Incans, Liberators, and Jungle

J O H N L .
WA L K E R
Incans, Liberators, and Jungle Princesses:

The Development of Nationalism in the Art Music of Ecuador
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A B S T R AC T:From its first appearance more than a hundred years ago, musical national-
ism in Ecuadorean art music has developed in response to diverse influences and factors.
At times, these expressions have been constructed around various notions of identity and
consequently have been directed at different elements of society. Through large-scale com-
positions, such as symphonic works, operas, and ballets, it is possible to observe this de-
velopment more clearly and to identify elements of national identity. In this article I seek
to create a framework for understanding this development by examining such large-scale
works and through a detailed reading of testimonial evidence both written and spoken by
Ecuadorean musicians.
■ ■ ■
keywords: Diego Luzuriaga, Atahualpa, Ecuador, nationalism, identity, musical migration
R E S U M E N : Desde su primera aparición hace más de cien años, se ha desarrollado el na-

cionalismo musical en la música culta ecuatoriana en respuesta a diversas influencias y fac-
tores. A veces, estas expresiones han sido construidas alrededor de varias nociones de
identidad y consecuentemente han sido destinadas a elementos distintos de la sociedad. A
través de las composiciones a gran escala, tales como las orquestales, óperas y ballets, es
posible observar este desarrollo más claramente e identificar elementos de identidad na-
cional. En este artículo busco crear un marco para poder entender este desarrollo no sólo
a través del análisis de esta composiciones, sino también a través de una lectura detallada
de la evidencia testimonial, tanto escrita como oral de los músicos ecuatorianos.
■ ■ ■
palabras clave: Diego Luzuriaga, Atahualpa, Ecuador, nacionalismo, identidad, migración

musical
■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■
In his two-act opera, Manuela y Bolívar (2006), Ecuadorean Diego

Luzuriaga explores the life of Manuela Sáenz (1797?–1856) during the days
leading up to the Battle of Pichincha in 1822 until her death in Paita, Peru,
and the fundamental aspects of her relationship with the South American
Latin American Music Review, Volume 37, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2016

© 2016 by the University of Texas Press
DOI: 10.7560/LAMR37101
2 ■ J O H N L . WA L K E R
revolutionary leader Simón Bolívar (1783–1830). By shifting the emphasis

to Sáenz, Luzuriaga is echoing recent scholarship, which has started to re-
habilitate the image of a woman who dared to leave her husband to become
Bolívar’s mistress.1 Perhaps in keeping with the contemporary treatment
of the opera’s heroine, Luzuriaga relies on a rather eclectic style that inter-
sperses sung as well as spoken vocal delivery within an overall framework
that is not entirely operatic, but that at times reveals characteristics more
properly associated either with the zarzuela or with the cantata. In an in-
terview published several days before the work’s premier performance the
composer, in a rather casual but significant way, commented on his desire
to reinterpret the essential hallmarks of operatic style while at the same
time incorporating familiar genres and the element of festiveness that typ-
ically accompanies the performance of these same song types:
I didn’t want to create an opera in the style of Wagner or Verdi. It’s be-
cause I’m Ecuadorean and I’ve composed pasillos, aires típicos, sanjuanitos
and Venezuelan merengues. There’s a lot of partying, ha ha!2
Similarly, in a separate interview conductor Álvaro Manzano (1955–) es-

sentially echoed Luzuriaga’s earlier comments, saying “[t]he musicaliza-
tion of Manuela y Bolívar is extremely digestible, easy to understand and
able to attract the public without losing its technical quality.”3 In other
words, these remarks help to create anticipation by emphasizing charac-
teristics that have a broad popular appeal.
Though it may seem counterintuitive, I believe the following question
is not without some validity: can Manuela y Bolívar be held up as a rep-
resentative example of contemporary Ecuadorean musical nationalism? It
seems possible that by allying itself with a native composer writing about
issues of national or regional identity, a more populist Ecuadorean gov-
ernment was developing the sort of inclusive “cultural-national” project
that for Thomas Turino is an important indicator of musical national-
ism in modern Latin America.4 In the context of its objectives, therefore,
the opera strongly resonated the values of freedom and equality that na-
tional authorities desired to reestablish after a period during which there
had been rampant nepotism and corruption. At the same time, Turino ar-
gues that this more modern form of musical nationalism (as opposed to
what he calls the “elite-nationalist” styles of the nineteenth and early twen-
tieth centuries) fits well and thereby benefits from mass media. Indeed,
Manuela y Bolívar was nationally broadcast, and it may have been viewed
by multiple millions of individuals in Ecuador. These characteristics not-
withstanding, there are several factors regarding this opera and its com-
poser that have some bearing on the question posed here.
Incans, Liberators, and Jungle Princesses ■ 3
First, if nationalism is understood to have something to do with na-

tional identity, then surely it must be of some consequence that neither
Manuela nor Bolívar can be claimed as uniquely Ecuadorean figures.5
This obliges us to consider that for the citizens of a country like Ecuador
the scope of nationalism may need to be extended to include elements of
regional identity, in much the same way that a modern musical adapta-
tion of the history of early American expansionism might need to include
characters like Stephen Austin or Sam Houston.6 In this regard, how-
ever, Luzuriaga is not breaking any new ground; rather, as Turino notes,
the emerging musical nationalism during the early period of indepen-
dence in Latin America—more or less the same time as that of Manuela
and Bolívar—was one of similarity rather than difference.7 This conclu-
sion, that there was little cultural distinction at that time among the Latin
American republics, is upheld according to Turino by the fact that when
national anthems were finally composed (in some cases many years af-
ter independence), they were needed to demonstrate not cultural but po-
litical sovereignty. Although this may be true in Bolivia’s case (Turino’s
example), neither the chronology nor the circumstances surrounding Ec-
uador’s national anthem seem to agree with his argument: almost imme-
diately after being elected Ecuador’s first president Juan José Flores asked
the Guayaquilean poet José Joaquín de Olmedo (1780–1847) to write the
verse for a national anthem. Although the lyrics refer metaphorically to
the bravery and patriotism of the Ecuadorean people, evidently the only
reason that the hymn did not become that country’s national anthem is
that none of Quito’s composers was able to compose music that was suffi-
ciently nationalistic to reach the “height” of Olmedo’s text.8
Second, with few exceptions, such as the onstage use of a cuatro
venezolano (a small four-stringed guitar from Venezuela) in the first act,
Luzuriaga uses little in the way of autochthonous instruments or other
indigenous elements in the opera. For example, the percussion section is
augmented by a cajón peruano (a struck musical box), bombo andino (bass
drum), pito (whistle), and several other instruments normally associated
with Latin popular music, such as claves, maracas, and a guiro. In other
words, his style, though eclectic, is drawn mainly from European or North
American sources. This last statement is not intended as a criticism—there
is nothing wrong with relying on proven musical methods for a particu-
lar dramatic result—but is actually meant as a justification: not only has
Luzuriaga spent the bulk of his adult life in the United States, but for at
least the past fifteen years he has been developing exactly the sort of musi-
cal synthesis that he effectively uses in this opera.9 In this regard, however,
Luzuriaga’s work seems to more closely approximate the kind of musical
nationalism described by Isabel Aretz, who finds an unmistakable problem
regarding so-called “nationalism” in Latin America, which is an ex-

tension of European romanticism, characterized by the composition
of works on national or pseudo regional themes—as appropriate—that
root around European harmonies, counterpoint, developments, forms
and instrumentation. This nationalism, at times exacerbated, prolongs
itself in some countries and, although it may seem paradoxical, in-
fringes on its own experience of tradition, when almost none of the
composers who advocated it approached its living sources, nor the de-
positary institutes of those sources. These composers learned all the
classical academic techniques, but they let go of the memory or the in-
spiration of the moment, that is, the representative themes of national
tradition.10
Unlike Turino, Aretz completely disregards the social or political context

that gave rise to or surrounds the creation of nationalistic music, prefer-
ring instead to rebuke those composers who in a sense belie their own
national traditions by virtue of being only marginally related to them. In
other words, whatever nationalistic elements may be identified in a partic-
ular composition, these are only inconsequential details within an other-
wise European framework.
In contrast, throughout this period one can detect the emergence of a
kind of internationalization as an important influence on the development
of musical nationalism in Latin America. Particularly during the decades
following the advent of steam-driven ocean liners in the mid-nineteenth
century, there was an increasing amount of cultural exchange between
European and Latin American musicians that at times inspired the lat-
ter to compose nationalistic works of various types. One of the most re-
markable and unambiguous examples of this kind of influence occurred
in Mexico in 1871, when, persuaded by Italian tenor Enrico Tamberlick,
Aniceto Ortega (1825–1875) composed Guatimotzín,11 a one-act opera based
on the capture and imprisonment of the eponymous Aztec emperor by
Hernán Cortés in 1521. In the days leading up to its premier performance
it was reported that set, scenery, and wardrobe were being meticulously
prepared so as to be historically correct. Although the musicalization of
this story had previously gone unmentioned, it was brought up in the con-
cert review that appeared after the work’s first performance, but in a man-
ner that makes one think that this part of the production had responded to
a different—that is, European—sort of historical correctness:
Guatimotzín was very pleasing, as is everything that Sr. Ortega pro-

