j in the
left-hand part.
182
Sx.IIf (mm49-'S41
i; it 3 L;liiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiii ^ liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii^ 7
Melodic pentachords are used in contrast to the various angular
gestures that are frequently seen. The intervals most commonly used
are seconds and sevenths. Hollow-sounding fourths and fifths in
vertical as well as horizontal structures contribute to the earthy,
primitive sound.
The deliberate avoidance of any strong cadence makes this a
piece of almost unceasing propulsion. The action finally begins to
decelerate at the end of the Coda, a two-voice imitative passage that
seems rhythmically imprecise with assymmetrical stress patterns.
This continues until the last four measures, when an accent is placed
on the first note of each measure, so that the two voices, ever louder
and slower, converge to the final open fifth that dramatically ends
the piece. I will now play "Unity."

is:
VI Sonata for Piano
Some doubt has been expressed about the VI Sonata for Piano,
1961, being the product of a modem composer of Chavez's caliber. If
examined as a twentieth-century work, this Sonata is indeed an oddity.
Its extraordinary nature--it soionds like a composition from the
eighteenth, not the twentieth, century--may lead one to conclude that
it is a spoof or parody on the Piano Sonatas of Mozart.
Tnere is also the possibility that the VI Sonata is a very early
work that was simply rediscovered around 1961. Perhaps it was written
at the time Chavez was studying the works of Mozart, whereby he would
have been trying to imitate Mozart's style.
In any case it definitely sounds Mozartean, and the reasons
will remain an enigma and a point of speculation.
The Sonata is in three movements. Tae first is an Allegro in
Sonata form. The second, .Andantino, is a lyrical Sonatina. The
third movement is a Theme and Twelve Variations.
I will now play the Sixth Sonata for Piano.
Etude: Homage to Chopin
In 1949 Chavez was commissioned by UNESCO to write four Etudes
for the centennial of Chopin's death. These Etudes, especially the
first, reveal an admirable utilization of the technical resources of
the instrument, and the desire to achieve something equivalent to
what Villa-Lobos offered with his Bachianas Brasileiras, that is a
panoramic vision of the art of Chopin contemplated through a Mexican
prism.
184
The first Etude, subtitled Homage to Chopin, is very dissonant in
character and shows a commendable exploitation of the sound capabilities
of the piano. Fleeting traits of the pianistic style of Chopin are
heard, with periodic touches of lyricism amidst an overall virtuosic
character.
Traditionally, an etude addresses one or more technical problems
of execution, as do the Etudes of Chavez. Tnis first Etude focuses on
the technical aspects of playing octaves, double notes, and chords,
and especially on the polyrhythmic possibilities of -r- meter.

o
The Etude is constructed in a three-part form, .ABA', with a Coda,
as were most of Chopin's. However, unlike Chopin's Etudes, there is
really no important element of contrast in the middle section, which
merely employs the first thematic material on a different tonal level
and develops its ideas somewhat. IVhen the material retums to its
original level in the last section, the listener has the feeling of
a recapitulation, even though only slight variation has occurred.
.Above all other concerns in this study may be the mastery over
hemiola, so frequently and consistently does the opposition of and

6 ,3
alternation of -3r- aand
nd^-r meters occur between the hands, as seen in
8 4
Example IIla, the opening six measures of the piece
185
E x . I I I a (mnil-6;
i
s ^ r n i ^. '^F
b ^ i ^•e i s 'mU^,
^
^ ! <•> : •
g
, rC
W 17 » »=:g^--c;
L-4
i ^ ^
^ ^
5=a ^
6 _, 9
Although both parts are notated m compound meter, g- and g-,
the grouping of the notes forces the hands to alternate, sometimes
in opposition to each other, between simple and compound meters^ I
will play this example again because of the importance of the
rhythmic subtleties.
The Coda ends with the rhythmic conflict brought to the height
of frenzy, the right hand insisting obstinately on -g, the left hand
just as obstinately on |, the release or resolution coming as follows,
in Example Illb.
186
zx.ZlTo (mm9^-103^
7—1
T :2^
Ji?^ ^ •nil-*-
' ^
-T^ -• *r
^
'•) m :33c
• ^
^
I will now play the Etude: Homage to Chopin
-"Prelude X," from Ten Preludes for Piano
The tenth Prelude, composed in 1937, the only one of the Ten_
Preludes for Piano with a key signature, centers around A major
despite the tenacious presence of the D-sharp that gives it a Lydian

