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Cantata Criolla |
Composed: 1947-54 Estimated length: 35 minutes |
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Born on January 3, 1916, in Calabozo, Venezuela; Died on November 26, 1988, in Caracas, Venezuela |
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First performance: July 25, 1954, in Caracas, with Antonio Estévez conducting. |
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First Nashville Symphony performance: These are the Nashville Symphony's first performances of this work. |
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Cantata Criolla has long been a wildly popular work in Venezuela, where Nashville Symphony music director Giancarlo Guerrero launched his career. “We normally think of choral music as church music, particularly in connection with Europe,” he says. But Cantata Criolla, which Antonio Estévez wrote for the secular concert hall, counts as “one of the greatest choral pieces of the 20th century in Latin America.” The live recording Guerrero and Nashville Symphony will release from these performances marks its first professional recording since the classic (and hitherto only) account on disc by the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, which Eduardo Mata recorded in 1992.
Estévez’s reputation in his native Venezuela is analogous to that of Copland in the United States as the pioneer of a national musical voice. While Copland absorbed formative inspirations from his travels south of the border, Estévez spent the years 1945 to 1949 studying at Columbia University and Tanglewood, where both Copland and Leonard Bernstein (two years younger than Estévez) were influential teachers. Estévez grew up playing saxophone in a village band and had become an oboist in the Venezuela Symphony Orchestra.
Not long after he returned to Venezuela—then in the grip of a military dictatorship—he completed Cantata Criolla. Its premiere at the first Latin American music festival held in Caracas in 1954 for an audience some 8,000 strong (among them Copland) gave the 38-year-old Estévez the greatest triumph of his career. Along with winning the Ministry of Culture’s National Music Award, it established a tradition of its own of regular performances among Venezuelan youth orchestras and choruses.
Cantata Criolla—whose subtitle is Florentino, Who Sang with the Devil—sets a text that was initially published in 1940 by the influential, Caracas-based folklorist poet and diplomat Alberto Arvelo Torrealba (1905-71). His poem, itself a Venezuelan cultural icon that has been frequently adapted to various media, depicts the llanero Florentino—comparable to the Argentine gaucho or American cowboy. One of the best-known customs of the llaneros was the practice of poetic duels (contrapunteos), in which the participants (copleros) would combat with words rather than weapons (though it could come to the latter) by improvising verses. The rule is that the contestants must carry on by taking up the last line offered by their opponent and use it to make their point.
Florentino engages in just such a war of words with an ominous horseman who approaches him in the desolate, dust-filled solitude of the plains, where farmers labor under adverse conditions. Proud of his skill, Florentino is obliged to take up the stranger’s challenge to compete. The stakes of the troubadour’s singing contest become downright Faustian when the mysterious interloper is revealed to be none other than the Devil, “silver tongued with his song.” But when Florentino invokes the name of the Holy Virgin, he forces the Devil to cede and prevails.
WHAT TO LISTEN FOR
Estévez uses the orchestra and chorus to establish, with almost-cinematic gestures, the scene on the plains where the story unfolds. Richly percussive timbres reinforce powerful rhythmic motifs that recall both Carl Orff and Stravinsky. The chorus plays the role of an omniscient narrator as it prepares for the dramatic challenge (El reto) that the Devil issues.
The contest itself (La porfía) culminates in the showdown between Florentino (solo tenor) and the Devil (solo baritone), whose music derives from the traditional Dies Irae chant from the Requiem Mass. Estévez ingeniously uses the orchestra—particularly, his battery of percussion instruments—to mimic the folk instruments traditionally associated with the copleros.
The intensity of the contest accelerates through the lively, fandango-like, syncopated rhythms of the joropo, which Estévez notates in complex and constantly changing meters such as 17/16. But Florentino plays the winning hand by referencing another medieval chant associated with the Virgin Mary (Ave maris stella), in which the chorus joins in, bringing Cantata Criolla to its exuberant conclusion.
Scored for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, bandoneón, piano/celesta, harp, and strings
− Thomas May is the Nashville Symphony's program annotator.
Cantata Criolla: Florentino, el cantó con el Diablo Libretto
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El Reto El coplero Florentino El coplero Florentino… Puntero en la soledad Parece que para el mundo El coplero solitario El cacho de beber tira, Soplo de quema el suspiro, Negra se le ve la manta, —Amigo, por si se atreve, Mala sombra del espanto Florentino taciturno con la sabana en la sien. —Sabana, sabana, tierra La Porfía Noche de fiero chubasco Un golpe de viento guapo Mírelo como llegó, El Diablo Catire quita pesares Florentino En la noche más oscura El Diablo El que no bebe agua nunca. Florentino En jagüey de arena pura, El Diablo Ya que tienes tantas artes y así perdió la pelea, Florentino Cuando el gallo menudea El Diablo Espino al que me menea: Florentino Pa’que en lo oscuro me vea. El Diablo El que va alante voltea. “Zamuros de la barrosa Florentino Que ya Florentino es mío. El Diablo Pa’estar calentando nío. Florentino A ver si topa atajo. “Zamuros de la barrosa Déjenlo que barajuste El Diablo Yo se lo puedo cambiar. chaparral y chaparral. Florentino Arrendajo y turupial. |
The Challenge The singer-poet Florentino The singer-poet Florentino… Riding in the loneliness It seems to stop the world The lonely poet-singer He throws the water bottle The breath like a burning gust, Black is his poncho, —Friend, if you dare, Evil shadow of horror Florentino taciturn with the savanna at his temple. —Savanna, savanna, land The Duel Night of fiery squall A gust of daring wind See how he arrived, The Devil You who makes others forget sorrows Florentino In the darkest night The Devil He who never drinks water. Florentino In a pond of pure sand, The Devil Since you have so many skills and so he lost his fight, Florentino When the rooster crows The Devil Thorn to the one that shakes me: Florentino So you can see me in the dark. The Devil The one ahead turns his head. Vultures of ‘La Barrosa’ Florentino For already Florentino is mine. The Devil To be warming up the nest. Florentino To see if you find the shortcut. “Vultures of ‘La Barrosa’ Let him try to confuse me The Devil I can change it back for him. chaparral and chaparral. Florentino Mocking-bird and troupial. |
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