Ventanas (Windows) is an orchestral work by the Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas, written in 1931. A performance of it lasts about 11 minutes.
Ventanas (Windows) is an orchestral work by the Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas, written in 1931. A performance of it lasts about 11 minutes.
Ventanas was Revueltas's third orchestral work, composed immediately after the first versions of Cuauhnáhuac and Esquinas , and concurrently with the second, large-orchestral version of Cuauhnáhuac and the Duo para Pato y Canario. It was completed in December 1931 and premiered on 4 November 1932 by the Orquesta Sinfónica de México under the composer's direction. [1] [2] Although not so indicated in the published score, Revueltas dedicated Ventanas to Ángela Acevedo, whom he married in the year of its premiere. [3]
Ventanas is scored for an orchestra of piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, cor anglais, E♭ clarinet, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings.
In one programme note, Revueltas gave a rather conventional programmatic description: "Ventanas is sharply romantic music. Who does not remember a window by the light of the moon, or without it?" [4] In another, better-known one, however, he demurred:
Ventanas is music that has no program. Perhaps, in writing this work, I thought of expressing some definite idea. Now, several months after writing it, I can't remember what it was.
The name doesn't mean anything; it might be called "Skylights" or anything else. (It all depends on the good or bad will of the listener.)
Nevertheless, a window does offer a fertile literary theme, and it might satisfy the taste of some persons who can neither understand nor listen to music without a program, without inventing something more or less disagreeable—but, fortunately, I am not a literary man.
I am a musician with technique and without inspiration. [5]
Like Planos , Ventanas is exceptional among Revueltas's single-movement works in that it does not fall into a three-part structural pattern but rather is formally free and through-composed. [6]
Ventanas, characteristic of Revueltas's style, employs pedal tones and ostinatos as bases for musical constructions which usually are accumulations of rhythms and instrumental textures. Broadly melodic sections contrast with others in which small motives are developed rhythmically. These fragmentary motives recall folk music, often as melodies in parallel thirds. The harmonic texture is mostly open rather than dense, despite chromatic melodic movement, and there are frequent hints of bitonality. Fifths and octaves anchor the strongly etched melodic contours and active harmonic rhythms. In the scoring, Revueltas displays a fondness for the low brass, especially the tuba, which also has a prominent role in many of Revueltas's other works, such as Sensemayá , Homenaje a Federico García Lorca , El renacuajo paseador, Troka, and Alcancías . Rhythmic complexity is also a feature, with constantly changing rhythms and meters. [7] [8] The music "never stands still (except when the composer intends so, always to maximum effect; these episodes are felt both as moments of melodic statement and rhythmic repose)." [8]
As an instance of Revueltas's harsher, more abstract, and modernist style Ventanas, as also Esquinas were poorly received by audiences, in contrast to his more lyrical and tonal examples, such as Colorines and Janitzio , were warmly praised. [9]
On 8 September 1944, Aaron Copland wrote, in a letter to Arthur Berger from Tepoztlán, Mexico:
We are only two hours from Mexico City so I have heard the Sinfonica several times. Chavez played a piece of Revueltas' called Ventanas (Windows). Its very amusing to listen to—chuck full [ sic ] of orchestral color—but the form isn't very good, I'm afraid. He was like a modern painter who throws marvelous daubs of color on canvas that practically takes your eye out, but it doesn't add up. Too bad—because he was a gifted guy. [10]
A 1999 review of Esa-Pekka Salonen's recording rates Ventanas somewhat higher, as a "minor masterpiece", in fact, describing it as cinematic and rhapsodic with primitive, ritualistic episodes recalling Sensemayá, but also with "delightful interludes in the Mexican folk style, a blues-tinged oboe theme, impassioned violins, and a drunken, orgiastic coda that builds to an appropriately festive climax". [11]
The work has been interpreted as an example of Revueltas's representation of Mexican society, in which different cultural, ethnic, and social-class differences do not coexist peacefully, much less are brought into a harmonious or even dialectical synthesis. Although the music "sometimes clearly celebrates the plurality and vitality of Mexican society, the audible violence of the music, more openly in some pieces than in others, acknowledges clear conflicts among cultures and between premodern and modern social structures with their associated class configurations". [12]
Silvestre Revueltas Sánchez was a Mexican composer of classical music, a violinist and a conductor.