187
flavor. Although it is the longest Prelude, with 329 measures, the
performance, due to the fast tempi, lasts only four and one-half minutes
This delightful Prelude is a highly unified, masterfully con-
structed piece of music. Chavez used techniques prevalent in the
music of Bach, in combination with a tonal vocabulary that is at times
charmingly Mexican in essence. The two-voice contrapuntal te.xture in
perpetual eighth-note motion, and at times in invertible counterpoint,
is reminiscent of the two-part Inventions of Bach. Rhythmic interest
is produced by varied groupings, displaced accents, and again, a great
deal of J, -g hemiola, Occasionally there is some syncopation in one
voice at a time, but a constant rhythmic base is maintained by the
ever-present driving eighth-note pulse.
Diverse pianistic touches are employed, from hammered staccatos
to singing tones, with variously articulated fragmented scales and
broken tertian and quartal chords. The most striking procedure used
in this Prelude is sequence, another reminder of Bach. As in much
of Chavez's music, the melodies are often nothing m.ore than short
motives repeated several times on different levels, often a second
above or below.
The tenth Prelude is constructed in a type of Arch form, ABCB'A'
Coda, in which Section C is the midpoint followed by two sections that
loosely mirror the first two. Each of the sections is based on a
different motive that develops into a theme. The inner Sections B and
C also serve to intensify melodic ideas from the opening Section A.
We will refer to the motives or themes of each of the first sections
as "A", "B", or "C," respectively.

138
The initial Motive A., Martellato leggero. is an incisive
rhythmic cell which permeates the entire piece, E.xample IVa shows
Motive A and the theme built out of it.
Motiiia Ex.IVa (mml-7): Theme A

0 ^d ^' -y •-:!LLL_- '^^' ^^
/I 'V a.rrf- rm '-< -~
__: t
y martellato leg^ro
\^<n=!S=; +—f-
* • m -^-0~^ r^
o
/r;0-_iin:?=^
^frv
t»
:iit
=(^^^
t>
^^TT^trf • « ^
Motive B, Legato cantando, forms a sharp contrast. The Motive it-
self is only two measures, but it is sequenced three times, each
time a step lower, which expands the Motive into the charming
Theme B, Example IVb

189
Sx.IV'o ( n m 4 2 - ^ 9 ) : Theme 3
Motive 3
jiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiB nmnim
jjiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiuiiiinniiiiiiniiimniiiiiin |iiiiiiiiiiiinimniiiiinnniiiiiimnmmiiiinn
The C Tneme is a lyrical melody, more chordally-based than
either of the previous themes. This theme is shown in Example IVc

190
Zx.IVc (mml21-128)! Theme C
— - ^ : • • -r :• * •
Hemiola is used a great deal to anim.ate the transitional materials
of this Prelude, as shown in Example IVd where the duple and triple
patterns are indicated by accent marks. This is only one of several
instances where hemiola is ingeniously employed.

19:
Ex.IVd (rjTi:'2-77^
UA^
cr^tzic:
*rfc ?S>^^ a #
^ ^ ZflZ ?fXZ3C
: ^ DO.
Tne Prelude finishes with a sequential combination of fragments
taken from all of the main sections, A very gradual rallentando
occurs, anticipating the final descent to the enormous A major chord
which concludes this exciting piece.
I will now play the Tenth Prelude.
CONCLUSIONS
Based on these five pieces, some conclusions can be drawn re-
garding the piano music of Carlos Chavez. Contrapuntal writing
takes precedence over vertical harmonies. This counterpoint frequently
uses two-voice textures, sometimes doubling one or both of the voices
at the octave.
192
Although many interesting rhythmic devices are used, often with
the hands in opposition to each other, hemiola is the most prevalent.
Chavez absolutely delights in opposing duple and triple meters.
Incessant, driving rhythm is a significant feature, often with
an uninterrupted pulse transferred from voice to voice, as in Bach's
keyboard style. This perpetual motion also creates the primitive
aura that we hear in some of this music.
Chavez almost totally avoids traditional tertian harmony, except
in the VI Sonata, sho;\fing instead a predilection for the more dis-
sonant sonorities of seconds and sevenths. Hollow fourths and fifths
are also used, often in parallel motion. While each composition is
built around a particular pitch center, there is no strict adherence
to one definite scale or mode. Instead there is frequently a mixture
of two or more modes, sometimes using all twelve tones of the octave.
This creates an ambiguity that may remain unresolved until the final
cadence.
Thematic material is based on short, simple motives; e.xtended
lyrical tunes appear infrequently. In fact, one of Chavez's themes is
likely to be made up exclusively of one motive, repeated or sequenced
into a strongly unified melody.
The strength and merit of this piano music results from the
successful combination of strictly classical forms and techniques and
a twentieth-century vocabulary of percussive dissonance and striking
rhythm. These works continue the musical tradition while retaining
the vitality which flows from the composer's native culture.

