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| Guty Cárdenas |
Beautiful class, you guys--have a beautiful break!
I hope you enjoy the Guty Cárdenas download over spring break--his songs quedan muy lindas...
VS 185X S&P: México: Week 8: TROVADOR / FUENTE / CENOTE
Bueno, llegó la mitád del semestre--y pasamos ahora a algo totalmente distinto. So far, most of the songs we've done have related to central México--Chavela, José Alfredo, las ranchéras y las canciones del Bajío (La borrachita, Adíos mi chaparrita). Now we go to a very different tradition, la canción romántica. Our first stop will be in Yucatan--la Trova Yucateca--the Toubadour songs of Yucatan. No surprise (the word trova)--since the medieval troubadours of southern France (Provencal) were already distinguished for their lyric poems on themes of love, a tradition they basically invented. "Courtly love," at the time--the patrons of these poems were the court nobility, with their distinct social ethos. Nevertheless, a popular dimension also emerged in the image of "el trovador y su juglar" --the troubadour and his minstrel--which remains to this day a longstanding and mysterious delight (see contemporary re-enactments on YouTube).
In México, the re-flowering of this image, quite fittingly, found a place in Yucatan. Why? In part climate, in part ethos, and also proximity to Cuba and hence to Spain (Cuban musical tradition combines both Spanish and the African sources). La Trova Yucateca's golden age centered in Mérida, and among the best known of the tovadores was Guty Cárdenas. A beautiful, engaging, and ultimately sad story- Guty Cárdenas had a tragic end at barely 26--just as the golden age of la trova yucateca itself lasted only through the 1920s. You can read about this in a chapter from Yolanda Moreno Rivas (pdf, in Spanish, attached). It's from her masterful book, La historia de la música popular mexicana.
For those whose Spanish is good, read this chapter carefully--it's a very good example of the strengths of this kind of writing at its best. (For those who don't, make do as you can with online sources in English--the tradition is worth exploring.) (By the way, the book itself is on reserve for you in the CED Library.)
Names & términos:
trova / trovador
la serenata
Ricardo Palmerín, Guty Cárdenas, Pepe Domingiuez y otros músicos en Mérida
Felipe Carrillo Puerto: "La única y más pequeña utopía en el mundo real y imaginario..." (Felipe Carrillo Puerto, gobernador de Yucatan, hasta 1924)
Alma Reed (American journalist who lived there, and who was courted by Don Felipe)
Peregrina (canción de Ricardo Palemerín), letra de un poema de Luís Rosada Vega on the theme of their romance. (see YMR)
Poetas / trovadores / y músicos juntos-- Poets and the musicians working together... lo essencial de la Trova yucateca
Ritmos: Bambuco (colombiano), Bolero (cubano), y Clave. Yolanda Morena Rivas writes clearly about all this. You can follow her guide with your own YouTube searches. See what you can find, using her book (published in 1979) as a start.
CANCIONES (las dos en el cancionario--we'll sing them!)
Ojos Tristes (Guty Cárdenas) Guty Cárdenas es un verdadero tesoro.
Nunca (Guty Cárdenas)
READING:
From Yolanda Moreno Rivas, La historia de la música popular mexicana, "La inmortal trova yucateca" (pps. 76-90) PDF attached (en español)
Take a break from Don Octavio and read this chapter.
DOWNLOADS:
Guty Cárdenas: http://rapidshare.com/files/577646504/S%26P%20Mexico%20Guty%20Cardenas.zip
Trova Yucateca: http://rapidshare.com/files/2727375039/S%26P%20Mexico%20Trova%20Yucateca.zip
The trova cd will give you wider background of the music from that period.
YouTube (just two this week):
Trova Yucateca, Peregrina - en los 60’s por el trío Los Montejo
(This one evokes the atmosphere of Mérida and the trova quite beautifully)
Nunca Guty Cárdenas, Letra de Ricardo López Méndez - YouTube (a live contemporary performance by El Dueto Peninsular)