duces, and he was called to the stage and noisily applauded. Sra. [Ángela]
Peralta was the vision of a beautiful Indian princess; Sr. Tamberlick
was splendid as Guatimotzín and Mr. [Luigi] Gassier made a magnifi-

cent Hernán Cortés. It is unnecessary to say that all three played their
parts as actors and singers marvelously.12
Although this type of musical internationalization on Latin American soil

surely occurred with some frequency, the example of Bolivian president
and composer Adolfo Ballivián (1831–1874), who around this same time
took his opera, Atahuallpa (perhaps the first of its type on this subject),
to Europe in order to finish it, demonstrates that Latin American musi-
cians were not necessarily fortuitous recipients of European influence.
On the contrary, during the nineteenth century a number of Latin Amer-
ican composers were quite dynamic in this regard. Indeed, for this reason
Luzuriaga can be considered a typical example of a Latin American musi-
cian who like many before him sought advanced instruction in European
or North American conservatories and universities.
Faced with these differing points of view, it may be that nationalism,
in Harry White’s words, “is a catchword for virtually every shade of polit-
ical and social behaviour, from the most benign to the most bestial, con-
ducted under the aegis of ethnic or racial integrity.”13 Put another way,
perhaps the term has too much meaning to really mean anything at all.
This being said, there is much to be gained by the main thrust of White’s
article, which has to do with the reception and perception of German and
Irish music by German and Irish audiences, that is, how a specific musi-
cal language “spoken” by a composer is appreciated or understood by his
fellow citizens. To return to Manuela y Bolívar, then, there is no doubt that
Luzuriaga wholeheartedly took on the project; indeed, during this same
time he also composed two cantatas, one for choir, symphonic band, An-
dean instruments and guitar ensemble titled Quito místico (2004, Mystic
Quito) and the other El niño de los Andes (2008, The Child of the Andes),
that reveal a predisposition for musical nationalism. Therefore, if Manuela
y Bolívar is to be understood as a representative example of contemporary
Ecuadorean musical nationalism, this approach to composition, no matter
its technical or musical means, must focus on the composer’s success in
communicating through music some aspect of regional or national heri-
tage to his fellow citizens, who in this case were “enchanted” and “moved”
to such a degree that the opera was successfully reprised not once, but two
times, once in 2007 and again in 2009.14
Although it was the first opera performed in its entirety in Ecuador,
Manuela y Bolívar is not the first large-scale nationalistic work to have
been performed in that country; rather, Luzuriaga’s opera marks about
one hundred years of musical nationalism in Ecuador. Although to date
there is no conceptual framework in which the development of musical
nationalism in that country might be better appreciated or understood, in

recent years there have been some initial steps taken in this direction. In
1995 Ecuadorean musicologist Pablo Guerrero (1962–) proposed grouping
the country’s composers into four “generations” based principally on dates
of birth, but doing so places composers into the same generation irrespec-
tive of their compositional style.15 Perhaps recognizing the inadequacy of
this approach, seven years later Guerrero added a category of “contempo-
rary musicians” who “distanced themselves from traditional nationalism
by creating experimental or avant-garde works.”16
Rodrigo Herrera, writing while Guerrero was still compiling his
Enciclopedia, approaches the subject of Ecuadorean musical nationalism
from an ethnographic point of view, asserting that “to limit cultural na-
tionalism to the folklorization of native symbolic material forces musi-
cological analysis into the ultimately unproductive task of determining
how nationalistic a work is without inquiring as to who is making the de-
termination and in what context.”17 As an example he refers to Mesías
Maiguashca (1938–), whose classification is problematical not only be-
cause he has resided most of his life outside of Ecuador, but also because
his only composition that uses Ecuadorean sound resources, Ayayayayay, a
musique concrète work created in 1971, is an outlier in a catalog that mostly
reveals the strong influence of Karlheinz Stockhausen. Although this con-
text is important, Herrera has failed to link his assertions to actual musi-
cal compositions.
In my article “The Younger Generation of Ecuadorian Composers,”
I put forward an alternative way to look at musical nationalism in Ecua-
dor based largely on the kind of training that Ecuadorean composers re-
ceived before beginning the creative period of their careers.18 This idea
seems to require some modernization. First, Guerrero, and to a lesser ex-
tent, César Santos (1962–), Eugenio Auz (1958–), and other musicians in
Ecuador deserve credit for not only identifying sources but also making
them available through books, journals, and—most recently—blogs and
other websites. In light of this, it is now possible to study and evaluate
what Ecuadorean composers have said and/or are saying about the music
and musical nationalism of their country. Second, and most important, a
large number of compositions have come to light: in the best cases a suffi-
cient number of these have been discovered from which can be derived a
characterization of a composer’s oeuvre. In the worst cases analysis can, at
the very least, be compared to the textual description that may have been
heretofore the only evidence that a particular work had been composed
or performed. However, as more and more works become available it is
becoming clear that, historically speaking, musical nationalism in Ecua-
dor is represented by several periods during which others interpreted the
sonic elements incorporated by Ecuador’s composers as nationalistic. Fi-
nally, although not writing specifically about Ecuadorean music, Andrew

Canessa’s study on the rise of indigenism as a twentieth-century intellec-
tual and artistic movement provides additional context for understanding
the development of musical nationalism in the art music of Ecuador.19
Therefore, the history of nationalism in Ecuador can be described as it
relates to art music on the basis of published documentation and private
correspondence, as well as from music examples from large-scale works
(e.g., symphonies, operas) generally regarded as significant. As I trace the
development of musical nationalism in Ecuador from its beginnings to
the present day, I try to do so in as transparent a manner as possible; by
giving voice to the musicians of that country, we may be able to more fully
appreciate their struggle to assert national identity in the context of the
tradition of art music. At the same time, even though many of these large-
scale works reveal folkloric or indigenistic traits—and because of this
are not necessarily distinguishable from similar compositions produced
in other Andean countries—the strong response that this music inspires
among Ecuadoreans is sufficient, I think, to merit the label “nationalistic.”
During the nineteenth century Ecuador was within the sphere of the
musical internationalization previously mentioned, but to a lesser extent
than its neighbors. In 1842 and again in 1843, for example, an Italian com-
pany presented consecutive seasons of opera in Guayaquil, but in a make-
shift theater constructed out of stalks of sugarcane.20 From time to time,
individual musicians, such as the Italian baritone Luigi G hizzoni in 1855
and the French pianist Captain Marcel Voyer in 1886, passed through Ec-
uador giving concerts that ran the gamut from contrived ridiculousness to
impressive brilliance. At the same time, very few Ecuadoreans paid any at-
tention to indigenous music; to them it was nothing more than música de
indios. The only notable exception can be found in Juan Agustín Guerrero
(1818?–1886), who in 1865 was visited by a Spanish scientific commis-
sion led by zoologist and author Marcos Jiménez de la Espada (1831–
1898). Jiménez de la Espada solicited the Ecuadorean to send him “all of
the Indian and popular melodies,” which would be added to the holdings
of Madrid’s museum of natural sciences.21 Guerrero complied with the
Spaniard’s request, but after this, the story becomes a little murkier. In
1883, under the headings “Yaravíes quiteños” and “Música de Guayaquil,”
a number of indigenous melodies were published in the official acts of
the Fourth International Congress of Americanists. These are surely the
same ones that Guerrero had sent to Spain some years earlier, but rather
than attribute Guerrero as the source, the official text reads, “He [Jiménez
de la Espada] himself collected them in distant regions.”22
There was no further interest in the indigenous music of Ecuador un-
til 1904, when Domenico Brescia arrived to assume the directorship of
the National Conservatory.23 He was the first composer in that country to
i ncorporate indigenous elements into his compositions, while at the same

time stressing the validity of native music to students in the conservatory.
Many of these were indifferent to what Brescia did and said about Ecua-
dorean music, but two of his students, Francisco Salgado (1880–1970) and
Segundo Luis Moreno (1882–1972), became true disciples. Writing about
his former teacher, Salgado recalls:
Year after year as director of the National Conservatory of Music,