193
In concluding, I would like to quote Aaron Copland: "Chavez's
music is extraordinarily healthy, a manifestation of life. It is
clear and clean sounding, without shadows or softness. Here is con-
temporary music if there ever was any."
Thank you.
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF PIANO WORKS
1917 Publisher
Sonata Fantasia manuscript (ms)
(chronologically Sonata I)
Preludio v Fuga ms
1918
Esperanza Ingenua ms
Gavota ms
Berceuse A. Wagner & Levien
(out of print)
Pensamiento Feliz ms
Meditacion ms
Triste Sonrisa ms
Carnaval ms
1919
Estudios I y II ms
Barcarola ms
Vals Intimos I y II A. Wagner S Levien
(out of print)
Deuxime Senate pour Piano Bote & G. Bock
(out of print)
1920
Bendicion ms
Noche ms
Vals Intimos III y IV ms
Estudio III ms
1921
Estudio IV ms
Cinco Madrigales ms
Vals Eligia ms
1922
Madrigales VI Y VII ms
Cuatro Nocturnes ms
194
195
1923
Publisher
Aspectos I y II
ms
1923-30
Seven Pieces for Piano

Belwin-Mills
1924
Sonatina for Piano

Boosey § Hawkes
1925
Foxtrot
ms
1928
Sonata for Piano New .Music

(out of print)
1937
Ten Preludes for Piano G. Schirmer

1940
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra G. Schirmer

Para Juanita ms
1941
Sonata IV para Piano ms

1942
Miniatura ms
1943
The Weeping Woman - Dance of the Feather ms
1949
Four Etudes for Piano (to Chopin) Southern Music Co
1950
Left Hand Inversion of Five Chopin Etudes Belwin-Mills

196
1952
Publisher
Cuatro Nuevos Estudios para Piano
ms
1958
Invencion
Boosey § Hawkes
1960
Sonata V para Piano

ms
1961
VI Sonata for Piano Belwin-Mills

1967
Mananas Mexicanas
ms
1974
Estudio a Rubinstein G. Schirmer

1975
Cinco Caprichos para Piano ms

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THE PLANO WORKS OF CARLOS CHAVEZ

DIME NORDYKE, B.M., M.M.

Submitted to the Graduate Faculry

The author wishes to express her appreciation to Professors Paul

Cutter and Thomas Redcay, members of her dissertation committee, who

have given generously of their time and helpful advice.

A special acknowledgment for permission to extract short musical

examples is extended to Boosey and Hawkes, Inc. - Sonatina for Piano -

and to Peer International Corporation - Estudio: Homenaje a Chopin

ESTUDIO: HOMENAJE A CHOPIN by Carlos Chavez

CHAPTER I BIOGRAPHY OF CARLOS CHAVEZ 1

CHAPTER II GENERAL MUSICAL STYLE AND OVERVIEW OF HIS WORKS . . U

CHAPTER III SURVEY OF THE PIANO MUSIC 20

CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS OF SELECTED PIANO WORKS 32

Sonatina for Piano 32

Third Sonata for Piano 40

"Unity," from Seven Pieces for Piano 66

Prelude X, from Ten Preludes for Piano 82

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra 98

Movement III 124

Etude: Homage to Chopin 133

Etude to Rubinstein 145

CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS 157

APPENDIX A LECTURE RECITAL 166

APPENDIX B CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF PIANO WORKS 194

BIOGRAPHY OF CARLOS CHAVEZ

Carlos Chavez (1899-1978) is deservedly the best known twentiet

century Mexican musician. A composer, conductor, pianist, educator,

of Mexican musical activity. Chavez was responsible for raising the

Mexican musical consciousness from an almost nonexistent level to on

that can be considered the most sophisticated in Latin America.

He exerted and continues to exert a tremendous influence on the curr

generation of Mexican musicians.

Chavez's journeys to the outlying mountain regions of his home-

and richness of Mexico's folk music. He was also profoundly affacte

by the social upheaval of the Mexican Revolution (which began in 191

foreign models toward a vigorous nationalism rooted in the native so

However, despite his strong identification with nationalism, he is a

universally-recognized composer. His works have been performed thro

direction of Chavez himself ,^

in Mexico City on August 2, 1978. The seventh child of a'mestizo

Parra. He continued his piano studies from twelve to fifteen years

twenty-one with the pianist Pedro Luis Ogazon.

As a composer, Chavez was largely self-taught. Autodidactic by

nature, with an analytical and critical mind, he had confidence in

his own resources. He learned harmony, counterpoint, composition, a

orchestration by studying various theoretical treatises and by makin

detailed analyses of many of the musical works of Bach, Beethoven,

and Debussy, among others. In a letter to his biographer, Roberto

Garcia Morillo, the composer stated:

I never wanted to have a composition teacher

In September of 1922 Chavez married Miss Otilia Ortiz, "a woman

of the most extraordinary musical perceptivity."- Immediately the

accepted some of his works for publication, Chavez's reaction to

•^Roberto Garcia Morillo, Carlos Chavez; Vida y Obras (Mexico:

highly productive association, marked by lasting friendships (es-

pecially with Aaron Copland), repeated engagements as guest con-

ductor, important commissions, publication of his music, and numerous

Chavez began an enduring connection with the Mexico City news-

paper El Universal in August 1924, continuing to write articles on

music and art almost every year thereafter.

On his return to Mexico in 1928, after living in New York

his career. At the age of twenty-nine he accepted the director-

ship of the newly-formed Symphony Orchestra of Mexico. He succeeded