Plesch Proceedings-libre

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Proceedings of the InternationalConference on Music Semiotics

In memory of Raymond Monelle

University of Edinburgh, 26-28 October 2012, UK

Edited by: Nearchos Panos

Vangelis Lympouridis

George Athanasopoulos

Peter Nelson


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Published by: IPMDS International Project on Music and Dance Semiotics

Alison House

12 Nicolson Square

Edinburgh, MidlothianEH8 9DF JH3

Copyright 2013

Produced and Distributed by: ECA - The University of Edinburgh and IPMDS

ISBN: 978-0-9576548-0-8


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Topic Theory and the Rhetorical Efficacy

of Musical Nationalisms: The Argentine

Case

Melanie Plesch, The University of Melbourn, AU

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes that topic theory can elucidate the construction of meaning innationalist idioms. Taking Argentine art music as a case study, I argue that topicalanalysis could be the musicological pillar in a constructivist theory of musical nationalism.Nationalist repertories, however, present a number of challenges to the topical analyst,among them important ethical dilemmas. Monelles model1(2000; 2006), situated at theintersection between musicology and cultural history, presents itself as an exemplarymethodology.Argentine musical nationalism emerged towards the end of the nineteenth century as theresult of the larger process of nation building and cultural identity construction that tookplace in the country at the time. The prevailing preoccupation with defining a nationalethos and producing symbolic representations of the nation saw Argentine composers

embarking on the construction of a distinctive musical idiom that included references tofolk songs and dances, rhythms, harmonic patterns, tonal systems, traditional musicalinstruments, and other evocations, all immersed in an otherwise European style. Thisidiom can be conceived of as a conceptual rhetorical system wherein the folk referencesconstitute a topical network. Defining this network or universe of topics requires aninitial instance of identification and description of the different topoi. However, nationalisttopoi are not innocent: each of them evokes a world of meaning which is entangled withina larger, coherent, cultural system.I argue that in order to understand the connection between musical topoi and identityconstruction it is imperative to move beyond topic labelling and investigate what sets ofvalues, beliefs and rules they endorse, and what social, racial and gender hierarchies theyhelp construe and propagate. In short, nationalist topoi call for a full cultural study.2

1

See Monelle, R. 2000. The Sense of Music: Semiotic Essays. Princeton, N.J, Princeton University Press; and2006, The Musical Topic: Hunt, Military and Pastoral. Bloomington, Indiana UniversityPress.2See Monelle, R., 2000, p. 33.


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INTRODUCTION

How do musical nationalisms work? National musics are integral to the shaping

of collective identities and the expression of sentiments of belonging, and can even be

instrumental in eliciting patriotic responses in people. Furthermore, musical nationalisms

have become an integral part of Western representations of national identities in music,irrespective of their authenticity. While the rhetorical efficacy of national idioms is

clear, we know very little about their mechanism of functioning. We do not have clear

answers to important questions such as how national meaning is conveyed musically and

why people recognise it and respond to it, nor do we know how political agendas are

realized in the actual music. Another aspect that remains problematic is the relationship

of musical nationalisms to traditional musics (folk and indigenous, real or imaginary),

especially in the case of works that do not present easily recognisable references to specific

folk songs or dances, and yet possess an unequivocal national character.

In this paper I propose that topical analysis can help answer some of these

questions. Using the Argentine example as a case study, I will outline the maincontributions that topic theory can make to the study and understanding of the rhetorical

efficacy of musical nationalisms, and present a composite theoretical framework

integrating a constructivist theory of nationalism, topical analysis and cultural history.

THE MUSICAL RHETORIC OF THE NATION

I have proposed elsewhere that musical nationalisms function as rhetorical systems

in which allusions to traditional musics constitute a topical network [1]. These topoi refer

the listener to worlds of meaning that have been historically sanctioned as representativeof the national identity and subsequently incorporated into the national consciousness

through the ideological state apparatus. I have applied topic theory to the study of what I

call the musical rhetoric of Argentineness, an idiom construed towards the end of the

19thcentury by the early generation of Argentine nationalist composers and further

expanded by subsequent generations, and whose main traits became naturalised to the

point of being accepted as the true Argentine voice [2] [3].