[Brescia] [gathered] Ecuadorean autochthonous and mestizo music, and
he wrote symphonies, in which the blood of Ecuadoreans throbbed.
He would make his students listen to these pieces, playing them him-
self at the piano. These symphonies would have honored the library of
the National Conservatory had it been possible to have kept them there.
But because of the haste with which the August 11 revolutionaries pro-
ceeded to oust him from Ecuador, our national art was prevented from
obtaining these works that would have served to technically and esthet-
ically orient the Ecuadorean composers, who by that time were already
struggling to open a path toward a scholarly nationalistic music.24
Salgado believed that for Ecuadorean music to achieve universal accep-

tance it must be organized according to classical norms.25 This belief is
reflected in the titles of many of Salgado’s compositions, such as Fuga
nacionalista ecuatoriana (Ecuadorean Nationalist Fugue) and Variaciones
y fuga sobre un tema nacionalista (Variations and Fugue on a Nationalist
Theme). Moreno, in contrast, never wrote directly about his interpretation
of musical nationalism in his country, but he does refer to the first per-
formance of a Brescia work premiered in 1909, in which the Italian com-
poser integrates indigenous elements: “This composition was one more
example of what our music can be like when handled by a master of the
caliber of Mr. Brescia; the music was so beautiful and expressive . . . like
that of the Russian School which ‘the five’ initiated, and to which we must
always look if we want to make our national art honorable.”26
Moreno’s music, marked by its indigenous themes combined with tra-
ditional formal structures, reveals a lifelong concern for the honor of his
nation’s art. In addition to composition, Moreno served as a military band
director and administrator at several music conservatories. An impor-
tant contribution to musical development in his country also lies in his
scholarly research and writings. In what is perhaps his central musicolog-
ical work, Historia de la música en el Ecuador, Moreno relates in three vol-
umes (of which only the first has been published) the history of music in
Ecuador, from the pre-Columbian period through the mid-1940s. In his
chapter on indigenous music, Moreno intersperses his narrative with il-
lustrations of how he uses indigenous melodies in his compositions. For

example, he discusses an indigenous song, “Yupaichishca,” which Moreno
uses as the theme of his first Ecuadorean suite (1915). Thought to pre-date
the Spanish conquest, this song was classified by Juan Agustín Guerrero
during the early 1880s (musical example 1) as a yaraví,27 a traditional An-
dean genre that was commonly heard throughout the Incan empire.
E X A M P L E 1.
Moreno finds that the melody is constructed of a minor pentatonic

scale, a characteristic typical of early yaravíes, but disagrees with Guerrero
insofar as the song’s title, which means “venerable” or “worthy of all
praise,” reveals the sacred nature of the song. As further evidence he cites
“¡Salve, salve, Gran Señora!” (Hail, hail, great lady!), which is the first
line of a popular song dedicated to the Virgin Mary (musical example 2).
Through melodic and rhythmic distortions, he says that it may have devel-
oped from earlier missionary efforts to evangelize the indigenous popula-
tion through the adaptation of native song.
EX AMPLE 2 .
Around this same time two composers found inspiration in Cumandá

(1879), considered the first true novel written in Ecuador. Initially a lib-
eral poet, its author, Juan León Mera (1832–1894), rejected the ideologies
of his former allies in favor of those of President Gabriel García Moreno.
Although García Moreno was a conservative and a Catholic, Mera had
ecome convinced that the dictator was bringing about much-needed re-
b
form. During his two presidencies, for example, García Moreno supported
universal literacy and promoted compulsory education, including for in-
digenous children, and in 1870 he founded the National Conservatory of
Music. García Moreno was brutally assassinated in 1875, and after several
short-term interim presidencies, he was succeeded by Dr. Antonio Borrero
y Cortázar. Borrero’s government fell, the result of a violent revolution led
by Ignacio de Veintemilla, who by the end of 1876 had established himself
as supreme commander of Ecuador. In the meantime, Mera was “mak-
ing sure that García Moreno’s mark would not fade. He began to write the
work that traces the indelible progress of civilization from exiled Jesuits,
through political martyrs like García Moreno, to his own novel.”28
Set in the revolutionary climate of early nineteenth-century Ecua-
dor, Mera’s novel tells the story of a secret love affair between Cumandá,
a young Amazonian woman, and the Creole Carlos, who is the son of a
Spanish Dominican missionary. Cumandá is described as “in every way
different from her siblings.”29 Her skin is fair, her hair very smooth and
wavy, and her eyes gray, like “dark clouds.” In other words, her physical
characteristics are entirely unlike those of the indigenous people who live
near the headwaters of the Amazon River. Later, she confesses to Carlos
that as a child her father had taught her to hide the fact that she had been
baptized. Cumandá saves the young white man’s life in several situations
but finally agrees to marry Yahuarmaqui, the chief of the Jivaros (the in-
digenous people of northern Peru and eastern Ecuador), so that Carlos’s
life might be spared. At the end of the novel it is revealed that the pair
(Cumandá and Carlos) are, in fact, brother and sister. Tribal custom dic-
tates that she must die, but Cumandá escapes her captors only to be found,
days later, lying dead alongside the mummified body of Yahuarmaqui.
Although Cumandá’s fate also prevents her from engaging in an inces-
tuous act, fundamentally her sacrifice exemplifies the social solution, that
is, reconciliation in orthodox Catholic terms, that Mera believed necessary
to remedy the incivility of late nineteenth-century Ecuador. Nevertheless,
because Mera also criticizes the exploitation and violence directed at in-
digenous peoples, his proposed solution “is ineffective in societal terms
since it consisted of a Jesuit model of civilization that was unacceptable
to the landowners of the highlands. In 1895 the liberals came to power; a
year earlier Mera had died, forgotten by the members of his own party.”30
The first composer to create a dramatic musical work based on Cumandá
was Pedro Pablo Traversari (1874–1956). The son of an Italian flutist, he en-
tered the National Conservatory of Chile in 1893, where he studied flute,
harmony, and composition; five years later the conservatory hired him as a
professor of theory and solfège. In 1900 he and several other Italian musi-
cians were contracted as professors of the National Conservatory in Quito.

In addition to duties similar to those that he had carried out while in Chile,
Traversari was also charged with overseeing the institution’s library and
archives section. Today Traversari is principally remembered for his col-
lection of pre-Columbian, indigenous, and historical European musical in-
struments currently housed in the Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana.
As early as 1899 Traversari may have begun to investigate the indig-
enous music of Chile and the rest of Latin America. He wrote about his
findings on several occasions, such as in 1903, when he submitted a report
to the Congresso Internazionale di Scienze Storiche in which he describes
native musical instruments, folk songs, scales, and rhythms.31 Traversari
respected Francisco Salgado’s formal training and musical knowledge
but found his music to be uninspired. Furthermore, he disagreed with
Salgado insofar as Traversari believed that indigenous music repre-

sented “the future of our national music.”32 Around 1920 he wrote an un-
published manuscript titled “El arte aborigen del continente a mericano:
Reseña histórica y técnica de la música incaica en el Ecuador” (The Ab-
original Art of the American Continent: Historical and Technical Review
of Incan Music in Ecuador).
While a scholarship student in Rome, in 1907 Traversari composed
Cumandá.33 Later, perhaps after returning from Europe, Traversari and
Enrique Escudero collaborated in the creation of the work’s libretto.34 In
addition to Cumandá, Traversari also composed several “indigenous melo-
dramas,” such as La profecía de Huiracocha (The Prophecy of Huiracocha)
and Kizkiz o el último exponente del alma incaica (Kizkiz or the Last Expo-
nent of the Incan Soul). One of Traversari’s only surviving compositions
from this period is his Himno pentafónico de la raza indígena (Pentatonic
Hymn of the Indigenous Race; see musical example 3). This orchestral
work, composed in 1927, consists of an introduction followed by five sec-
tions. Stylistically, although the work is clearly pentatonic and its melodic
language shares characteristics typical of indigenous melody, Traversari’s
melodies are not necessarily linked to any identifiable native song; rather,
these seem to be what Ecuadorean anthropologist Juan Mullo Sandoval
(1956–) characterizes as a “Westernization” of the essential essence of in-
digenous song interpreted in a more general way.35
Though largely self-taught, Sixto María Durán (1875–1947) composed
popular as well as sacred and symphonic pieces, and “was one of the first
artists [in Ecuador] to be inspired according to a nationalistic criteria.”36
His most ambitious composition was his four-act opera Cumandá (1916).
Durán believed that this opera would place Ecuadorean musical nation-
alism alongside that of the major countries in the world,37 and he was
encouraged by many admirers, including Colombian musician Emilio
EX AMPLE 3.
Murillo (1880–1942), who penned an article extolling the “insuperable ar-

tistic importance” of Durán’s opera.38 A committee was formed and thirty
thousand sucres (the equivalent today of nearly US$317,000) was raised to
premiere Cumandá in the United States. Murillo was given the music and
the money and charged with the responsibility of promoting Durán’s com-
position in the United States. He heartily accepted the task, but unfortu-
nately, neither he, the music, nor the money was ever heard of again.39
This notwithstanding, the work reveals a style clearly influenced by
the operas that Durán may very well have heard performed by the tour-
ing companies that visited Quito during the years leading up to the com-
position of Cumandá. Like Puccini, Durán frequently uses the canto

parlando technique, as well as a leitmotif-like theme that is connotative
of Cumandá. Both can be seen in the dialogue in musical example 4 be-
tween Tongana, Cumandá’s purported father, and Cumandá. Her leit
motif is the melodic outline and twittering rhythm with which she begins
her portion of the dialogue.
EX AMPLE 4.
In addition, Durán makes extensive use of varying conformations of vo-

cal ensembles that oftentimes accompany the entry of either large groups
or individual prominent characters to the stage. Indigenous instruments,
such as quenas, zampoñas, bocinas, tunduis, and tambores, are introduced
in the first act, and at times these are combined with the orchestra.40 A
ballet is interpolated in the fourth act, the music for which is strongly
reminiscent of the indigenous or mestizo dance known in Ecuador as a
sanjuanito.41 The opera concludes with an extended dialogue between
Pona, Cumandá’s mother, and Cumandá. Set to the music of her leitmotif,
Cumandá sings, “I want to live! I want to live!,” but resigned to her fate, she
finally intones “Good-bye!” to her mother. As Pona seeks heavenly protec-
tion for her daughter, Cumandá walks slowly to the palace doors, where, in
a manner left unspecified, she is sacrificed and falls to the ground, dead.
Murillo’s admiration notwithstanding, one wonders how this opera (or,

