Music and Letters Advance Access originally published online on July 4, 2008
Music and Letters 2008 89(3):373-395; doi:10.1093/ml/gcn033
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© The Author (2008). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
In Havana and Paris: The Musical Activities of Alejo Carpentier
*Cardiff University.
Correspondence: Email: rae{at}cardiff.ac.uk.
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Abstract |
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One of the major figures in twentieth-century Latin American literature, the Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier was closely involved with members of the musical, as well as literary, avant-garde during his creative apprenticeship in the inter-war years. Placed as much between the vocations of music and literature as between the cultures of Europe and Latin America, he mounted the first concerts of new music in 1920s Havana, established himself by writing music criticism, and engaged in several musical collaborations with his compatriots Amadeo Roldán and Alejandro García Caturla. After being forced to flee Havana owing to his political activities and the repressive policies of Machado's dictatorship, Carpentier established himself in Paris, where he became associated with an impressively wide circle of composers, including Varèse, Villa-Lobos, Milhaud, and the now little known Marius-François Gaillard. He was also acquainted with Carlos Chávez and knew Jolivet through Varèse. Involving himself in further musical collaborations during his eleven-year residence in Paris (1928–39), a creative cross-fertilization took place between Carpentier and the composers with whom he shared both friendship and artistic kinship.