Carlos Chávez’s Polysemic Style:

Abstract

The critical discourse on Carlos Chávez’s music is full of contradictions regarding the presence within it of signifiers of the Mexican, the pre-Columbian, and the indigenous. Between 1918 and 1928 Chávez in fact developed, from stylistic preferences that appeared early in his compositions, a polysemic language that he could use equally well to address the very modern or the primitive, the pre-Columbian or the contemporary mestizo, in and only in those works in which he chose to do so. Chávez’s referents emerged in dialogue with the cultural and political contexts in which he worked, those of post-revolutionary Mexico and modern New York. But he was attracted above all to modernism and modernity, and was impacted by cosmopolitan forces at home and abroad. By the end of the decade he had earned a position within the modern musical field’s network of social relations, and had drawn the attention of agents of recognition such as Edgard Varèse, Paul Rosenfeld, Aaron Copland, and Henry Cowell. These composers and critics added Chávez’s constructed difference to their much-sought collective difference as Americans within a European art. Chávez’s own use of explicit Mexican referents in some of his works shaped the early reception of his music as quintessentially American/Mexican, eventually influencing the way we understand it today.

Misreading Revueltas: Polysemy and the Second String Quartet

“…But a sense of the popular-and, moreover, the tonal-pervades the work. This element is visible in a variety of features, from frequent parallel thirds-a potential reference to Mexican popular styles (Mayer-Serra 1941;Saavedra 2001;-to echoes of the primary canción theme throughout. And the combination of vernacular and concert-music materials is clearly one of clashing rather than easy mixing.…”

“…16 In the 1910s, composer Manuel M. Ponce engaged in a multi-pronged campaign for the genre, giving talks and creating "polished" versions for voice with piano accompaniment. He also put canción melodies into concert works, using these melodies as cues for Mexican identity within an elite register (Madrid 2008;Saavedra 2010).…”

“…[h]e is interested in present-day Mexico, with the festivities of its market-places, the comical, sad atmosphere of the carpas-the crude little playhouses of the capital-, the tumult of the crowd in the street, the shrill colors of the people and the landscapes, the songs and music of the country as it exists today. (Mayer-Serra 1941, 127) Leonora Saavedra (2001) describes these compositional techniques as Mexicanisms, marked by frequent changes of meter, metric displacements of melody, and hemiola; by notes that suggest "popular tuning systems, slightly or plainly off according to Western standards" (247); by collage techniques to represent street markets and fairs; and by use of brass and tone colors that suggest popular bands.…”

“…As a point of similarity, several scholars, including Christina Taylor Gibson (2012), Alejandro L. Madrid (2008), Leonora Saavedra (2015), and Carol Hess (2013, have registered this issue with respect to Carlos Chávez. Sometimes polysemy emerged domestically, appealing in distinct ways to different factions within the Mexican artistic and political scene, but at other times Chávez communicated distinct messages to international audiences.…”

“…For more on the canción mexicana and its relationship to nationalism, seeSaavedra 2010. This is especially tied to Manuel M. Ponce, who advocated strongly for the canción mexicana as a national genre.…”