for that matter, Traversari’s, since presumably it, too, would have relied on
the same libretto) might have been received had it, in fact, been presented
in Quito. Putting aside the ambivalence generally felt by Andeans toward
works composed by their own composers, there are some interesting mod-
ifications made to Mera’s original story that might have caused some con-
sternation. Even so, it could be argued that some of the adaptations might
have been made in order to achieve a more musical or dramatic effect. For
example, in Mera’s novel, Cumandá’s inanimate body is found lying be-
side that of Yahuarmaqui, who died the very night during which the two
were to have been married.
Although this turn of events precedes the most important revelation of
the novel, discussed already, Traversari may have perhaps found this part
of the plot to be insufficiently dramatic for the stage, and thus altered the
ending so that Cumandá is put to death at the very end of the opera. How-
ever, the most important of these modifications, and the least defensible,
is that shortly after the beginning of the first act, Y ahuarmaqui, who in
Mera’s novel is an elderly Jivaro chieftain, is celebrated in the opera as an
Incan king. Traversari, without a doubt, and Durán, surely, would have
been aware that this is a historical impossibility, since not only did the
Jivaroans repel an Incan attack led by their emperor Huayna Cápac not
long before the arrival of the Spaniards, but also the Jivaroans are the “one
tribe of American Indians . . . ever to have successfully revolted against
the empire of Spain and to have thwarted all subsequent attempts by the
Spaniards to re-conquer them.”42 However, since neither Traversari nor
Durán would have been even remotely interested in Amazon communi-
ties—the Incans, they would have said, were much more relevant—the
true circumstances of Cumandá had to be sacrificed at the altar of cultural
expediency. In other words, the most important objective of these early na-
tionalistic composers was not historical accuracy.
The years leading up to World War II produced a greater divergence of
opinion regarding musical nationalism in Ecuador. On the one hand, Luis
Humberto Salgado (1903–1977) followed much the same approach to com-
position as had been advocated by his father (who was also his teacher)
and Moreno. On the other hand, Juan Pablo Muñoz Sanz (1898–1964) rep-
resents a more indigenist point of view. I will use several compositions
and other documentation to illustrate this divergence.
Salgado’s earliest works date from the 1920s. In 1933, the quadricenten-
nial of the death of Atahualpa inspired Salgado to compose his first large
work, Atahualpa, o el ocaso de un imperio (Atahualpa, or the Decline of an
Empire), for military band. The work is at once programmatic and dra-
matic. Each of the three movements, “Visiones proféticas de Viracocha”
(Prophetic Visions of Viracocha), “La fiesta del sol” (The Festival of the
Sun), and “La tragedia de Cajamarca” (The Tragedy of Cajamarca), nar-

rates the events that made up the tragic encounter between Atahualpa and
the Spanish conquistadores. Within each movement Salgado also uses
leitmotif-like themes to represent specific characters or scenes. Introduced
almost immediately, Atahualpa’s theme, for example, is presented in sec-
ond flute, E-flat clarinet, and first clarinet (musical example 5). This theme
returns several times throughout the movement, but at its last appearance
it takes on the aspect of a funeral march, thus signaling Atahualpa’s fate at
the hands of the Spanish.
EX AMPLE 5.
The second movement musically depicts daily life in the Incan empire.
By way of illustration, the hustle and bustle of Atahualpa’s court is repre-
sented by a lively theme first heard in the upper winds (musical example
6). The third and final movement, the most dramatic of the three, por-
trays the battle between the Incan warriors and the Spanish conquista-
dors. Salgado represents the triumph of the victorious Spanish with a
rhythmic pattern reminiscent of the closing theme of the first movement
of Beethoven’s seventh symphony, but which Salgado soon develops into
the final theme performed by the entire band.
EX AMPLE 6.
Although its premier performance by Quito’s municipal band under the

direction of the composer was originally scheduled for August 29, 1933,
the concert was delayed until September 3 because of nationwide strikes.
Writing several days later, Sergio E. Valdivieso asserted that Salgado had
conceived his art with exquisite sensitivity, and thus, we see that in
his work, more than just fulfilling an exact literary purpose, he has
learned how to imprint his temperament, technique and tendencies on
the work, thus unifying its aesthetic, poetic and rhythmic elements in
the manner of the classical symphonists. Indeed, the enthusiasts of na-
tional autochthonous art now have a model in this genre.
In the work we reference, in addition to its artistic merit, one can
also find historic and folkloric elements as well, which are qualities
that, joined to its eminently descriptive character, place it on an infi-
nitely perfect artistic level.43
In an interview nearly forty years later Salgado stated that Atahualpa was
performed two times by the US Marine Band, in June 1940 and July 1941,
and that the work was found to be “a true message of South American
music.” 44 Although there is no evidence as to who made this comment or
when it was made, that it remained in Salgado’s memory for so many years
suggests that, insofar as this is one of Salgado’s most ambitious composi-
tions, the remark surely must have resonated with his own estimation of
the work. More important, however, is that although Atahualpa was born
in a town that is today part of Ecuador, he was, of course, never Ecuador-
ean. In other words, for Salgado to believe that his symphonic work for
band represents South American music seems to suggest that for Salgado
regionalist sentiments in art music transcend nationalism.
As early as 1925, one of Salgado’s contemporaries, Juan Pablo Muñoz
Sanz, had aligned himself with the Mexican composer Julián Carrillo’s
microtonal Sonido 13 (thirteenth sound) theory, saying, “The material of
New Music has already been discovered in the New World.”45 Later, he ex-
pressed his belief that Ecuadorean national music should be based on
indigenous sources, “como si los barcos de la inmigración no hubieran
atracado en vuestros puertos” (as if the immigration boats [of the Spanish
conquistadores] had not berthed in your ports), but at the same time with-
out excluding the possibility of a positive influence from foreign or uni-
versal musical elements.46 Similarly, Enrique Terán (1887–1943) maintains
that Ecuadorean composers
should not imitate the European masters, such as Wagner, Debussy,

or Ravel and the like; rather, they should take the raw material of the
marvelous autochthonous music and give it the grammatical form of
symphonic composition, capable of offering itself in all its eloquent
grandiosity. A child that has just learned to talk has a very limited vo-
cabulary. Our music is the tender language of a new world; it has to
mature and pass through the knowledge of general teaching, arming it-
self with technique like a good writer, and express its aesthetic opinion
beautifully and deeply. But not by imitating the soul of foreign races;
rather, by living its own life and race history.47
Although Muñoz Sanz dedicated his Voces en la sombra (Voices in the

Shadow; version for piano, 1936) to Carrillo, no microtonal pieces were
composed in Ecuador. Nevertheless, there are a number of works from
this period that reveal the indigenist musical style. However, as an an-
tecedent to understanding the stylistic characteristics advocated by the
composers of this time, it is first necessary to review the contemporary
thinking upon which this music is based.
By the 1930s, it was widely agreed in Ecuador that the pentatonic scale
had been and was still the principal melodic resource of the indigenous
Andeans. Further, it had been concluded that this scale had originated
in Asia, with the only difference being the pitch upon which the scale is
constructed (musical example 7).48 In addition, although both can be cat-
egorized as anhemitonic—that is, these are scales without half steps—
the indigenous scale is a minor pentatonic scale, whereas the Asiatic is
said to be major. Cevallos García goes on to say that melodies constructed
from the minor pentatonic scale tend to be rather somber, which has led
some to ask why the inhabitants of the Andean highlands would have pre-
ferred the minor mode of this scale. Moreno ponders this question and
determines that the lack of discernible seasons, the thin air, and direct
sunlight, combined with the desolate, isolated landscape characteristic of
many areas in the Andes, provoke “the deepest melancholy in the soul” of
the Ecuadorean indigene.49
E X A M P L E 7.
Recent research has questioned these earlier conclusions. Not only is it