The word rhetoric immediately brings to mind the image of a persuasive discourse

that convinces through an artificially constructed eloquence. Indeed, Argentine musical

nationalism persuades us of its own argentinidad or Argentineness through the deliberate

use of a series of musical commonplaces or loci topici that, although immersed in anunequivocally European idiom, refer the listener to certain worlds of meaning historically

sanctioned as representative of the national identity. The idea of topoi, as we know,

proceeds from one of the five canons of classical rhetoric, the inventio. From the Latin

invenire, to find, the invention is concerned with finding the appropriate things to say, the

arguments to demonstrate ones proposition. In order to find them one searches in places,

more specifically common places, or topoi [4] [5]. A scrutiny of those topoi, therefore, can

offer an insight into the original proposition of the rhetorician. I shall return to the

broader implications of this point for the study of the musical rhetoric of the nation below.

What are the topics of Argentine nationalist music? Like those of Classical music,

they include types and styles. Dance and song types present clear expressive

associations and carry gender, racial and class connotations. Styles involve more complex


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combinations of musical systems (such as pentatonicism), instruments (guitar, North

Western flutes, drums) and textures.3It is important to keep in mind, though, that a

nationalist topos is not a literal quotation of a folk song and that it is not an isolated

occurrence: it is a recurrent idea that runs through the entire corpus, at different levels of

abstraction.4

As important as what these topics are is where they come from: they belong to themusical world of the gaucho, the legendary horseman of the Pampas who was promoted to

the role of national character towards the end of the 19thcentury. The relationship

between Argentine hegemonic culture and the gaucho is long, complex and contradictory.

Initially considered by Argentine elites as the epitome of barbarism, his music was

consistently described in derogatory terms. He was deemed racially inferior, the product of

centuries of miscegenation, and his semi-nomadic way of life was seen as an obstacle to

progress. This attitude was dramatically reversed around the 1880s when, as a reaction

against the mass immigration that took place in the country at the time, he was

pronounced the quintessence of all things Argentinean and his cultural universe was used

as a source for the construction of a distinctive Argentine high culture including thevisual arts, literature, and music. Thus, urban composers, usually belonging to the upper

(or at least the middle) classes, incorporated isolated elementsour topoi---from the

musical world of the gaucho (a world that was not their own and of which they had but

superficial knowledge) into the fabric of their works, which are otherwise in a clear

European idiom.

As we can see, issues of class, race and xenophobia are at the heart of the genesis of

our topical universe. Nationalist topoi are entangled in dense webs of signification; their

expressive connotations articulate musically a series of ideas about Argentineness

pervasive in Argentine culture towards the end of the 19thand the beginning of the 20th

centuries.5

Unveiling the meaning of these topoi requires connecting them effectively toother areas of the national imagination such as historical documents, parliamentary

debates, the visual arts and literature; topical identification cannot be our ultimate goal.6

This is why, in this theoretical model, we need cultural history; in this regard, Monelles

interdisciplinary methodology, as presented in The sense of music[10] and developed in

The musical topic [11]appears as an exemplary research program.7

TOPIC THEORY MEETS POLITICS

The study of musical nationalisms, particularlybut not exclusivelyin the LatinAmerican cases, presents the scholar with a number of challenges. They are summarised

below, together with an outline of topic theorys three main contributions towards

surmounting them.

The Romantic view of musical nationalisms proposed the existence of the spirit

of a people, an essence that would permeate all its cultural manifestations and, of course,

3Some notable examples are huella, malambo, vidalita and triste/estilo. See [6].4It is also worth mentioning that not all folk dances and songs became topicalised. Topical analysts need to be

careful to differentiate between a one-off reference and a real topic [7].5For an overview, see [8].6

I first attempted such a study in [9], but it was not until the publication of Monelles The musical topicthat Isaw the possibilities of a combined methodology intersecting topic theory and cultural history.7An instance of my application of his methodology to Argentine musical nationalism can be found in [12].


