1/22/2024 0 Comments Quien es sor juana ines de la cruzIn this paper I explain the notational issues that she addressed in all her works, and place them within their historical and musical context. She composed a treatise she called El caracol, seeking to simplify the baffling notational system as it existed in her time. Lorente, Mersenne, Ronsard, Galilei, Zarlino, Cerone and Kircher each had sought to codify the system with which musical notes were represented, and Sor Juana contended with several issues relating to musical notational practice. 1695, Mexico City), lived, wrote, studied and composed during a period in which intense experimentation was underway in the practical aspects of music, concerning harmonics, notation, composition, instrumentation, as well as the burgeoning of the operatic form. ![]() Preceded by a dramatic piano introduction, the composer sets the stage for the dramatic soliloquy for two female voices to unfold.Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (d. The choice to compose a setting for two female voices serves to accentuate a tone of an intense internal debate…Sor Juana uses the pastoral poetry pseudonym of “Fillis”, as not to disclose the real identity of the lady in question. The setting includes passages of trumpet like exclamations in the higher voice with searing emotion the contralto is set in a much lower range, sounding like a private mussing, a mumbled prayer almost. The setting for two female voices creates the sensation that is familiar to me, of brain or heart speaking to itself, sometimes obsessively, questioning and in the end berating… Nevertheless, the text speaks of an intimate window for us to peak thru of Sor Juana’s experience of love, the push and pull of an emotional upheaval caused by the uncertainty of her friend’s feelings towards her. The poem that Lifchitz chose is generally acknowledged as fruit of a “romantic” friendship (perhaps not a lesbian relationship as we would understand it in modern times, scholars suggest) that Sor Juana had with a Mexican countess. I had not read Sor Juana since my days in college, and was happy to look her up again…considered one of the finest exponents of Spain’s Golden Age of literature, as well as being considered the beginning of Mexican literature, Sor Juana’s independence, intellect, her cloistered life in which she was able to arrange for her cell to become a highly sought after salon attended by the intellectual elite of what was then Viceroyalty of Spain in Mexico, makes her a towering figure of Spanish letters as well as modern women’s gender studies and model for many women writers of Latin America. I also suggested that Max compose a new piece for piano and two female voices for us to debut at this concert.Ĭeleste and I left the choice of text up to the composer, and were intrigued to find that he had chosen a poem by the Mexican nun, writer and poet Sor Juana de la Cruz (1651-1695) from what is considered her “Lesbian Love Poetry” canon, “Me acerco, y me retiro”. ![]() I had the idea of asking my colleague, contralto Celeste Mann to join me in the vocal recital in order to make the occasion more celebratory. ![]() The concert will take place on Sunday at 3 PM at the Christ and St. I was asked by the pianist and composer Max Lifchitz to participate once more in a concert dedicated to the classical composers of Mexico for the annual “Cinco de Mayo Celebration” vocal concert presented by North South Consonance.
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