now thought that the Andean pentatone may be a misconception, H aeberli
finds, for instance, that the measurements of Nazcan panpipes “are not
consistent with those expected for a pentatonic scale.”50 Olsen argues that
iconographic evidence suggests that pre-Columbian cultures in the An-
des practiced a form of interlocking melodies in which dual panpipe play-
ers each provided half of the notes of a complete scale.51 Nevertheless,
Traversari, Muñoz Sanz, and his fellow nationalists sought to integrate
pentatonic concepts into their own compositions in a manner consistent
with their understanding of the music of these earlier cultures.
Muñoz Sanz’s 1926 Danza incásica (Incan Dance, in musical exam-
ple 8) provides a good illustration of the ostensible melodic resources of
the Andean indigenes: although the melody in the right hand appears to
be an embellished major pentatonic scale built on C (as currently under-
stood), the bass line, built from the pitches B, C, E, F, and A, is constructed
from exactly the same pitches that Moreno calls a “major pentatonic scale
with semi-tones.” Both scales, Moreno claims, originated in Asia.52
EX AMPLE 8.
In his 1942 ballet, La fiesta trágica del último inca (The Tragic Fiesta of
the Last Inca), Guerrero notes in its “internal constitution . . . a recurring
presence of the rhythm of the sanjuanito, as well as the use of several me-
lodic elements from another of his compositions, Danza incásica.”53 The
same can be observed in Cora’s dance, in which the virgin is tragically se-
duced by a Spanish captain (musical example 9).
E X A M P L E 9.
After World War II, ideas and attitudes about musical nationalism in
Ecuador began to retreat from the indigenist points of view seen earlier.
Writing in 1954, music critic Francisco Alexander (1910–1988) complained
that Ecuadorean music had not achieved the same level of respect and uni-
versal appreciation as had the other arts in his country, such as painting
and literature. He believed that in order for this to be remedied, Ecua-
dorean composers must wisely follow the “shining” example of European
nationalists by using Ecuador’s autochthonous elements to create an au-
thentically national music. At the same time, however, Alexander claimed
that the composers who had incorporated these elements into their music
had done so in an entirely inappropriate manner, within a rigid formula
and with very little imagination, and in so doing, they “poisoned” the Ec-
uadorean people with a monotonous, morbidly sad “submusic.”54
Around this same time, two composers, Luis H. Salgado and C laudio
Aizaga, brought to the stage two works based on Mera’s Cumandá. In 1940
Salgado began writing a three-act opera, titled Cumandá, but did not fin-
ish it until December 1954. Seven years later Salgado self-published an
edition of the warrior scene from the second act titled “Ofrenda ritual,”
scored for baritone, male choir, mixed choir, and percussion (musical ex-
ample 10). Although the work was found to “constitute a valuable contri-
bution to the enrichment of our autochthonous and folkloric music,”55 it
actually reveals a unique approach in the context of this type of m usic.
In a departure from the pentatonic scale systems that had been com-
monly used in Ecuador until this point, Salgado alternates the higher
and lower parts of the warrior chorus by using different fragments that,
when combined, produce an incomplete whole tone scale (the E is miss-
ing). However, because of the alternation of C and F-sharp in the timpani,
a diminished fifth is produced between that instrument and the warrior
chorus on the first beat of nearly every measure. Finally, the alternation
of loud and soft seems to suggest an echolike effect, as if a great distance
separates the two groups.
E X A M P L E 10 .
Later, as part of the material provided to the editors of the Composers of

the Americas series,56 Salgado included a facsimile of the first page of the
second act of this opera which shares many of the same stylistic charac-
teristics noted already. On this same page there is a notation to the effect
that Salgado is the composer and librettist. Because Salgado was a conser-
vatory student during the time when Durán was setting the Traversari-
Escudero libretto to music, this disclosure would appear to indicate that
perhaps Salgado no longer considered it suitable for dramatization. In-
deed, when compared to previous adaptations, the recent examination
of a facsimile copy of Salgado’s libretto by Ecuadorean conductor Javier
Andrade Córdova (1966–), also in the archives of the Banco Central del
Ecuador, reveals a story line much more faithful to Mera’s novel.57 In other
words, Cumandá and the others are no longer Incan but the jungle inhab-
itants Mera meant them to be.
During Salgado’s lifetime Cumandá was never performed in its entirety.
Rather, sections of the opera were presented from time to time under the
composer’s direction in the National Conservatory. Recently, several leg-
ible handwritten sections of the opera as well as a complete but difficult
to decipher full score and an equally problematic piano-vocal score in the
archives of the Banco Central del Ecuador have come to light. However,
according to Andrade Córdova, a complete performance of Cumandá will
have to wait until its score has been completely reviewed and edited.58 In
2008, however, as technical director he organized performances of the
legible sections of the opera in Cuenca and Quito. In 2009, the princi-
pal scene from the third act was performed in Quito by the National Sym-
phony Orchestra, conducted by Emmanuel Siffert (1967–) and Andrea
Vela (1975–), under the title Me llamo Cumandá (My Name Is Cumandá).
In 1955 Claudio Aizaga composed the music for the one-act ballet
Cumandá, which was performed on March 11, 12, and 13 of that same year
in the Teatro Sucre by the Escuela Experimental de Ballet (Experimental
School of Ballet), a group that had been organized during October 1954
under the direction of Françoise Alauze.59 Not unlike previous dramatiza-
tions of Mera’s novel, in many ways Alauze’s version represents a depar-
ture from the original source:
As the curtain rises we see Cumandá, who is dreaming near the banks
of a river where Carlos is expected to arrive. During their love duet,
Carlos begs Cumandá to escape with him, but because of her Christian
faith, she refuses. At sundown the indigenes light campfires while at the
same time visitors from other tribes arrive to honor Yahuarmaqui. Dur-
ing the celebration, children march past the tribal chieftain and offer
him gifts. Virgins and warriors join in a frenzied dance until exhausted
and inebriated, they fall to the ground. At the same time, Cumandá and
Carlos are hiding behind a tree. Before they leave the scene, the two lov-
ers execute a passionate dance. Meanwhile, as the virgin and a white
boy are making love behind a hut, they are startled by Cumandá’s father
and brother. Enraged, in everyone’s presence they offer Cumandá as the
wife of Yahuarmaqui. In order to put an end to his daughter’s pleas, the
Indian chief puts Cumandá under the custody of guards armed with
lances. During the night Cumandá manages to escape.
Time passes. The ballet resumes with the funeral procession of
Yahuarmaqui, who has died in combat. On the other side of the stage
Cumandá enters as a prisoner, condemned to follow her husband to
the grave. Virgins adorn her for sacrifice and lead her to her death by
drowning in perfumed waters. Lifeless, Cumandá is placed a longside
her departed husband. Carlos enters, and driven mad by pain, em-
braces Cumandá’s body.
Alauze danced the role of Cumandá; the Conservatory Orchestra, un-

der the direction of Ángel Honorio Jiménez (1907–1965), provided the
musical accompaniment. The work, described as “difficult,” was well re-
ceived by an appreciative audience during the evening of its premier per-
formance. The salient elements were recognized in the review that was
published the next day:
Undoubtedly, the work’s ambience was achieved by various factors: the

decorations, the panorama of the jungle, the effect of the water, the hut,
one could say these were the fundamental things; but in addition, fac-
tors in the background also contributed to the ambience; rather, the
musical harmonies and its stages, taken effectively from Indian char-
acteristics, their rhythms and the tonalities of their music, that go
from warrior-like violence to sad lamentation, all in brusque contrast.
Claudio Aizaga’s music completely succeeded; Francoise Alause’s [sic]
choreographic librettos are on target, at least for having been conceived
by a foreigner who has only lived in other environments. There was a
danger of entering into a foggy and innumerable interpretation, if one
takes into account Cumandá’s enormous romantic plot. There were mo-
ments of Indian fighting in which the impression of the ensemble was
able to give rise to an epic emotion. The rhythm of combat broke out
in a virile form. Naturally, it was this result for which the musical part
took some of the credit.60
In discussing the history of Ecuadorean music, Gerardo Alzamora (1910–

1982?) writes that Aizaga’s Cumandá is a work “in whose funeral march is
first described the monorhythmic parade of a funeral procession, later the
orgiastic and semi-pagan ceremonies of our Jivaros, until culminating in
the interment of Cumandá.”61 More than three decades later, on July 24,
2008, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Ecuador performed the suite from
Cumandá as part of a two-day tribute to Aizaga.
Less than a year after the premiere of Cumandá, the National Sym-
phony Orchestra of Ecuador was founded on February 1, 1956. One of its
cofounders, Corsino Durán Carrión (1911–1973), had, fourteen years ear-
lier, also helped to set up the musician’s union in that country. Although
the majority of Corsino Durán Carrión’s compositions are sanjuanitos,
pasillos, and yaravíes, in 1960 he won second prize in the second national
composition competition sponsored by the Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana
for his symphonic poem El ocaso de Tahuantinsuyo (The Decline of
Tahuantinsuyo).62 Submitted under the pseudonym “Llacta Shungo”
(“heart of the community” in Quichua),63 the work is based on several ep-

isodes from Benjamín Carrión’s book Atahualpa (1934). The composition
draws on a series of themes that identify specific episodes that occurred
on Ecuadorean territory with the arrival of the Incas. With only one excep-
tion (musical example 11)—that of the love theme between Huayna Cápac
(the last Incan emperor before Atahualpa) and Paccha (one of his many
wives)—these themes carry out a descriptive role and musically are largely
not developed. The love theme, however, is an elaboration of the rhythmic
and melodic shape associated with the entrance of Huayna Cápac into the
Kingdom of Quito. Later, Durán uses a fugue to represent the Chasquis,
who were the fast-footed deliverers of messages and other items through-
out the Incan empire.64
E X A M P L E 11.
Durán Carrión’s work was thunderously acclaimed at its premiere on