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be embodied in its music. This Herderian view has had an enduring presence in the

treatment of musical nationalisms, Latin American as well as European. For instance, in

the current entry nationalism in the Oxford Dictionary of Music we read that Liszt

expressed the Hungarian spirit in his works, and this spirit was later intensified by Bartk

and Kodly, (my emphasis) [13].

Aligned with this view, traditional research in the area of Argentine musicalnationalism has tended to be essentialist, either focusing on the relative success of

composers in portraying the national spirit or limiting itself to identifying folk

elements that may be superficially evident in the music. These discussions have also

displayed an inclination to fixate on the alleged authenticity of these folk elements.8

Overcoming essentialism, therefore, is one of the main challenges for a critical

approach to Latin American musical nationalisms. Recent developments in the field of

political science provide an invaluable aid in this regard. Indeed, the Herderian view has

been challenged in the past three decades, particularly by authors such as Ernest Gellner,

Benedict Anderson and Eric Hobsbawm, whose work constitutes a constructivist view of

nationalisms [18] [19] [20]. This perspective proposesas is knownthat a nation is not aprimordial essence but an invention or a construct, or even, to use Homi Bhabhas

memorable term, a narration, [21]. The idea of the nation-state is considered to be

historically specific and closely related to the transition to industrial society and the

emergence of modern territorial divisions. In fact, nations themselves are regarded as one

of the outstanding discursive formations of Modernity and historians agree on their

fictional, imaginary, and discursive nature. The implications of this theory for musicology

are significant. If nations, nationalities and nationalisms are constructs, this means that its

meaning has to be constituted through discourse, or, in Andersons terms, it has to be

imagined.

A constructivist view

From a constructivist point of view, nationalist idioms in music are not natural

but cultural constructions, historically and socially determined. A number of scholars have

acknowledged this view in recent years, exploring the connection between nation-

building efforts and the emergence of musical nationalisms.9Little attention has been

paid, however, to the musical aspect of these political operations. If we accept the

constructivist view of nationalisms, finding the spirit of the people in the music is no

longer a valid pursuit. This should not prevent us, however, from investigating how and by

what means this particular variety of musical meaning has been constructed, or fromattempting to explain the dynamics of its communicative efficacy. This is the first

contribution that topic theory offers to the study of musical nationalisms: a more objective

connection between music and the production of meaning, and a non-essentialist view

that allows us to incorporate the constructedness of nationalist idioms. In this sense, it

appears as the ideal musicological counterpart to a constructivist theory of nationalism.

8See, for example [14] [15] [16] [17].9See, for instance, [22] and the individual collaborations in [23].


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Beyond folk labelling

Musical nationalisms are notably characterised by the presence of elements from

folk and indigenous songs, dances, instruments and rhythms. This association between

traditional musics and art music has been at the centre of the musicological treatment of

Latin American nationalisms and is responsible for a methodological eccentricity whichcould be described as the folk rhythm spotting syndrome. Indeed, discussions of

Argentine nationalist works, especially those produced by non-Argentine scholars, have

tended to focus on discovering (sometimes incorrectly) which folk songs and dances are

present in a particular piece of music.10While an awareness of the folk idiom alluded to by

the composer might help performers produce a more convincing rendition of these works,

the explanatory power of this type of analysis is limited. Topic theory, by incorporating

the identification of elements from traditional musics into a more solid and objective

conceptual framework, allows us to go beyond spotting.

Conceptualising the communicative efficacy

Spotting is a relatively simple exercise with works in which the folk element is

used as thematic material clearly presented at the beginning of the composition and even

alluded to in the title, as in Julin Aguirres Hueyaop. 49, Alberto Ginasteras Malambo,

and Carlos Guastavinos Bailecito. It becomes progressively more problematic when

references are fragmentary, less literal, occur simultaneously, or are generally more

abstract, i.e. when they behave like topoi. A large proportion of the output of Argentine

nationalist composers operates within this framework.

