Concert at the Conservatory today will reveal the Silvestre Revueltas Explorer and Virtuoso

As part of the Integral Edition of the Music of Silvestre Revueltas, announced last year by the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature (Inbal) in the context of the 125th anniversary of the author’s birth (1899-1940), today the work for violin and piano with a round table and a concert in the National Conservatory of Music will be presented.

This material, consisting of 15 pieces, including several unpublished and other little known, corresponds to the second volume of that monumental project, possible thanks to an inbal agreement with Eugenia Revueltas, daughter of who is one of the most important and distinguished Mexican composers.

Such an agreement, stipulated four years, has allowed the total digitalization of the Silvestre Revueltas file, in addition to its full work in printed and digital version in about 30 volumes; Likewise, all that musical material will be recorded to make it available to the public.

The first volume, made up of 25 pieces for piano written by the author in his early youth, between 1915 and 1924 – of which only one was not unpublished (Rábano tragedy)–, It was presented last August at a concert at the Palace of Fine Arts, a fact of which news was given in these pages (The day, 11/8/24).

The edition of that repertoire is ready to be sent to the press. It is only expected to recover the piece Flirtal for genius, written by the composer to touch her with her daughter Eugenia when she was a child. The publication is projected to appear before the first semester of this year is completed.

This was advanced to The day Víctor Barrera, director of the National Center for Research, Documentation and Musical Information (Cenidim) Carlos Chávez, responsible for channeling this transcendental initiative around the Revueltian work, which is estimated to conclude in 2028.

Palace of Fine Arts, the next forum

According to the musicologist and pedagogue, during this first half of 2025 they will also see the light corresponding to the aforementioned work for voice and piano, and that of the quartets. The latter will be presented on June 28 with a concert of the Latin American quartet at the Palace of Fine Arts.

While the presentations of the volumes corresponding to the orchestral piece are projected in the second semester Cuauhnáhuac, The orchestral youth work and the symphonic poem SENSEMAYA, One of the most famous scores of the Duranguense musician and the most important of the Mexican orchestral repertoire.

We are knowing Silvestre Revueltas in each volume. It is as if, through his music, he was revealing us another part of himself, because in this volume of the works of violin and piano we will find some surprises and world premieresa barrier sits.

“For example, there is a Chinese cradle song, Chinese Lullaby, which accounts for the orientalism that existed in the country at the beginning of the 20th century, as well as a unique version for violin and piano of At the edge of the palmar (by Manuel M. Ponce), well -known song because it has been approached by other composers, although we did not know that Revueltas had done it. ”

Likewise, the arrangement stands out that the call tormented genius He made a mazurca by Felipe Villanueva (1862-1893), with which what is appreciated in the first volume-corresponding to piano music-, that, in musical terms, he is a bridge between the end of Mexican romanticism and the beginning of modernism and the beginning of modernism.

On the other hand, he adds, it is possible to warn A revolt with an explorer spirit, not only as a composer, but as a violinistalso having works dedicated to each rope of that instrument.

For example, he mentions a piece for the rope in Sol in which he explores the loudities. We are going to see this hybridization between exploration as a composer, but also as a violin virtuoso; It even seems to me that as a pedagogue, because maybe at some point he thought about writing a violin method, because there is also another study in a minor Sol for violin and piano in which he prepares a technical part for the first of those instruments.

According to the researcher, in this repertoire for violin and piano, which includes written works between 1915 and 1932, you can also see how Silvestre Revueltas makes a kind of portraits of Mexico: “There is a great piece called The sharpener, that evokes these characters in the city that offer their services through the streets, or Land for pots, piece with a similar story. They really go back to all those historical characters. They portray scenes from Mexico that somehow lead us to a sound history of our very interesting country. ”

Different perspectives of the composer

Víctor Barrera believes that in this second volume it will be possible to know “a revolts other than that we saw in his piano works; I dare to think that the same will happen with the following volumes. We are going to find not only information that is changing our perception of what is the musical history of Mexico, but also of the same revolts.

The human being, the composer, the violinist, the visionary, is being revealed. We will begin to see that it gives us lights of different perspectives. It is fantastic what this global editing project allows us; It offers us not only to put the works of revolts on paper already disposition of the world, but also these readings about the artist and man, this visionary and this genius.

It emphasizes that this is an interdisciplinary and inter -institutional project that would be impossible without the participation of Dr. Eugenia Revueltas, as well as the musicologist Luis Jaime Cortez, responsible for the editions, and Elena Kopylova, an expert in analysis and musical theory, who has been in charge of the review of the manuscripts, in addition to artistic groups of the inbal, such as the national symphony, the orchestra of the chamber of beautiful arts. Other assemblies and soloists.

In the Cenidim we have the honor of being in the lead, but it is a shared effort and passion, and a historical debt that we assume as a community of musicians and researchers in favor of Revueltas and Mexicoconcludes.

Eugenia Revueltas, Elena Kopylova, Luis Jaime Cortez and Víctor Barrera will participate in the presentation. In the musical part, violinist Adrián Justus and pianist Rodolfo Ritter will perform 11 of the 15 pieces that make up that repertoire. The appointment is today at 1 pm the revolts Silvestre Auditorium (President Masaryk 582, Polanco), with free admission.