January 25, 1961, by the National Symphony Orchestra of Ecuador; how-
ever, the critical response it received after a second performance ten years
later reveals a fundamental change in attitude vis-à-vis musical nation-
alism in Ecuador. This time, the work was characterized as ridiculous.
Although Guerrero and Wong might be correct, in their biography of
Corsino Durán, to characterize this criticism as “exaggerated,” by about
the 1970s it is evident that the musical nationalism typical of the previ-
ous half century, with respect to large works such as operas, symphonies,
or ballets, had begun to diminish. Because of this reason, the composer
who best represents the more intimate works of musical nationalism of
this period, Gerardo Guevara (1930–), has composed mainly for voice and
piano, a number of his works featuring a Quichua text. Typical of these is
Casilla pacha. Guevara sets the text, a Quichua cradlesong, to an opening
section that outlines a pentatonic scale, but additional pitches are soon in-
troduced, such that the following section appears to function as a tonici-
zation. The piano largely seems to ignore this melody, though from time
to time the two parts converge in brief parallelisms. In the piano part it-
self there is a greater emphasis on parallel movement, not unlike that of
French impressionism. Indeed, Guevara combines these parallelisms
with an arpeggiated technique in the right hand that serves to enhance
the coloristic potential of that instrument (musical example 12). The few
instances of collaboration between the piano and vocal parts are a good
indicator of the kind of vocalist for whom this song is written. Generally
speaking, songs that are intended for amateur singers are those in which
the vocal line is nearly always duplicated in the piano. Guevara does not
do this. The most conclusive evidence, however, comes at the end of the
piece, when the vocal line ascends to a B5, a pitch somewhat above the typ-
ical range of an amateur soprano.
E X A M P L E 12 .
In addition to Manuela y Bolívar (discussed earlier), the only other mod-

