September 25th Colloquium

Dr. Jon Sauceda, Music and Performing Arts Librarian

 Modernism versus modernismo: 

Selections from Felipe Boero’s 1910s Works for Piano and Voice

Scholars have typically analyzed Argentine musical works circa 1910 in terms of Impressionism, yet a consideration of the galvanizing Latin American literary movement known as modernismo may provide deeper understanding of these compositions and their relationship to the broader milieu. I argue that musicology has tended to overlook the  modernismo incipient in the late nineteenth century in favor of the Continental, progressivist modernism that would rise to prominence in Argentina and elsewhere in the 1920s. Such disregard limits understanding of twentieth-century Argentine music and obscures connections to local arts, particularly the effervescent literary scene. This paper offers a theorization of musical modernismo based on current scholarship, primary source research, and an examination of text and music of 1910s works for solo voice and piano by Felipe Boero (1884-1958).

Literary scholars have demonstrated the erasure of modernismo from academic discourse, placing early twentieth-century Latin American works in a de facto subaltern position relative to their modernist counterparts. While both cognates engage with constructions of modernity from a cosmopolitan perspective, the Spanish form is marked by skepticism of positivism, and by extension, imperialism, science, and the very notion of progress. These features are connected to Parnassian influence, a mid-nineteenth-century poetic movement favoring restraint, craftsmanship, and ancient topics. References to musical modernismo in periodicals suggest its significance for composers, as does the presence of preeminent Argentine intellectuals such as Leopoldo Lugones (1874-1938) in the development of literary as well as musical institutions.

Concrete analysis further supports a theory of musical modernismo. Connecting Boero with modernismo may seem surprising, given his affiliation with the nationalist politics that dominated Argentine arts after 1915. Yet, some features of Boero’s nationalistic phase may have modernista roots, including textural clarity, phrasal symmetry, and non-teleological harmony; these in turn may be understood to resonate with central tenets of both Argentine musical nationalism and modernismo, namely consternation vis-a-vis the ideology of progress and an assertion of regional identity. Theorization of modernismo helps explain these transitions, offering insight into broader Latin American musical contexts.