Earlier this year, the Azrieli Foundation recognized Mexican composer Juan Trigos with its first Commission for International Music. The award expands the focus of the Azrieli Music Prizes beyond Jewish and Canadian music for the first time.
Speaking with us about his music, the composer explained his concept of “Abstract Folklore” and how he applies it to his work. His new commission is built around Indigenous Mexican influences and uses original Nahuatl texts.
Abstract Folklore
Trigos understands folklore as “attachment to the earth, as the purity of the music material and the primary expression without contamination. It has everything to do with passion, sensitivity and delight in music, with tradition and avant-garde simultaneously.”
He deliberately uses the word “folklore” instead of “popular” because he believes it better reflects that notion, and, importantly, “to differentiate it from commercial and entertainment.” And he hastens to point out that “I do not intend to create a school or aesthetic trend; [the term] simply better describes what I am and my artistic interest.”
The principles behind Abstract Folklore include basics like tempo, but also “rilettura (rereading),” which is “looking at the same material from different perspectives, a way of seeing oneself from various angles.” Another principle is “the interrelation of polyrhythmic/polyphonic musical events and segments of different density and duration,” representing “reflection in feeling and thinking.”
The procedures and codes that emerge “are used to transform and manipulate original musical materials, or [materials] taken from other sources, to create music with its own voice,” he says. The resulting inventions encompass genres including opera, cantatas, and unique approaches to the concerto and symphony forms, often with large numbers of instruments in atypical combinations.
Why “Simetrías?” The “symmetries,” he explains, “are in the text. In Nahuatl literature it is very common to have them, in addition to reiterations and diphraseisms. My father, when he created the libretto, used fragments of all the original texts and arranged them in another order to create a new work. The concept of Pre-Hispanic Symmetries (as in geometry) aims to abstract the meaning of Nahua poetry through manipulation, fragmentation, reiterations and diphraseisms that [already] exist in the poetry.”
Words and Music
Rather than using traditional melody or rhythm, the piece represents, says Trigos, “the sound abstraction derived from the assimilation of the text in its combination and complexity – the various symmetries are very important – along with musical gestures (cells or motifs) that contain characteristic features, such as the ornaments around the actual note, syncopated rhythms, and certain scales, which allude to Indigenous music. It is an abstract invention. The work is built from the text and its parts, their sonority, intrinsic rhythm (symmetries and reiterations), punctuation and meaning. The chorus is the protagonist.”
The scoring theme for the 2024 competition was choral works for a cappella choir and up to four additional instruments and/or vocal soloist(s). For the vocal treatment, Trigos employs a series of inventions aiming to amplify expressiveness through varying vibratos, timbres, sudden dynamic changes, and vocalizations that are “whispered, spoken, yelled, etc.” He also divides the choir into groups that alternate to achieve a variety of colors and atmospheres.
As for the instrumentation, he uses modern instruments to evoke the sonorities of pre-Hispanic musical settings. The flutes indicate “the sweetness of the indigenous ocarinas and clay flutes; the piccolo the very high flutes (associated with Tezcatlipoca) made of clay, wood and reed; the trombone the conch (or shell trumpet), the Hompak (or Mayan trumpet) and the shawms; the percussion the rituals and calls to war. The piano functions as a unifier of the whole. Each of the parts and numbers dictates the character and behavior of the material.
“In short,” the composer sums up, “the work is the abstract result of the sound image that the text provokes in me.”
A Tradition of Traditions
Simetrías Prehispánicas isn’t be the first composition in which Trigos has called on Indigenous traditions. I asked him what led to his interest in the vernacular forms of pre-Hispanic Mexico.
“It is part of my tradition,” he said. “It is fused (in syncretism) with Spanish culture. Both are deeply rooted in Mexico.
“The work was written to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Instituto de Liturgia Música y Arte Cardenal Miranda. He commissioned me to write a Magnificat, and I turned it into a Magnificat Guadalupano.
