Week 11: Trova Yucateca

Guty Cárdenas

 Hola a todos--here's new material for the new week--I hope you enjoy the Guty Cárdenas download--sus canciones quedan muy lindas... Be sure to download with xml as part of your library (see link below).


VS 185X S&P México: Week 9: TROVADOR / FUENTE / CENOTE

Bueno, llegó la parte final del semestre--y pasamos ahora a algo totalmente distinto. So far, many of the songs we've done have related to the central México--Chavela, José Alfredo, las ranchéras y las canciones clásicas (Manuel Ponce) y esas del Bajío (La borrachita, Adíos mi chaparrita)--along with an opening to the legend of la Llorona. Y los corridos! Now we go to a very different tradition, la canción romántica. Our first stop will be in Yucatán--la Trova Yucateca--the Toubadour songs of Yucatán. 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.)  And CONTINUE reading Batalla, México Profundo. Consider how the Trova Yucateca both reflects--and where it fails to reflect--the older traditional worlds. (This being one of the centers of the Maya.)

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). En español.   https://berkeley.box.com/s/8wyr5432n3937449lkuw

Continue with Batalla, México Profundo.

Trovador / Serenata, Yucatán, 1930s (deYMR)

DOWNLOADS:
Guty Cárdenas:   https://berkeley.box.com/s/8b2fdlbykgxg9bo52m4r

Trova Yucateca:   https://berkeley.box.com/s/98sr6pj41rwd250dapr3
The trova cd will give you wider background of the music from that period, so I include it, too. But if this number of songs proves too much, concentrate on the first download, above--Guty Cárdenas, and the songs mentioned. This second Trova Yucateca download is optional--your library.

YouTube (just two this week):

Trova Yucateca - Peregrina (un amor para la historia) Alma Reed.- Los Juglares - YouTube  (This one evokes the atmosphere of Mérida and the trova quite beautifully), although the following is my favorite recording (Los Montejo, de Mérida, 1958?):  ▶ TRIO LOS MONTEJO--Peregrina - YouTube. It was originally posted on YouTube with the following image of Mérida. Listen to the recording while looking at this image--

 

Nunca Guty Cárdenas, Letra de Ricardo López Méndez - YouTube  (a live contemporary performance by El Dueto Peninsular)

PROJECT: Let the words Trovador / Fuente / Cenote be your starting points. Trovador (troubador) whence all the medieval Provencal poetry connections. Fuente (fountain) as source, and Cenote as repository--a water-collecting pool very typical of the geography in parts of the Yucatan peninsula. As if the Spanish contribution (music and poetry) found its own very Mexican place of repose...

This is the heart of "México hispanizado." And in that, of course, represents Batalla's México imaginario. A good topic for discussion would be where the trova yucateca stands in this regard. And what of the indigineous music of Yucatan? f you pay close attention to the second download, you'll see how elements were accomodated....and how much left out. Nonetheless, Guty Cárdenas remains a beautiful and important artist. His life ended very early--pero miren cuantas canciones bellas nos dejó...!