Listeners encultured in Argentine music find that this repertoire has a strong

evocative power. Works like Carlos LpezBuchardos Camperaand GuastavinosJeromitaLinares, for instance, are said to possess a clearly recognisable yet indefinable national

atmosphere that appeals to some elusive yet accepted notions about the expression of

argentinidador Argentineness in music. Conservative historiography has interpreted this

phenomenon as the ultimate triumph of the nationalist project: our composers at last distil

the national spirit without referring explicitly to any folk dance or song [26].

Topical analysis allows us to objectivise this otherwise elusive spirit. Careful

inspection of the repertoire from a topical point of view reveals a plethora of musical

figures at different levels of abstraction whose meaningful and expressive associations

competent listeners are able to recognise. Thus, topic theory offers a solid methodological

ground on which to conceptualise the communicative efficacy of nationalist works.

UNVEILING THE ELUSIVE SPIRIT

Carlos Lpez Buchardos Campera (1919) is often described as having captured

the essence of Argentineness without making use of any specific folk dance or song.

Topical scrutiny, however, reveals that two Argentine topoi are subtly embedded in the

pieces post-romantic idiom: milonga and triste.

Originally part of a suite titled Escenas argentinasfor orchestra, Campera soon

became an independent piece due to its popularity. The title could be loosely translated as

10See, for instance, [24] [25].


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From the countryside [27], immediately referring the listener to the rural landscape,

where Argentine Romantic nationalists located the essence of the national spirit. The

main melody, played alternately by the violin and the oboe, gives rise to a number of

semantic associations with the pastoral world, and undoubtedly participates in this well-

known Western topic. The first mark of Argentineness is the hint of a habanera rhythm in

the accompaniment: a subtle appearance of the toposof the milonga that tells us that this isno ordinary rural world, but that of the Pampas. We need to wait until the melodys

closing cadence, however, for the deciding moment: a stepwise descent with double

auxiliary note over a sustained dominant chord that eventually resolves to the tonic,

which clearly alludes to the toposof the triste.(Example 1)11

Example 1. Carlos Lpez Buchardo, Campera(piano reduction) bars 1-12.

This decentering of the topos,is a typical strategy used by Argentine nationalist

composers since Alberto Williamss foundational Elrancho abandonado. Sometimes topoi

are presented either at the end of a phrase or at the end of the piece, thus bestowing the

national meaning retrospectively. The rhetorical effect of this strategy is significant, as

works that might evolve in an otherwise unmarked European idiom suddenly acquire new

meaning. Indeed, in Campera, the appearance of the topos of the tristeis the pieces coup de

grce: this is the touch that, if you are Argentinean, brings tears to your eyes.In order to understand the meaning of this reference we would need to examine

the history of this topic and ask what element of the external world it represents, what

that element means within the culture, why it has been chosen to represent the nation,

and explore if it can be related to other elements within the culture. A full discussion of

the triste toposis beyond the scope of this paper; I shall outline its main issues here.

This particular turn of phrase is pervasive in Argentine nationalist music, its

history as a topos going back to Julin AguirresAires Nacionales Argentinos,subtitled

Cinco tristes (1898), regarded as one of the cornerstones of Argentine musical

11I would like to thank Hernn D. Ramallo for the typesetting of the musical examples and the creative

solution found for the formatting of example 1; all musical examples are my own transcriptions.


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nationalism.12Its characteristic desinence was soon adopted by other composers and

became a signifier for Pampean melody; as such it appears in countless works [28].

The tristeis a folk song dating back to colonial times. Of grave mood and

improvisatory character, it is usually sung in a rhapsodic manner, with guitar chords

punctuating the phrase endings in an almost recitative style [29].The melodies feature a

mostly descending profile with weak ending, often at a distance of a major second. 13Theword triste means sad in Spanish and indeed melancholy is pervasive in the lyrics of this

song, which usually deal with loneliness and the sorrows of unrequited love.

The topos clearly points to the melancholy pathos associated with the inhabitants

of the Pampean region but is also related to a larger dysphoric trope in Argentine culture.

Sadness pervades the nationalist movement and is embodied in representations of the

gaucho in literature and the visual arts. The gaucho is afflicted by una pena estrordinaria,

an extraordinary sorrow, as stated in the memorable initial lines of Jos Hernndezs

Martn Fierro, one of the foundational texts of Argentinegauchesca literature.