José Pablo Moncayo García was a Mexican pianist, percussionist, music teacher, composer and conductor. "As composer, José Pablo Moncayo represents one of the most important legacies of the Mexican nationalism in art music, after Silvestre Revueltas and Carlos Chávez." He produced some of the masterworks that best symbolize the essence of the national aspirations and contradictions of Mexico in the 20th century.
The Night of the Mayas is a 1939 Mexican film. It was directed by Chano Urueta. The film, which is called a "Mexican tragedy" set in the times of the Mayas, is remembered today for its musical score by the Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas.
Sinfonía de Antígona is Carlos Chávez's Symphony No. 1, composed in 1933. The music originated as theatre music to accompany the tragedy of Antigone, hence the title of the symphony. The material was reworked into a single movement and rescored for a large orchestra. It lasts about 11 minutes in performance.
Sinfonía india is Carlos Chávez's Symphony No. 2, composed in 1935–36. In a single movement, its sections nevertheless follow the traditional pattern for a three-movement symphony. The title signifies the fact that the thematic material consists of three melodies originating from native-American tribes of northern Mexico. The symphony is Chávez's most popular composition.
The Symphony No. 3 by Carlos Chávez was composed in 1951–54 on a commission from Clare Boothe Luce, and is dedicated to the memory of her daughter, Anne Clare Brokaw.
Symphony No. 4, subtitled Sinfonía romántica is an orchestral composition by Carlos Chávez, composed in 1953.
Symphony No. 5, also called Sinfonía para cuerdas is a composition for string orchestra by Carlos Chávez, composed in 1953.
Symphony No. 6 is an orchestral work by Carlos Chávez, composed in 1961–62.
Janitzio is a symphonic poem by the Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas, composed in 1933 and revised in 1936. A performance lasts about 15 minutes. The work is a portrait of Janitzio Island in Lake Pátzcuaro, Mexico.
Colorines is a symphonic poem for chamber orchestra by the Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas, written in 1932.
Salvador Contreras Sánchez was a Mexican composer and violinist, a member of the Grupo de los cuatro.
Caballos de vapor, sinfonía de baile is a ballet score composed by the Mexican composer Carlos Chávez in 1926–32. An abridged concert version is published as Suite sinfónica del ballet Caballos de vapor.
La noche de los mayas is a film score by the Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas for the 1939 film of the same name, which relates to Mexico's pre-Columbian heritage. Revueltas's score consists of 36 sequences without any organic relation to one another, composed to be easily fitted to an already-edited film. The work is best known in the symphonic suite extracted by the Mexican conductor José Yves Limantour, whose arrangement extensively alters Revueltas' original score.
Planos (Planes) is a chamber-music composition by the Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas, also slightly enlarged and scored for full orchestra and published under its alternate title, Danza geométrica. Both versions were composed in 1934, and the scores are both dedicated to the architect Ricardo Ortega.
Cuauhnáhuac is an orchestral composition by the Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas. It exists in three versions, the first for string orchestra, the other two for full orchestra with winds and percussion. The first version takes nearly 15 minutes to perform, while the third lasts only about 11 minutes.
Esquinas (Corners) is an orchestral composition by the Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas, written in 1931 and extensively revised in 1933. The first version is in two movements with a duration of about 11 minutes in performance; the second is variously described as being in one or in three (continuous) movements with a total duration of about seven minutes. The scores of both versions are dedicated to Ángela Acevedo.
String Quartet No. 2 (Magueyes) is a chamber-music work by the Mexican composer and violinist Silvestre Revueltas from 1931. The score is dedicated to Aurora Murguía and a performance of it lasts between ten and eleven minutes.
Alcancías is a composition for small orchestra by the Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas, written in 1932. It is in three movements with a total duration in performance of about eight minutes.
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