The arrival of rock and roll in Spain in the late 1950s has been studied as the beginning of musical modernity under the Franco regime, a radical break with the Spanish musical past on an economic, social and even physical and body level. However, its reception took place between 1956 and 1959, in a still precarious and strongly interventionist phase of the dictatorship, and not only through the usual media and spaces founded in its historiography, such as military bases, cinema, radio, or sound recordings, but also through unconventional shows and formats. Moreover, the adoption of rock and roll did not follow a linear process from an initial mimesis to original creation. Drawing on the Spanish case, this article argues that modernity, the canonical narratives of popular music, and the classic periodisation of Francoism naturalise certain temporalities, ontologies, and mediations, marginalising others that diverge from hegemonic accounts about rock and its internationalisation.
The problems posed by the editing of the set of songs with Spanish text composed by Pauline Viardot-Garcia (1821-1910) led me to question myself about the ontological condition of these works and about the culture of the musical practice of their author. This study, which aims to answer these questions, employs a methodology in service to a historical ontology of musical works and to philology in a broad sense. The musical texts of the Spanish songs by Viardot are considered not only as objects of textual criticism but also as valuable testimonies of systems of thought and cultural frameworks. The results of the study will show that conceptions of the musical work and artistic practice in general of Pauline Viardot do not correspond completely to those that were predominant in the hegemonic musical culture of the West from the beginning of the nineteenth century. These conclusions have implications for today's performers and editors, since fidelity to Viardot's thought -if this is the criterion on which they base their approach to this author- does not translate into an exact reading of her musical texts, but rather into respect for her notion of a partially open work. From a historiographical point of view, this paper puts forward a revised understanding of the significance of the closed work paradigm in the so-called common practice period and examines the mechanisms of cultural assimilation that may have partly shaped the heritage of printed scores and, with it, the Western musical canon.
Waldo de los Rios holds a prominent place in twentieth-century Argentine and Spanish popular music. In his early career (1955-1962), he produced a significant number of recordings in which folk-rooted music played a key role. His arrangements and compositions blend his knowledge of traditional music, academic training, and experience in the field of record production -an area he entered early on as part of the Columbia Records team in Buenos Aires. This latter field contributed a distinctive influence, evident in his use of elements associated with musical trends known variously as lounge music, easy listening, or mood music, promoted by various record labels, including Columbia. The result is a body of musical work that reflects his intention to find sonic responses to the intersection between local practices and those emerging from international modernity. Therefore, his work with folk-rooted music can be analysed and framed within the realm of compositional transculturation. This perspective reveals how Waldo de los Rios's arrangements and compositions become neoculturations, diverging from earlier constructions tied to professional folklore, and shaping new ways to articulate or approach music recognized as folkloric tradition.
Between 1963 and 1971, the Latin American Center for Advanced Musical Studies (CLAEM) of the Instituto Di Tella in Buenos Aires was an important meeting place for Latin American composers. The curriculum designed by its director, Alberto Ginastera, sought to offer a wide range of contemporary approaches and techniques, as reflected in the international invited teachers. This article approaches the presence of serialism in the teaching and creation at the CLAEM from different perspectives: the scholarship holders' previous experience with serialism, Ginastera's position, the encounters with some foreign teachers and especially the visits of Riccardo Malipiero (in 1963), Luigi Dallapiccola (in 1964), and Umberto Eco (in 1970), and a panoramic view of the scholarship holders' creative works. From these different perspectives, serialism is presented as a shifting object of study that embodies multiple possible meanings. As we will see, serialism played a relevant role in the first generations of fellows, to be displaced later by more experimental proposals, improvisation, and electronics.