5

Aqu me pongo a cantar

al comps de la vihuela,

que el hombre que lo

desvela

una pena estrordinaria,

como la ave solitaria

con el cantar se consuela

[30].

Here I come to sing

to the beat of my guitar:

because the man who is kept

from sleep

by an uncommon sorrow

comforts himself with singing

like a solitary bird.

Nationalist paintings also display an unequivocal melancholy. Art historian DianaWechsler describes them as set in a homogeneous and empty time, where nostalgia

appears to be the only common trait, a perverse nostalgia of a past rendered mythical and

a present that is no longer [31]. This nostalgia articulates in the aesthetic sphere the

modernist nostalgia triggered in Argentina by the unforeseen effects of mass immigration

and the rapid modernisation that took place in the country towards the end of the 19th

century. In the cultural production of the period there is a clear longing for a vanished

past, an old order (associated with the image of the gaucho and the rural world) in which

the lower classes knew their place and did not question their betters, and where ideals and

spiritual achievements were more important than material gain. While this is sometimes

expressed explicitly, it is mostly (and perhaps more successfully) articulated at an abstractlevel, through representations of landscape, situations, characters and emotions that

convey an intense melancholic pathos. It is in this context that the topos of the triste

makes full sense.

CONCLUSION

While topic theory has much to contribute to the study of musical nationalism, the

repertoire posits a number of ethical challenges. I contend that these challenges can only

12See Appendix image No. 1.13See Appendix image No. 2.


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be overcome by an interdisciplinary methodology combining topical analysis with an in-

depth historical exegesis.

Accepting the constructedness of national idioms forces us to contend with the

connection between poetics and politics. If nations are narrations, traditions are invented

and communities are imagined, it is important to investigate who is doing the story-

telling, the inventing, and the imagining. While topic theory allows us to successfullyconnect musicology with a constructivist theory of nationalism, our work cannot be

exhausted by topical labelling. We need to ask what sort of story is being told and what

type of us is being imagined through these topoi. Returning to the issue of the inventionmentioned above, it is important to keep in mind that, within the world of rhetoric, topoi

are more than just commonplaces: as collections of possible themes, they effectively

establish the boundaries of what can be said about something. In this regard it is crucial to

take into account that musical rhetorics of nationalisms are not inclusive systems but

selective ones and that they exclude more than they include. When analysing nationalist

musical topoi it is revealing to observe whose voices were incorporated into the fabric of

the music of the nation and whose were excluded.The provenance of the topoi marks the main difference between the original

incarnation of topic theory and its application to nationalist repertoires. While most of

the topoi of Classical music (with perhaps the exception of the Turkish topos) proceed

from the same culture that forged them, the topoi of Argentine musical nationalism were

taken, as we saw, from the musical world of the gaucho. 14They are, therefore, acts of

cultural appropriation. The fact that power imbalance is at the heart of the construction of

this topical universe needs to be constantly borne in mind. 15Nationalist topoi, therefore,

are not innocent: we need to examine what set of values, beliefs and rules of conduct they

support and what social, racial and gender hierarchies they help construct. In this regard,

topoiare enmeshed in larger worlds of meaning that can be detected in other areas of thecultural imagination, such as literature and the visual arts, and it is in this context that

their deepest signification within the culture is made evident. Nationalist topoirequire, in

Monelles words, a full cultural study, [32].

REFERENCES

[1] Plesch, M., 1996. La msica en la construccin de la identidad cultural argentina: el

toposde la guitarra en la produccin del primer nacionalismo. Revista Argentina de

Musicologa, 1(1), pp. 5768.[2] Plesch, M. 2008. La lgica sonora de la generacin del 80: Una aproximacin a la

retrica del nacionalismo musical argentino. In Los caminos de la msica (Europa-Argentina).

Jujuy, Editorial de la Universidad Nacional de Jujuy, pp. 55111.

[3] Plesch, M. 2009. The Topos of the Guitar in Late Nineteenth-and Early Twentieth-

Century Argentina. The Musical Quarterly, 92(3-4), pp. 242278.

