Music in Mexico; A Historical Survey by Robert Stevenson

Review by: Charles Seeger

Notes, Second Series, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Mar., 1953), pp. 269-270
Published by: Music Library Association
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 BOOK REVIEWS
Compiledand editedby WILLIAM
Music in Mexico; A HistoricalSurvey. By RobertStevenson. New
York: ThomasY. CrowellCo., [1952]. [xv, (3), 300 p., music,port.,8vo;
$5.00]
Ruling out the conventionalhistoryof
"Music" (capital M, period, which is to
say "all music") as a thing that in spite
of the popularityof the title has never
been and cannot in any forseeablefuture
be written,music-historicalmethodshould
distinguishclearly between the story of
total music production in an area and
that of one idiom or typeof music in the
area. From a musicological viewpoint
the formermust be primarilyquantita-
tive and secondarily qualitative; the
latter,the reverse. For the formermust
firstdescribe the picture as a whole and
only afterthis is done presentthe criteria
and discussion necessary for the evalua-
tion of parts and whole; while the latter,
by the initial act of selection of one
strand, therebyperformsa basic act of
evaluation, positive or negative, with re-
spect to all other strands,to the whole,
and to the relationshipof the parts and
the whole, that must affectall the rest
of the story.
Perhaps, also, we should distinguish
betweenthe handling of such an area as
Europe, or any part of it, and one such
as the New World or a part of it. For
while we know better in this mid-20th
centurythan to spend much time specu-
lating upon origins or even upon the
music-acculturative componentsof such a
phenomenon as the music of Europe,
neverthelessa kind of specious origin
attaches itself inevitablyto *anystoryof
music in the Americas. The historyof
conquest,colonization,and the institution
of slaverycan be documentedveryclosely.
Three continentalsets of cultural tradi-
tions-European, Amerindian, and Afri-
can-did meet variously at fairly pre-
cisely known times and places in the
New World beginningaround 1500. We
can trace in detail the gradual spread
269
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LICHTENWANGER
throughoutthe hemisphere of a hege-
mony, firstof European traditions and
later-through acculturationwith one or
the other of the two remaining conti-
nental traditionsand the ebb and flow
of contra-acculturative movements-of
emergingneo-Europeanregional and area
sub-cultures, often hailed prematurely
as "American," but possibly destined
some day to deserve the epithet.
Music seems to have been not onlyone
of the functionsof these groups in which
acculturation and contra-acculturation
have been most extensive,but also one
in which the dominationof neo-European
(and emerging "American"?) traditions
has been most surely effected. This has
not taken place in the manner familiar
to us in European history,where the
interplayof the genius of a people on
the one hand and of many individual
creative artists on the other has often
been so exquisitely balanced. The de-
velopmentof the above-mentionedhege-
mony in the New World has been over-
whelminglya social phenomenon.There
has been a very conspicuous lack of out-
standing individual talent of the kind
we call "genius." Any historical survey
of music in the New World, whetherof
all music or of only one strand, must
thereforesatisfycriteriawhichare primar-
ily quantitative.
It is only fair to give Robert Stevenson
credit for writingthe best book on the
historyof music in Mexico in any lan-
guage to date. The firstfiftypages, on
pre-Hispanic aboriginal music (of which
no written notations have ever been
found), are supportedby some 20th cen-
tury notationsof the music of surviving
primitivetribes. (Better than to have
copied these from Lumholtz, Baqueiro
F6ster, and other writers would have
 been to transcribe some of Henrietta
Yurchenko's recent recordings, part of
which can be found in Library of Con-
gress Album No. 19, records 91-95.) Our
author seems to have read his Chronicles
and examined 'first-handthe earliest
printed texts. The chapter on Neo-
Hispanic ecclesiastical music from Her-
nando Franco (d. 1585) to Antonio de
Salazar (Chapelmaster in the Cathedral
of Mexico City fromabout 1687 to 1715)
draws not only from Steven Barwick's
excellent doctoral dissertation (Harvard,
1949) but from first-handexamination
of the manuscript part books in the
Cathedrals of Mexico City, Puebla,
Morelia, and Oaxaca. The chapters on
"The Operatic NineteenthCentury" and
"Fulfillmentduring the Twentieth Cen-
tury" are especially good reading and
reference. The work is well documented.
The 10-page bibliographyis to be used
in conjunction with Gilbert Chase's
Guide to Latin American Music (Wash-
ington: Library of Congress, 1945).
It must be said, however,that the con-
tent of the book belies its title and pre-
sents one strandof the topic as if it were
the whole. Its monkish preoccupation
with the writtenor printedpage, and the
consequent critical bias in favor of the
primacy of the learned, pseudo-learned,
or fine art, is in the currentfashion of
contemporaryhistorico-musicology.This
method could pass were the materials of
the high quality to which we are ac-
customed in a European area or period
study. As it is, the author assembles a
surprisinglylarge number of assorted
bricks and some mortarfor the construc-
tion of a scholarlyedifice. But these are
not set togetheriandthereseems to be no
architecturalplan other than of chron-
ology, so that the net impressionof the
reader may well be that the Mexican
mountainof scoresof millionshas labored
for fourand a half centuriesand brought
fortha ratherscrawnylittle mouse.
By any fair estimateof the sheer prob-
abilities, as well as by the evidence
marshalled by Stevenson himself, the
composers,performers, and hearersof the
fine art of music in Mexico must have
totalled but a small fractionof one per-
cent of the music-making and music-
using population. Let us grant that this
fractionis the most importantof all frac-
tions and that those who have been in-
directly influenced by it run into the
many millions. But is it the pearl in the
oyster? By emphasis alone, as well as by
viewing all other idioms chieflyas tribu-
tary to it, our author implies it is. This
reviewer disagrees. As a pearl, it can-
not stack up beside any of the musics
of European areas of equal size. Like
all colonial musics, that of the United
States included, the historyof the fine
art of music in Mexico has been for the
most part stumbling,mongrel,epigonic,
and inept. Only a few works,and these
very recent, can stand beside the great
bulk of the best work of the big world
except to disadvantage. But the folk
and popular music of Mexico? These
are indeed pearls! And they can stand
beside their fellows in any American or
European country,if theydo not actually
stand above many of them.
What this reviewerwould like to see
Robert Stevensondo, therefore,now that
he has to his credit a thorough study
of the writtensources of Mexican music,
is an equally thoroughjob with the un-
written-that is, oral-sources. For it
must be in the integrationof the two that
a more profoundlyconceived historyof
music in Mexico will eventually be
written.
CHARLES SEEGER

Proceedings of the Conferenceon Latin-AmericanFine Arts,

June 14-17, 1951. Cosponsoredby the College of Fine Arts and the
Studies,The Universityof Texas. (Latin-
Instituteof Latin-American
AmericanStudies xiii). Austin: Universityof Texas Press, 1952. [xi,
132 p., illus., ports., 8vo; paper]
It is gratifyingto find music occupy- in the number of papers presented-in
ing a prominentplace-leading, indeed, this Conferenceon Latin-AmericanFine
270

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