ern large-scale composition of any significance that reveals a nationalis-
tic tendency is Álvaro Manzano’s symphonic poem Rumiñahui (1991). In
this work, which was premiered in 1992 by the National Symphony Or-
chestra of Ecuador, Manzano chose as his theme that of an Incan warrior,
who was born in, fought for, and was killed over territory that is now mod-
ern Ecuador. Although he has very few compositions to his credit, as a fre-
quent guest conductor he has been able to include this work in programs
that he has conducted in a number of foreign concert halls. Because of his
especially close relationship with the Dominican Republic, his description
of Rumiñahui was published by the national symphony orchestra of that
country:
Written in sonata form, the work begins with a slow introduction. Here
a pre-Hispanic motive sounds that will be one of the leitmotifs of the
work and creates an atmosphere of nostalgia that precedes the inva-
sion of the Conquistadores, announced by a rattle shaken in representa-
tion of the year of Columbus’s arrival: 1, 4, 9, and 2. The motive of the
Conquistadores is at the same time a fragment of the medieval “Dies
Irae,” played by the horns.
Two principal themes are heard in the faster section that follows: the
first, a “Yumbo” warrior rhythm that symbolizes Rumiñahui; the sec-
ond, played by the English horn and solo cello, creates contrast with its
bucolic and gentle atmosphere.
During the central section (the development), the shaking rattle
(like a tremolo) and the “Dies Irae” motive ends up taking over all of the
other material in a constant crescendo that takes us to the moment in
which the hero is executed.
In the recapitulation the “Yumbo” theme is presented in a poly-
phonic “fugato,” which serves to highlight its lamenting or funeral
march type of character.
The coda is a song of hope: the trumpet transforms the first theme
of the fast section into a solemn hymn that is accompanied by bells.65
From this description one might think that this is nothing more than a
Salgado-like Atahualpa piece with a little bit more formal development.
However, as someone who has performed Rumiñahui several times, I can
say that not only is there considerably more development, but also that the
pentatonic melodies have been adapted so as to be much more tonally ori-
ented. Furthermore, although he uses rattles and other folkloric percus-
sive instruments, there is much more emphasis on instruments that have
little or no autochthonous associations, such as the English horn.
How best, then, to understand the development of nationalism in the
art music of Ecuador? To begin, with little more than a romanticized in-
terest in the cultures of her indigenous people, the period from Ecuador’s
independence until the first few years of the twentieth century could be de-
scribed as one during which that country’s composers mainly wrote works
of a more popular nature. Since these were based largely on imported
styles, it would be incorrect to claim that they represent a specific national
identity; however, at times composers would use connotative titles to sug-
gest sentimental feelings associated with places or people within that
country. Or a composer might use a characteristic turn of phrase, such as
a descending minor third, typical of the popular music of the Andean re-
gion. In every case the musical style is eminently European and the music
is designed to appeal to an educated, and growing, middle class. By tran-
scribing a number of indigenous songs Juan Agustín Guerrero left an im-
portant resource that was largely ignored during his lifetime. Indeed, the
unmistakable markers of indigenous identity—its melodies, autochtho-
nous instruments, and texts—are wholly absent from the composed mu-
sic of this period.
Although a national conservatory functioned for seven years in Quito
during the nineteenth century and again during the first few years of the
twentieth century, the Italians and other foreign musicians who admin-
istered the institution and taught in its classrooms were largely indiffer-
ent toward anything other than European art music. They had come to
Ecuador, after all, to teach any person desirous of learning the “sublime
art of M
ozart.”66 However, the appointment of Domenico Brescia to the
directorship of that institution in 1904 inaugurated a period that could
be called erudite nationalism. This style reveals a reliance on indigenous
or indigenous- like melody within a highly structured musical frame-
work. This being said, most of the compositions that Brescia wrote while
in Quito, and several of his students’ pieces, are entirely European in out-
look, that is, they do not incorporate any local elements of any kind. In-
terestingly, every composer in Ecuador today recognizes the Italian as the
father of Ecuadorean musical nationalism, and in doing so one has the
sense that they, too, believe that they are following in his footsteps, com-
positionally speaking. However, what they may not understand is that this
musical characteristic suggests that for Brescia the most important thing
that a composer does is the careful exercise of his craft, meaning that in-
digenous elements only serve the composer’s interests insofar as they can
be integrated into an otherwise skillfully crafted musical framework. It
is in this sense, therefore, that one can appreciate and admire the accom-
plishment of someone like Luis Humberto Salgado, who, because of his
father’s close association with Brescia, was able to merge the disparate el-
ements of indigenous song and melody with whole-tone scales and Ger-
man serialism.
Nevertheless, what followed in the wake of Brescia’s abandonment of
the country in 1911 were the beginnings of an indigenist nationalism that
would eventually advocate the rejection of European art music in favor of
building large-scale compositions entirely out of indigenous material. But
these composers (Traversari, Muñoz Sanz, and others) did not exalt the
music of living indigenes; rather, they looked to the Incans for musical
inspiration, and in so doing, they willingly subscribed to historical ideas
about the nature of pre-Columbian music that were later proved untrue.
Furthermore, while they may have been aware of the work of their fellow
countryman Pío Jaramillo Alvarado (1884–1968), who in 1922 published
El indio ecuatoriano (The Ecuadorean Indian) in condemnation of the so-
cial injustice that had been historically visited upon the indigenes since
colonial times, the music of this period is not concerned about or directed
toward anyone other than a nonindigene audience. Finally, although it
may seem to chronologically follow the erudite style, I see this as com-
pletely unrelated to that earlier form of nationalism for three reasons: first,
Salgado and Moreno continued working within Brescia’s erudite style,
meaning that their compositional approach was running parallel to the
more indigenist version; second, there was no direct transmission from
Brescia to Traversari, Muñoz Sanz, and the others who promoted the lat-
ter style (they were not Brescia’s students, but colleagues); and third, and
most important, the indigenist approach to nationalism that took hold in
Ecuador directly mirrors that which had sprung up in several Latin Amer-
ican countries, such as Mexico, Cuba, and Peru, to name but three.
The last half of the twentieth century is characterized by its dimin-
ishing use of indigenous elements. On the one hand, the stated objec-
tives of the previous period could not be sustained; on the other hand,
and more significant, as more and more Ecuadorean composers have been
traveling to Europe and North America for advanced instruction, either
external influences have been slowly producing new blendings of indige-
nous elements with contemporary universal styles or Ecuador’s compos-
ers have been abandoning musical nationalism altogether. Guevara, for
example, by mixing indigenous melodic elements and text with French
impressionism has produced a number of successful compositions that
are at the same time quite attractive. On the other hand, were Manzano
to produce other large-scale works like Rumiñahui, then this, too, might
very well represent a promising stylistic approach. In the meantime, like
Maiguashca mentioned earlier, there are several Ecuadorean composers,
among them Arturo Rodas (1951–), Jorge Campos (1960–), Eduardo Flores
Abad (1960–), and Juan Campoverde (1964–), who were trained outside of
Ecuador and whose compositional style is within the musical mainstream
and reveals little, if any, nationalistic tendency.
To return, then, to the question posed earlier: can Diego Luziaraga’s
Manuela y Bolívar be held up as a representative example of contemporary
Ecuadorean musical nationalism? Unlike the imagined musical national-
ism built around Incan themes, or the substantial modifications that were
imposed on stories like that of Cumandá, Luzuriaga’s selection of Simón
Bolívar as the theme around which to compose a large-scale work not only
is an acceptable example of musical nationalism in Ecuador but also, in a
way, is a symbol of stylistic liberation.
Notes
1. Pamela S. Murray, “‘Loca’ or ‘Libertadora’? Manuel Sáenz in the Eyes
of History and Historians, 1900–c. 1990,” Journal of Latin American Studies 33
(2001): 291–310.
2. “La primera ópera nacional está dedicada a Manuela,” El Comercio, Novem-
ber 9, 2006. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.
3. “Manuela y Bolívar: Un canto a la libertad, hecho en Ecuador,” El Hoy, No-
vember 12, 2006.
4. T homas Turino, “Nationalism and Latin American Music: Selected Case
Studies and Theoretical Considerations,” Latin American Music Review 24, no. 2
(Fall 2003): 202.
5. T hough born in Quito, Manuela spent significant portions of her life in
Colombia and Peru and for a short while lived in exile in Jamaica. Because of her
association with Simón Bolívar, who was interested in Ecuador only insofar as it
formed part of his goal to create the confederation of territories known for a little
more than a decade as Gran Colombia, when she tried to return to Quito in 1835
her attempt was thwarted by President Vicente Rocafuerte, whose policy was to
send her along with scores of other conspirators into exile. As a result she fled to
the small Peruvian town of Paita, where she spent the rest of her life paying hom-
age to the memory of her great friend.
6. To an even greater extent than Manuela and Bolívar, the figure of A tahualpa
(1497–1533), the last sovereign ruler of the Incan Empire, is of particular impor-
tance, having inspired more than twenty works of various kinds throughout the
Andean region.
7. Turino, “Nationalism and Latin American Music,” 179.
8. Aurelio Espinosa Pólit, Reseña histórica del himno nacional ecuatoriano
(Quito: Talleres Gráficos Nacionales, 1948), 14–15.
9. Diego Luzuriaga, letter to author, January 25, 2003.
10. Isabel Aretz, “La música como tradición,” in América Latina en su música,
7th ed., ed. Isabel Aretz (Mexico City: Siglo XXI Editores, 1993), 266.
11. “Los Sres. Tamberlick y Aniceto Ortega,” El Siglo Diez y Nueve, Septem-
ber 2, 1871. Tamberlick (1820–1889), who had been contracted in Europe earlier
that year by impresarios Cipriani and Zanini, was interested in singing a piece
with a little local flavor, and thus had approached the Mexican composer with his
request.
12. “El beneficio del Sr. Moderati,” La Iberia, September 15, 1871.
13. Harry White, “Is This Song about You? Some Reflections on Music and
Nationalism in Germany and Ireland,” International Review of the Aesthetics and
Sociology of Music 33, no. 2 (December 2002): 133.
14. “Manuela y Bolívar.”
15. Pablo Guerrero Gutiérrez, Músicos del Ecuador (Quito: Corporación Musi-
cológica Ecuatoriana, 1995), 182–184.
16. Enciclopedia de la música ecuatoriana, s.v. “El nacionalismo musical en el
Ecuador.”
17. Rodrigo Herrera, “The Role of Classical Music in the Development of Na-
tionalism and the Formation of Class in Quito, Ecuador” (PhD diss., University of
Texas at Austin, 2000), 127.
18. John L. Walker, “The Younger Generation of Ecuadorian Composers,”
Latin American Music Review 22, no. 2 (2001): 203–204.
19. A ndrew Canessa, “Todos somos indígenas: Towards a New Language of
National Political Identity,” Bulletin of Latin American Research 25, no. 2 (2006):
241–263.
20. Pedro José Huerto, Guayaquil en 1842: Rocafuerte y la epidemia de la fiebre
amarilla, 2nd ed. (Guayaquil: Editorial de la Universidad de Guayaquil, 1987),
24–25.
21. Juan Agustín Guerrero Toro, La música ecuatoriana desde su origen hasta
1875 (Quito: Banco Central del Ecuador, 1984), 13.
22. Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, Actas de la Cuarta Reunión (Ma-
drid: Imp. de Fortanet, 1883), vi.
23. Born in 1866, Brescia studied music in the Milan and Bologna conservato-
ries. He left Italy to arrive in Chile in 1892 as choir director of an opera company.
Several years after becoming director of the Ecuadorean conservatory, Brescia and
that institution were subjected to four years of insults and defamation, which,
with the revolution and change of government in 1911, resulted in the termination
of Brescia’s contract. He settled in San Francisco, where he would become pro-
fessor of composition at Mills College, a position he held until his death in 1939.
Brescia is the author of four operas, two symphonies, and many shorter works,
especially chamber music. He was closely associated with Elizabeth Sprague
Coolidge and was a longtime member of the Bohemian Club, for which he com-
posed the music for two Grove plays.
24. Francisco Salgado A., “Domingo Brescia, célebre compositor y maestro
italiano,” Letras del Ecuador 110 (1958): 20. Although there may be various re-
gional, social, or cultural connotations, the word mestizo in its broadest sense de-
notes a person of mixed Spanish and American Indian ancestry. Salgado’s use of
the phrase “mestizo music” refers to the musical style that evolved from the syn-
cretism between Spanish and indigenous music.
25. Francisco Salgado A., “Tendencias estéticas de la música ecuatoriana,” A
Tempo 2 (1991): 22.
26. Segundo Luis Moreno, La música en el Ecuador (Quito: Departamento
de Desarrollo y Difusión Musical, 1996), 114. The piece that he is referring to is
Renacimiento, a cantata composed for the inauguration of the 1909 international
exposition in Quito.
27. Juan Agustín Guerrero, Yaravíes quiteños, 2nd ed., ed. Pablo Guerrero and
Raúl Garzón (Quito: Archivo Sonoro del Municipio de Quito, 1993), 16. Assim-
ilated by mestizos during the colonial era, the yaraví can still be heard in Ecua-
dor, Peru, and Bolivia. The song is slow and written either in a compound duple
or a simple triple meter. Chromaticism is oftentimes used to generate greater ex-
pressivity, and its texts usually deal with love or disaffection, leave-takings, and
journeys.
28. Doris Sommer, Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin
America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 238.
29. Juan León Mera, Cumandá o un drama entre salvajes, 2nd ed. (Madrid: Li-
brería de Fernando Fé, 1891), 28.
30. Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature, s.v. “Juan León Mera.”
31. Atti del Congresso Internazionale di Scienze Storiche (Roma, 1–9 aprile
1903) (Rome: Tipografia della R. Accademia dei Lincei, 1905), 8:117–129. In 1906
Traversari gave a similar lecture during the second congress of the International
Music Society, held in Basel, Switzerland.
32. X iro Varela, “Nuestros artistas,” Caricatura: Semanario humorístico de la
vida nacional 1, no. 12 (1919): 11.
33. “Palabras pronunciadas por el doctor Carlos A. Rolando, antes de iniciar
el Profesor Traversari la lectura de su Opera ‘Cumandá,’” Boletín del Centro de
Investigaciones Históricas 2, no. 2 (1932): 189. Although Traversari’s lecture was not
published in this journal, while giving his introduction Rolando mentions that
the composer “reformed” this opera in 1925.
34. Enciclopedia de la música ecuatoriana, s.v. “Cumandá.” Escudero is a minor
figure who for a period of time was director of Quito’s municipal library.
35. Juan Mullo Sandoval, e-mail to author, March 7, 2013.
36. Salgado A., “Tendencias estéticas,” 25. Durán’s works, although they ad-
here to European models, are nationalistic insofar as he often incorporates the
popular Ecuadorean dance rhythms and melodies of his day.
37. Sixto María Durán, “La música incaica,” El Comercio, [1917].
38. “La ópera ‘Cumandá,’” El Comercio, August 30, 1916. There is no record
of this opera having been publicly performed during this period. Rather, be-
cause both Durán and Murillo shared the same nationalist position toward mu-
sic, it seems likely that a private audition of the work may have been arranged for
Murillo’s enjoyment while visiting Durán’s home two days before the Colombian’s
flattering remarks were published. In addition, this could very well have been the
moment when the idea to produce the opera in the United States was concocted.
39. Francisco Salgado A., “Sixto María Durán: El maestro y el artista,” Letras
del Ecuador 10, no. 101 (1955): 15. Although the basic outline of this story certainly
seems plausible, according to Salgado the Colombian visited Quito in 1913. This
claim is incorrect.
40. Of these, the first three are aerophones and the last two, membranophones.
41. The word sanjuanito (and its variants) refers to a specific dance and mu-
sic of the Ecuadorean mestizos and indigenes. There are two main theories about
the origin of this musical style. The first, supported by the Ecuadorean writer and
historian Gabriel García Cevallos (1913–2004) and Ecuadorean composer P edro P.
Traversari, maintains that the sanjuanito originated in the northern Ecuadorean
province of Imbabura. The French ethnomusicologists Raoul d’Harcourt and
Marguerite d’Harcourt, in contrast, determined that the sanjuanito is a trans-
formed version of the Peruvian or Bolivian wayno that was implanted by the In-
cans during the time when their forces were pushing north into what is now
modern-day Ecuador and Colombia. Sixto María Durán defines the sanjuanito as
festive instrumental dance music in duple meter that is based on a single, perpet-
ually repeated phrase that is occasionally interrupted.
42. Michael J. Harner, The Jívaro: People of the Sacred Waterfalls (Garden City,
NY: Doubleday and Natural History Press, 1972), 1. The Jivaroans have always
been fiercely independent and have always occupied the territory that is today part
of Ecuador.
43. Sergio E. Valdivieso, “‘Atahualpa’ o ‘El ocaso de un imperio,’” El Comercio,
September 6, 1933.
44. Hernán Rodríguez Castelo, “Luis Humberto Salgado: Por el mismo,”
El Tiempo, July 26, 1970, cited in Pablo Guerrero, ed., Luis H. Salgado, Grandes
compositores ecuatorianos (Quito: Corporación Musicológica Ecuatoriana, 2001):
19–20. The work was actually performed by the US Navy Band on June 21, 1940.
The open-air US Marine Band concert scheduled for September 4, 1941, was
rained out.
45. Juan Pablo Muñoz, “La nueva música está naciendo,” El Sol 32 (September
1925). Muñoz was later named technical director of a pro–thirteenth sound cam-
paign in Ecuador.
46. Juan Pablo Muñoz Sanz, Nacionalismo y americanismo musical (Quito: Im-
prenta del Ministerio del Gobierno, 1938), 14.
47. Enrique Terán, “La música autóctona nacional será expresión de la nacio-
nalidad,” Pentagrama (Conservatorio Nacional de Música) 1, no. 1 (1939): 14.
48. Gabriel Cevallos García, Intención y paisaje de la música nacional ecuatoriana