“The concept arose when instead of basing it on the Virgin Mary (I was studying several Marian works), I turned my attention to the Virgin of Guadalupe, the most important religious and devotional figure in Mexico. I was working for several months without result until one day I called her “Virgencita” (little Virgin) and everything became illuminated.
“In Mexico, the diminutive has the connotation of the Nahuatl reverential, of high respect (reverence), but it also represents the most beloved, the smallest, like a child. The Guadalupana represents exactly that syncretism I was talking about; she is also called Tonantzin (our reverend mother in Nahuatl).
“At that moment, the idea came to me to mix the texts of the Magnificat in Latin (Marian hymn), with the Old Testament in Spanish, but above all with indigenous texts in Nahuatl and Spanish, as tropes such as In Xóchitl In Cuicatl, Nican Nopohua by Valeriano, Zan Tontemiquicoby Tochihuitzin, etc.
“I would say that this work marked me. With it the door to the Indigenous world opened in an important way within me and modified my entire aesthetic.”
Other works of his mingle Catholic and Indigenous traditions. “At that time,” he notes, “I wrote in parallel a trilogy for flutes called Tres Danzas Floridas also in honor of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Some years later I made a concerto for piccolo and orchestra (Danza Concertante, 1992) based on “Danza Florida No. 1” for piccolo solo. And in 2009 I used the “Danza Florida No. 2” for alto flute in G as the basis for the Cantata Concertante No. 2, for concertante alto flute in G, soprano, mezzo, chamber choir and ensemble, which mixes texts from the Old Testament in Latin and Spanish, as well as the word Guadalupe and Tonantzin. The work is dedicated to Father Xavier González in memoriam.”
Inspiring New Generations
Trigos’ family has its own musical traditions. His grandfather was a good singer and an aficionado of opera and symphonic music as well as popular music of Mexico, Spain, and Italy. His father studied composition and guitar, and was an even greater influence on Juan.
“I grew up listening at home mainly to classical music from all eras: medieval, Renaissance, baroque, classical, romantic, 20th century and contemporary,” he says. “We also listened to a lot of Mexican folk and popular music (of all kinds and regions) and from all over the world (American from all over the continent, Asian, European, etc.). Of course, we must not forget the music in the streets, which is abundant in Mexico City.”
Along with his large catalog of works, including operas, symphonies, and concerti, Trigos also focuses on education, and have been teaching music theory and composition at the University of Kentucky School of Music. A student there even submitted their doctoral dissertation on “Relojerías Sensibles,” his recent work for solo guitar – even before Trigos arrived at the Kentucky School.
I asked him how he inspires young artists to develop their talent and pursue careers in a field where success and recognition can be so elusive.
Trigos acknowledged the difficulty of the question. “Geraldo Costa Neto, who is the student you are referring to, commissioned and premiered the work. He is a very gifted young Brazilian musician and enthusiast of new music. At that time, he was a student of Dieter Hennings, a very talented Mexican guitarist who is also a friend of mine and a great promoter of contemporary music (including my own).
“Inspiring someone is always a challenge, especially young people. I suppose it has to do with the passion that one projects to others and the way one manages to communicate it.
“Maybe it has to do with how efficient one is at making others see their own talent, develop it, but above all, to believe in it.
“In Geraldo’s case, the inspiration was mutual. From the beginning and throughout the creation process, he was very receptive to dialogue and showed great interest in all the sketches and ideas I sent him.
“At the premiere,” Trigos added, “he played the piece from memory and has continued to spread it since then in various places and different cities and countries.” The pride the composer showed in a student’s work, during a conversation about his own, shows something about Juan Trigos’ own attitude toward the community of music.
Listeners can experience the world premiere of Simetrías Prehispánicas and the other 2024 Azrieli Music Prize winners October 28 at a gala concert in Montréal.
Originally published in BlogCritic.
