Discursos y prácticas en torno a la construcción de una “escuela cubana de composición”: José Ardévol, el Grupo de Renovación Musical y la Orquesta de Cámara de La Habana (1934-1946)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to study the process of construction and dissemination of the category “Cuban Composition School” through the analysis of the discourses and the practices carried out by José Ardévol and the Grupo de Renovación Musical. This attempt required the negotiation of aspects, such as those of “tradition” and “identity”, which had a different meaning for Ardévol (a Catalonian composer emigrated to the island in 1930 and an ardent follower of Stravinsky’s and Falla’s Neoclassicism) than for the previous generation of composers (Amadeo Roldán and Alejandro García Caturla) and Alejo Carpentier, the main authority in Cuban Music Historiography and a firm supporter of Afrocubanism. In its first section, the essay highlights Ardévol’s writings, and especially the collective “manifesto” Presencia cubana en la música universal (1945), which, paradoxically, led to the disintegration of the Group. In the second one, regarding musical practices, it is analysed the activity of the Havana Chamber Orchestra, founded in 1934 by Ardévol as a platform for the Group’s and his own work; a study that has been undertaken on the basis of the unpublished documents kept at the CIDMUC (Havana). Finally, an Appendix shows the Music Programming of the aforementioned Orchestra from 1934 to 1946.

Keywords

• cuban composition school
• grupo de renovación musical (havana)
• afrocubanism
• neoclassicism
• musical avant-garde