skip to main |
skip to sidebar
If any proof is needed that less is more it is Mexican director Francisco Vargas' 2005 debut film El Violin. The acting is superb and the direction very sensitive, but the showstopper is the high contrast black and white photography. Available on DVD and not to be missed.
There is an excellent interview with Francisco Vargas on the Twitch film site. This is his description of how music is used as a metaphor in the film - 'There’s lots of music in the film expressed in lots of different genres; but—if there is a musical term to describe this film—it is a corrido. The musical genre of Mexican corridos, with regard to the revolution, was a way of actually communicating news about things that had happened from one place to another. It was also a way of keeping memory. But most of all it was a way of liberating the spirit of the people. This was the way that the spirit of the need for change among the people was safeguarded over the years. The film starts out with a corrido and it ends with the boy Lucio singing a corrido. In fact, the corrido that Lucio is singing is a transformation that he himself has made of the corrido at the beginning and this is how the oral tradition works'.
The time and location of the story are deliberately left ambiguous but it feels very like Mexico. More Mexican musical connections here and here, and oral traditions elsewhere here.
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
'The global forest fire of revolution in 1968 needed no internet - if anything, it was the antithesis of the sedentary, logged-in, blogged-out world of today's deactivated youth. It was a time of direct communication, between countries and within them, so that throughout the Mexican summer mimeographs worked all night to produce 'wall newspapers' telling of prisoners, police brutality, and proposed further agitation. Slogans were spray-painted on buses, handbills thrown from tower blocks and leaflets placed inside brown bags alongside bread sold by bakeries' - Ed Vulliamy writes in today's Observer in one of a series of excellent articles about the year that rocked the world - 1968.
Related logged-in and blogged-out resources here include:
* Notes of a college revolutionary
* Why aren't we marching in the streets?
* They were demanding jazz and rock and roll
* Karlheinz Sockhausen - part of a dream
* The year is '72
* Oscar Peterson or Karlheinz Stockhausen?
* Music can help change the world
* Music acid and the collapse of Communism * I am a camera - St Tropez 1967
Header image is the London cast album of Hair, which opened, of course, in New York and London in 1968. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Over in California Out West Arts reports that 'it was at this point that things got a little weird'.
For those who prefer their Moncayo et al less weird I recommend a superb new 8 CD box from Brilliant Classics titled Musica Mexicana. The 20th-century Mexican composers featured include Chávez, Revueltas, Ponce, Halffter, Moncayo, Jiménez, Herrera, and Dimas. Follow this link for a full listing.
The State of Mexico Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Enrique Batiz, who is an unfashionable sixty-five years old. Fancy dress is not required, and as Musica Mexicana is not on a major label and there are no press freebies, it's at a very affordable price. A German internet seller has the 8 CDs for 19.99€, which is £13.90 or $29. How weird is that?
Now read more about Carlos Chazéz, and about contemporary Venezuelan composers.
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Many column inches here, and elsewhere, devoted to the music education and freedom of press policies of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavéz. Wouldn't some of them be better spent reappraising the music of his namesake, Mexican composer Carlos Chavéz?
Carlos Chavéz (photo above) was born in 1899, and lived to 1978. During the mid-20th century he was a major influence on the Mexican musical scene, and his important achievements include the formation of the Orquesta Sinfónia del Estado de México. His early works coincided with the period of post-revolutionary government in Mexico when Indian music and indigenous culture became a prized national asset. The Sinfonia India is the second of Chavéz's seven symphonies. The single movement work was completed in 1936, and incorporates authentic Indian melodies from the state of Sonora. The scoring is Indian exotic, including maraca, Yaqui metal rattle, water gourd, tenabri (butterfly cocoons), teponaxtles (a member of the xylophone family), a rattling string of deer hooves, tlapanhuehuetl (bass drum) and rasping stick, as well as full orchestra.I must declare an interest in this symphony. During the 1980s I spent some time in Mexico helping develop the classical music market in that wonderful country. For that project EMI recorded Chavéz's Sinfonia 
India as part of a two LP project Music of Mexico featuring 20th century works by local composers. The conductor was Enrique Batiz (left), with the Orquesta Sinfónia del Estado de México. The sessions were produced by Brian Culverhouse in the Sala Nezahualcoyotu in Mexico City. The vinyl LP of Sinfonia India plays as I write, and still sounds quite magnificent with all those wonderful percussion colours. If we want to celebrate the musical achievements of Latin America let's pay some more attention to Carlos Chavez and the other Mexican composers featured on those long deleted records.
* Music of Mexico Volume 1 was released in 1981:
Silvestre Revueltas (1899-1940): Sensemayá
José Pablo Moncayo: (1912-1958) Huapango
Revueltas: Homage to Federico Garcia Lorca
Chavéz: Sinfonia India
This release had a gatefold sleeve, and it was used to full advantage to display an allegorical mural by the Mexican revolutionary artist Diego Rivera depicting the independence of Mexico. Those were the days when sleeve art was art! View the mural via this link.
Volume 2 was released in 1984:
Revueltas: Redes
Revueltas: Ocho por Radio
Blas Galindo (1910-1993): Suite, Homenaje a Cervantes
Rodolfo Halffter (1900-1987): Tripartia
EMI departed from their usual practice of shipping the recording equipment and house production team out to Mexico City from England. Instead freelance Brian Culverhouse acted both as producer and balance engineer, and the digital recording equipment was supplied by Soundstream, Inc from the US.
Now read about a composer from Cuba - Odaline de la MartinezImage credit, from an excellent online biography of Carlos Chavéz. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