[4] Lausberg, H. 1975. Elementos de retrica literaria. Madrid, Gredos, p. 32 ff.

[5] Barthes, R. 1974. La antigua retrica. Buenos Aires, Tiempo Contemporneo.

[6] See Plesch, M., 2008, p. 82 ff.

14

And, to a lesser extent, from some of the indigenous cultures from the Andean region.15While it could be argued that there is no ethnic difference between gauchos and urban dwellers, there is a

significant class distinction between the intelligentsia and the peasant population.


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[7] Ibid, p. 102.

[8] Ibid, p. 82 ff.

[9] Plesch, M. 1998. The Guitar in Nineteenth-Century Buenos Aires: Towards a Cultural

History of an Argentine Musical Emblem. PhD diss. Melbourne, The University of Melbourne,

chapter 5.

[10] Monelle, R. 2000. The Sense of Music: Semiotic Essays. Princeton, N.J, PrincetonUniversity Press.

[11] Monelle, R. 2006. The Musical Topic: Hunt, Military and Pastoral. Bloomington, Indiana

UniversityPress.

[12] Plesch, M. 2009.

[13] Kennedy, M., Nationalism in Music. The Oxford Dictionary of Music.2nd ed. rev.,

edited by Michael Kennedy. Oxford Music Online.

[14] Garca Morillo, R. 1984. Estudios sobre msica argentina. Buenos Aires, Ediciones

Culturales Argentinas.

[15] Arizaga, R. and Camps, P., 1990. Historia de la msica argentina. Buenos Aires, Ricordi

Americana.[16] Veniard, J. M., 1986. La msica nacional argentina. Buenos Aires, Instituto Nacional de

Musicologa Carlos Vega.

[17] Veniard, J. M., 2000.Aproximacin a la msica acadmica argentina. Buenos Aires,

Ediciones de la Universidad Catlica Argentina.

[18] Gellner, E. 1983.Nations and Nationalism. London, Basil Blackwell.

[19] Anderson, B. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of

Nationalism. London, Verso.

[20] Hobsbawm, E. J., and T. O. Ranger. 1983. The Invention of Tradition. New York,

Cambridge University Press.

[21] Bhabha, H. K. 1990.Nation and Narration. London and New York, Routledge.[22] Bohlman, P. 2004. The Music of European Nationalism: Cultural Identity and Modern

History. Santa Barbara, CA, ABC-CLIO.

[23] White, H. and Michael M., eds. 2001. Musical Constructions of Nationalism: Essays on

the History and Ideology of European Musical Culture 1800-1945. Cork, Cork University Press.

[24] Wylie, R. 1986.Argentine Folk Elements in the Solo Piano Works of Alberto Ginastera.

DMA thesis, University of Texas at Austin.

[25] Hammond, S. 2007.An Analysis of Carlos Guastavinos Tres Sonatinas Para Piano and the

Influence of Argentine Dances Bailecito, Zamba, and Chacarera. Master thesis, The University

of Texas at El Paso, 2007.

[26] Veniard, J. M. 2000, p. 295-296.[27] Real Academia Espanola, 2001. Diccionario de la lengua espanola. Madrid, Espasa, s.v.

campero, ra: Meaning 1. belonging to or relative to the countryside.

[28] Plesch, M. 2008, p. 97 ff.

[29] Vega, C., 1964. Las canciones folklricas argentinas. In Gran manual de folklore.

Buenos Aires, Honegger, pp. 193320.

[30] Hernndez, J. Martn Fierro. 1967 (1872). Bilingual edition.English version by C. E.

Ward, New York, State University of New York Press, p. 2.

[31] Wechsler, D., 1990. Saln Nacional de Bellas Artes, promotor de vocaciones

nacionalistas, InArticulacin del discurso escrito con la produccin artstica en Argentina y

Latinoamrica, siglos XIX-XX. Buenos Aires, CAIA-Contrapunto, p. 96.[32] Monelle, R. 2000, p. 33.


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APPENDIX

Image No. 1. Julin Aguirre, Triste No. 3, bars 1-2

Image No. 2: Characteristic cadential figure of the folk triste

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