Listening for Modern Latin America: Identity and Representation in Concert Music, 1920–1940

This dissertation proposes a variety of analytical lenses for considering concert music from Brazilian and Mexican composers during the years 1920–1940. In this period, Latin American concert music was part of a broad cultural and aesthetic project, one in which different voices vied to shape the artistic directions of the region. I discuss landmark compositions of the period from composers Carlos Chávez, Luciano Gallet, Francisco Mignone, Silvestre Revueltas, José Rolón, and Heitor Villa-Lobos, examining how these musical works conveyed multiple meanings to different audiences in national and international settings. Over the course of the four chapters of the dissertation, I address analytical questions relating to ambivalence, popular music, use of text, and non-nationalist composition, also known as música universal ("universal music"). In addition, I place these analyses in dialogue with prior studies in the field, demonstrating how these contextualized analytical approaches can provide alternative modes of understanding works that are all too often reduced to their nationalist signifiers, such as folk tunes or vernacular rhythms. Through historical contextualization and close readings of musical works, I demonstrate how these composers' musical responses to cultural shifts could be ambivalent or contradictory. In a region where cultural and political agents alike strove for international recognition in an increasingly global community, these works provide a telling lens into the stakes, limitations, and opportunities for such recognition.