Frank: Sonata Andina

Gabriela Lena Frank’s (1972 – ) Sonata Andina, composed in 2000, is not the composer’s only such piano sonata: she wrote Sonata Andina no. 2 in 2013 and the four-hand piano work Sonata Serrana no. 1 in 2012.  All of these titles are in Spanish: Sonata Andina translates to “Andean Sonata,” and Sonata Serrana translates to “Sonata of the Highlands/Mountains.”  As Frank writes in her program notes for all three works, this series of repertoire (and several of her other works) is inspired by the idea of mestizaje, a generally Latin American concept whose specific application to the Andes was championed by Peruvian intellectual José María Arguedas.  Mestizaje refers to the hope or vision of multiple cultures coexisting without one subjugating the others.  In the Peruvian Andes, mestizaje applies especially to the coexistence of Indigenous cultures (such as Quechua and Aymara) with European cultures (particularly Spanish).  (Note that mestizaje frequently has a different meaning in Latin American politics of nation-building, where it tends to be interpreted as an ideology of racial mixture.)

Born and raised in the U.S., with a Lithuanian Jewish father and a Peruvian mother who has Chinese ancestry, Frank frequently explores her complex cultural identity through her music.  In particular, she speaks of trying to reconcile the Latina and the gringa (non-Hispanic) parts of herself.  Her explorations are grounded in the Western classical music tradition, as that is the music training she had access to as a child; she has said that if there had been an opportunity to study folkloric Andean music instead, she would have taken it.  I resonate a lot with this sentiment: as a U.S.-born child of Chinese immigrants, I long to connect more with my ancestral culture and sometimes wish that I learned a traditional Chinese instrument such as the erhu growing up.  For a person of bicultural or multicultural identity, mestizaje seems to me to be a practice (and not just an ideal) of connecting with different parts of oneself and refusing to let go of any of them.  

Frank lives in the intersection of several marginalized identities, as a woman of color with high-moderate/near-profound hearing loss and an autoimmune condition.  These identities have complexly shaped her experiences as a working musician and person in the world.  I too exist in a nuanced intersection of marginalized identities, and the parallels between Frank’s and my experiences and musical interests (she is also a concert pianist and often performs and records her own works) have led me to think of her as a model for myself.  I’ve been lucky to meet Gabriela virtually twice, and her warmth and wisdom reminds me to be patient with myself and to embrace my whole self.

Sonata Andina no. 1 has four movements; I am playing the first three.  The music largely does not follow traditional tonality, featuring harmony in seconds and unusual chords that imitate the timbral complexity of Andean music.  However, there is some blurred, fleeting sense of tonal center, especially in the first and fourth movements, in which the note E is prominent.  The first movement, “Allegro Aymara,” is intense and rhythmic.  Recurrent features of the movement include sesquialtera (“six that alters,” also known as hemiola), which is the interchange of measures felt “in 2” and “in 3”; and repetition of notes in a melody that imitates the embellishment-by-repetition of notes by a flute.  The second movement, “Himno Inca” (“Incan hymn/anthem”), is lulling in its rhythmic monotony yet still subtly expressive.  It asks the pianist at times to clap or to make a clicking sound with their tongue.  The third movement, “Adagio Illariy” (“Adagio of dawn light”; title explained below), begins with a pensive melody harmonized in fifths, picks up pace in a shimmery middle section, and then returns to a variation of the first section.  

The text in green sans serif font below is quoted from Frank’s program notes and describes how each of the first three movements imitate and are inspired by Indigenous music of the Andes.  I have included captioned images of some of the instruments mentioned.  In the score itself, Frank labels places where a specific instrument is being imitated.  When performing this work, I aim to bring out the characters of the instruments, making the “drum” sounds more percussive and highlighting the ornaments and overtones of the “flute” sounds.  

"Allegro Aymara" suggests drums from Bolivia (such as the large TAMBOR, the medium WUANKARA, and the smaller TINYA) and flutes (such as the PINKILLO, made of thick jungle reed, and the less typical TARKA, a heavy wooden end-blown duct flute that produces a hoarse overblown tone). 

"Himno Inca" mimics an ensemble style common to the Andes where a number of players stand around in a semi-circle with panpipes known as ZAMPOÑAS that each have a constricted range of notes which may be preceded, accompanied, and followed by brief percussion.

"Adagio Illariy" presents another typical flute, the QUENA. The title refers to the dawn light which outlines the edge of the planet as it curves out of sight just before the sun appears.