(Cuenca, Ecuador: Reed & Reed, [1943]), 4–5. For Cevallos García, there is little or
no distinction among the various Asiatic countries; indeed, he declares in a most
assertive manner that the “pentatonic scale of Mongolian, Chinese, Tibetan or
Kyrgyzstani origin is the same one that governs the American melody, especially
amongst the southern primitives.”
49. Moreno, La música, 12.
50. Joerg Haeberli, “Twelve Nasca Panpipes: A Study,” Ethnomusicology 23,
no. 1 (January 1979): 71.
51. Dale A. Olsen, “Music Technologies in the Pre-Columbian Andes,” in
Musical Repercussion of 1492: Encounters in Text and Performance, ed. Carol E.
Robertson, 65–88 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992),

77.
52. Segundo Luis Moreno, Música y danzas autóctonas del Ecuador (Quito:
Editorial Fray Jodoco Ricke, 1949), 7. On the previous page Moreno says that “the
musical system used by the Indians of the Sierra is the pentatonic without semi-
tones, the same as the Egyptian harps of five chords, dominating, in almost abso-
lute form, the minor modality.” In this context, his earlier reference to Asia seems
to be generic: for Moreno the route from Egypt through Asia that ancient peoples
would have had to have taken in order to arrive in the Americas can be established
by the similarity that he finds between the ancient Egyptian and indigenous mu-
sical systems.
53. Pablo Guerrero Gutiérrez, Voces en la sombra: Juan Pablo Muñoz Sanz
(Quito: Global Graphics, 2007), 73–74.
54. Francisco Alexander, “El problema de la música en el Ecuador,” Letras del
Ecuador 10, no. 100 (1954): 9.
55. E l Comercio, 1961, quoted in Enciclopedia de la música ecuatoriana, s.v.
“Salgado Torres, Luis Humberto.”
56. Pan American Union, Music Section, Composers of the Americas (Washing-
ton, DC: Organization of American States, 1979), 4:142–151.
57. In Salgado’s libretto near the end of the opera she is not violently sacri-
ficed; rather, she is discovered lying inert in a bed of beautiful tropical flowers.
58. Javier Andrade Córdova, e-mail to author, October 26, 2011.
59. Composer and pianist Claudio Aizaga (1926–2008) entered the National
Conservatory at the age of seven, but remained there as a student for only one
year. About twelve years later he reentered that institution, where he studied com-
position with Belisario Peña (1902–1959), but after only a few lessons these were
terminated because of disagreements between instructor and pupil. Although the
majority of his compositions are for orchestra and chamber ensembles, he also
composed a number of works within a more popular style. On the performance,
see “‘Cumandá’: Primera presentación de la Escuela de Ballet de la Casa de la
Cultura,” Letras del Ecuador 10, no. 101 (1955): 14.
60. “Muy aplaudido el grupo de ballet de la Casa de la Cultura en su función
de gala,” El Comercio, March 12, 1955.
61. Gerardo Alzamora V., “Síntesis histórica de la música ecuatoriana,”
Revista del Conservatorio Nacional de Música, Arte Escénico y Coreografía 1, no. 1
(July 1957): 37.
62. Tahuantinsuyo (and its variants) is the name in Quechua for the Incan
Empire.
63. In accordance with modern-day practice, when referring to this language
as it is spoken in Peru and Bolivia, I use the term Quechua; when referring to the
dialect in use in Ecuador, I use Quichua.
64. Pablo Guerrero and Ketty Wong, Corsino Durán Carrión: Un trabajador del
pentagrama (Quito: Archivo Sonoro, Sección de Investigaciones, 1994), 74.
65. Julio Ernesto Ravelo de la Fuente, Apreciación musical: Notas a los programas
de la Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional (Santo Domingo: Instituto Tecnológico de Santo
Domingo, 2000), 333.
66. Julio Tobar Donoso, “García Moreno y la instrucción pública,” Boletín de la
Academia Nacional de Historia (Quito) 7, no. 18 (July–August 1923): 98.
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———. 1928b. “La musique aborigène et populaire de l’Équateur.” In Congrès in-
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Conquista.
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C O N T R I B U T O R S ■ 133
has held positions as principal oboist of the Guadalajara

J O H N L . WA L K E R
Symphony, the United States Heritage of America Band, and the National
Symphony Orchestra of Ecuador. In addition to teaching his instrument,
Walker has taught music theory as a faculty member of the National Con-
servatory of Ecuador (1995–1999), St. Charles Community College (2003–
2011), and Virginia Tech (2011–2015). In 2013 he cofounded and since 2015
is the general manager of Cayambis Music Press, a music publishing com-
pany that specializes in Latin American chamber music. Walker, whose
dissertation is on Latin American chamber music for the oboe, was the re-
cipient of a Fulbright grant, which allowed him to spend several summers
in Ecuador researching the role of Italian immigrant musicians and their
relationship to the early history of that country’s national conservatory.
Since that time, he has presented papers at numerous international con-
ferences and has published several articles on this topic, as well as on the
larger implications of this migratory movement throughout northwestern
South America.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without
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keywords: Diego Luzuriaga, Atahualpa, Ecuador, nationalism, identity, musical migration

R E S U M E N : Desde su primera aparición hace más de cien años, se ha desarrollado el na-

palabras clave: Diego Luzuriaga, Atahualpa, Ecuador, nacionalismo, identidad, migración

In his two-act opera, Manuela y Bolívar (2006), Ecuadorean Diego

Latin American Music Review, Volume 37, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2016

revolutionary leader Simón Bolívar (1783–1830). By shifting the emphasis

Similarly, in a separate interview conductor Álvaro Manzano (1955–) es-

First, if nationalism is understood to have something to do with na-

regarding so-called “nationalism” in Latin America, which is an ex-

Unlike Turino, Aretz completely disregards the social or political context

Guatimotzín was very pleasing, as is everything that Sr. Ortega pro-

was splendid as Guatimotzín and Mr. [Luigi] Gassier made a magnifi-

Although this type of musical internationalization on Latin American soil

nationalism in that country might be better appreciated or understood, in

nally, although not writing specifically about Ecuadorean music, Andrew

i­ ncorporate indigenous elements into his compositions, while at the same

Year after year as director of the National Conservatory of Music,

Salgado believed that for Ecuadorean music to achieve universal accep-

lustrations of how he uses indigenous melodies in his compositions. For

Moreno finds that the melody is constructed of a minor pentatonic

Around this same time two composers found inspiration in Cumandá

cians were contracted as professors of the National Conservatory in Quito.

Murillo (1880–1942), who penned an article extolling the “insuperable ar-

position of Cumandá. Like Puccini, Durán frequently uses the canto

In addition, Durán makes extensive use of varying conformations of vo-

Murillo’s admiration notwithstanding, one wonders how this opera (or,

Sun), and “La tragedia de Cajamarca” (The Tragedy of Cajamarca), nar-

Although its premier performance by Quito’s municipal band under the

should not imitate the European masters, such as Wagner, Debussy,

Although Muñoz Sanz dedicated his Voces en la sombra (Voices in the

Recent research has questioned these earlier conclusions. Not only is it

Later, as part of the material provided to the editors of the Composers of

Alauze danced the role of Cumandá; the Conservatory Orchestra, un-

Undoubtedly, the work’s ambience was achieved by various factors: the

In discussing the history of Ecuadorean music, Gerardo Alzamora (1910–

(“heart of the community” in Quichua),63 the work is based on several ep-

Durán Carrión’s work was thunderously acclaimed at its premiere on

In addition to Manuela y Bolívar (discussed earlier), the only other mod-

48. ​Gabriel Cevallos García, Intención y paisaje de la música nacional ­ecuatoriana

has held positions as principal oboist of the Guadalajara

Potrebbero piacerti anche

i ncorporate indigenous elements into his compositions, while at the same

48. Gabriel Cevallos García, Intención y paisaje de la música nacional ecuatoriana