Music in Mexico.

by Robert Stevenson
Review by: Carleton Sprague Smith
The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Aug., 1953), p. 395
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2509589 .
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 BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTICES 395

conditions in Tajin through the Instituto Nacional IJdigenista. Put

their primary aim is descriptive, for a sufficient number of just such
descriptive reports would make elear the distribution of cultural
traits in Mexico and gYreatlyfacilitate the task of reeonstrueting
Indian history.
C(IIARLES GIBSON.
State Universitv of Iowa.

M-iussic i, lhexico. By ROBERT STEVENSON. (New York: Crowell, 1952.

Pp. 300. Bibliography, index. $5.00.)
Mr. Stevenson 's Mlusic iia MeXico is the best survey which has
yet been written on this subject. He has done some original research
in a vast field and assembled widely scattered information from many
different sources. It is now clearly established that the neo-Hispanic
colonial contribution in music was milore significant than had been
imagined and Mr. Stevenson places this school in its proper setting.
The author publishes extracts from about a dozen pieces, some of them
long enough to give a good idea of the composers' style. Certain
names must now be considered in the general history of music such
as Hernando Franco, Pedro Bermld'Iez, Lopez y Capilla, Juan de
Padilla and Antonio de Salazar.
Mr. Stevenson is less detailed in his discussion of folk music,
although he is acquainted with the old romances going back to
medieval Spain. He also pays slight attention to salon music and
popular (lance music, although, again he is well aware of their exist-
ence.
More musical examples from the nineteenth and twentieth cen-
turies-from Morales, Castro, Carrillo, Sandi and others would have
been welcome. A discussion of the Maximilian influence in the nmsical
field would also have been interesting, to say nothing of the relation-
ship of Julio Ituarte, Felipe Villanueva, and others to Cuban, Vene-
zuelan, and United States composers. But these are details. Mr.
Stevenson's book is an excellent synthesis and he is not afraid to give
suggestions of compositions which should be performed today such
as Aldana's Minuet, Mlelesio Morales' opera Anita, Ricardo Castro's
cello concerto, and so forth.
The bibliography is complete and the index accurate. A phono-
graph bibliography would have been helpful.
CARLETON SPRAGUE SMITHT.
New York Public Library.

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