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Mapping Violeta Parra’s Cultural Landscapes pp 27–41Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

What Type of Music Did Violeta Parra Make? Her Multiform, Musical, Authorship

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Abstract

This chapter analyzes the authorial dimension of Violeta Parra as a musician, from the perspective that her creative work crosses a series of aesthetic categories. While traditional music has been Parra’s most representative aesthetic, other forms intersect in her creations. This essay thus explores problematic aspects raised by the difficulty of knowing the musical and therefore the authorial limits of Parra’s music. It maintains that the dimensión autoral [authorial dimension] of Parra is multiple and can be classified in four categories: cantora, folclorista, cantautora, and compositora [singer, folk singer, songwriter, and composer]. These diverse ways of being an author, in one way or another, have challenged the Chilean musical canon.

The original version of this chapter was revised. An erratum to this chapter can be found at DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-69302-6_9.

This essay is translated from its original Spanish.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The canto a lo humano and a lo divino are based on fundamentos (pre-existing themes), from which melodies are created. According to Astorga, some fundamentos from canto a lo divino are to be found in “The Old Testament; The Creation; Adam and Eve; Cain and Abel; Noah; The Tower of Babel, … New Testament, Annunciation, Virgin Mary, St. Joseph … Themes of biblical inspiration, Saint Francis; Saint Rose … Themes of non-biblical inspiration, Genevieve of Brabant; The Wandering Jew … ”. From canto a lo humano, Astorga includes “history; social and political developments; astronomy; geography ... Some facets of the paya, canto a dos razones; canto con pie forzado; canto de contrarresto … (and the like)”. p. 59.

  2. 2.

    La lechera, a song now lost, cannot be definitively associated with Violeta Parra’s authorship. It was compiled by the artist but was never recorded. Later on, it was put into music by Gabriela Pizarro , who also recorded her own version. See http://www.cancioneros.com/nc/857/0/la-lechera-popular-chilena. Accessed May 19, 2017.

  3. 3.

    See, for example, the themes in the following songs: “Aquí se acaba esta cueca”, “Qué pena siente el alma”, and “Casamiento de negros” (1956); “Parabienes a los novios”, “El palomo”, “Dicen que ají maduro”, and “Viva Dios, Viva la Virgen” (1956); “La cueca del balance”, “Adiós que se va Segundo”, and “Dame tu pelo rubio” (1959).

  4. 4.

    Pereira Salas’s concepts of “folklore called ethno-music”, “criollo folklore”, and “popular folklore”, while trying to establish conceptual limits, are debatable. There is a substantial aesthetic difference between ethnic music and folk music; the first would align itself with primitive peoples, whereas the second would correspond more aptly to a mixture of music from different cultures, revealing features of musical syncretism. In fact, the idea of “popular folklore” is also debatable since both concepts correspond to two different kinds of music. These conceptualizations appear to be typical of a time when the phenomenon of both folklore and lo popular was being researched from a rather value-based, identitary, and scientific stance. Additionally, certain “folk” music could also be called “popular” in the sense that it becomes known through its means of dissemination, as is the case of “typical music”.

  5. 5.

    This coined concept reveals how her music borders on different limits: aesthetic, stylistic, authorial, thematic, creative, and authorial-creative.

  6. 6.

    Violeta uses this concept on two of her albums—Composiciones para guitarra (1957) and Las últimas composiciones de Violeta Parra (1966)—indistinct from the musical style that may be found on the two albums.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Santiago, Chile

    Lorena Valdebenito Carrasco

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  1. Lorena Valdebenito Carrasco
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Harlaxton College, Harlaxton, Lincolnshire, United Kingdom

    Patricia Vilches

Appendix

Appendix

Table 3.1 Classification of the type of music created by Violeta Parra
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Valdebenito Carrasco, L. (2018). What Type of Music Did Violeta Parra Make? Her Multiform, Musical, Authorship. In: Vilches, P. (eds) Mapping Violeta Parra’s Cultural Landscapes. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69302-6_3

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