Musician Julián Carrillo deserves a historic place next to Moncayo and Revueltas

Carrillo must be given a place closer to Moncayo and Revueltasconsiders the Mexican composer Arturo Fuentes, who on January 28 participated in the tributes made in San Luis Potosí to his colleague, a native of that entity, Julián Carrillo (1875-1965), in the commemoration of the sequicentennial of his birth.

The presentation consisted of the live projection and musicalization of the documentary led by Fuentes, Carrillo, Return to Ahualulco, for which he used one of the microtonal harps created by Julián Carrillo, loan for the occasion for the collection that retains the instruments invented by the star of the microtonality. It was at the Cultural Diffusion Center of the Potosino Institute of Fine Arts and can be seen on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4kxwv40CGQ).

If there was a privileged place for musicians who abandoned the material plane, it should be reserved for the very small portion of composers who achieved the same thing as Julián Carrillo: create a new sound, win nothing through the discovery and development of a music that does not I was there before.

Sources account in exclusive interview for The day: “Carrillo is one of the most important composers of the twentieth century in Mexico. He was a person with a huge fantasy and great imagination developed since childhood. His contribution to the music of the twentieth century, and Mexican music, crossed by nationalism, was due to the meeting with parallel avant -garde; For example, his inclination for microtonos led him to create, around 1923, sound 13: between a do and a re there are other tones, so Carrillo mathematically divided the scale into 16 tones, which can be found in the microtonal pianos that he ordered to build.

“He was very good in terms of the marketing of his figure and the best businessman of his idea, which pushed very well in his environment to convey what was the sound 13 and what that creation implied; So much so, that he received support from Porfirio Díaz and the other regimes, even if they were changing.

Díaz sent him to study in Europe, where he returned with the microtonal or metamorphosed pianos; He also invented an harp and a horn in seventeen tone. That contribution still sounds avant -garde, because making a piano to touch from the entire tone to 16 microtones is a feat. Carrillo was very risky and sure of himself with respect to his aesthetic proposal.

It is curious to think that a composer capable of making music that sounds to other planets has been driven by the Government: “Recall that Carrillo had several times: a post -romantic or Germanic type, and also some issues of impressionism he listened to in his first phase. He was supported as a violin concertist and wrote a concert that dedicated Porfirio Díaz. Subsequently, he developed sound 13, which was with the European avant -garde of that moment and futurism in Mexico, when electronic music already existed; That is, he was immersed in the currents of thought of his time.

As a good marketing, he found a way to raise his ideas very clearly, to have that niche that no one else had. At that time he was benefited by governments and, although I don’t know if he was so endorsed by the public with sound 13, he did with his romantic work in his classical stage.

Fuentes plans to present a work in which he will use the 16 microtonal pianos invented by Carrillo: “He did not compose for microtonal pianos, there are nor works for them. I composed one with support from the National Creators System; It is the first for the 16 pianos together and will be presented this year.

Carrillo lacked several projects because he was involved in politics, in teaching, in his writing; He has several books about his aesthetics. Although there is not much microtonal work written by Carrillo, that is why we are not going to demerit his work. He is a composer/inventor, he has that spirit of testing and jumping from one invention to another; That is what I consider the most interesting of him.

Great presence in Europe

150 years after his birth, Carrillo’s music must be celebrated and his preserved instruments: “The Carrillo Center, in San Luis Potosí, has the 16 microtonal pianos, two harps and I think a horn. I’ve been investigating him for 10 years; It was very exciting to musicalize live the documentary with the harp that lent me that center. This work will be interpreted in Mexico City during the commemoration of Carrillo carried out by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM); I hope it can be touched in more places in Mexico and Europe. Let’s not forget that Carrillo has been present with his instruments in Europe, in theoretical and practical sense.

“There is a proposal to make these instruments a national heritage, although I do not know the legal terms.

The instruments are very delicate and need a lot of maintenance and care; For example, to be refined, take care of the wood, place new strings, and so on. The microtonal pianos are together in a room in the Carrillo Center, and it is not possible to move them, but the harp is a more practical instrument, so it allowed me to get it out for the concert and it sounded incredible.

Ahualulco, a hometown of Julián Carrillo, was renamed in 1932 as Ahualulco del Sound 13; There, Fuentes conducted his research: “I imagined Ahualulco as a practically lost people, especially at that time, separated from the capital of Mexico and San Luis Potosí; I was wondering how that child had armed itself from that incredible fantasy level to go to Europe and do the pianos.

“Carrillo was a senator and deputy; One of his children was rector of UNAM, and another, Mexican ambassador to the United States. Carrillo’s is a life project from who comes from the desert root to the high spheres. In the documentary I wanted to raise an image of Carrillo to try to see what he saw and where he walked as a child. Very few people know Ahualulco; Very little is known about Carrillo, much less of the sound 13.

It is not possible for Ahualulco to be called Ahualulco del Sound 13 and does not have a music school; Music should have more support there. The documentary is not a political criticism, it is the point of view of a musician about what happens with Carrillo today; I give an interpretation of this situation and the history of Carrillo without blaming anyone. There is a historical forgetfulness of his figure, almost reflected in his own people. I hope that with these commemorations we will be more aware of what he represents, both for his origin and for his musical heritage.

Carrillo is not celebrated with the same magnitude as other great composers: “Being Mexican, I think we have to give a place closer to that of other musical historical figures, such as Moncayo and Revueltas. Carrillo agreed to be the outsider From nationalism, he received many benefits for being in that position, but then the story charged it. He did not enter the game of nationalist aesthetics, I don’t know if because he raised it or simply because he was looking for something else.

“I think his mind had another type of fantasy, and that is why it was not placed on the same step as these other composers. He Huapango, From Moncayo, it is a much more forceful piece for the masses, for the identity of a town, very different from Carrillo’s work Prelude to Columbus, That is microtonal. Carrillo had the aesthetic conviction of not going with nationalism, so it is more contemporary. ”