Julian Carrillo

Julián Carrillo (January 28, 1875 – September 9, 1965) was a Mexican composer, conductor, violinist and scientist within the international avant-garde movement, considered by various specialists as one of the one of the most important composers in the country and an important pioneer of microtonalism.

He conducted research on microtonalism from the late 19th century and developed the theory of Sound 13, the first attempt to formalize microtonalism. systematic study of microtonalism. He was director of the National Conservatory of Music and the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico and founded the Beethoven Symphony Orchestra and the New York-based Orquesta del Sonido 13. He designed and built pianos and microtonal harps to perform his compositions, in an effort that brought together knowledge of acoustics, strength of materials, and music theory.

Biography

From his childhood to the discovery of Sound 13

Julián Carrillo was born in the town of Ahualulco, belonging to the Mexican state of San Luis Potosí, the last of the 19 children of Nabor Carrillo and Antonia Trujillo, a couple of indigenous descent.

He belonged to the choir of the local temple whose director encouraged him to move to the city of San Luis Potosí, capital of the state, to study music with Flavio F. Carlos, who was his teacher from 1885 to 1895. There, the difficulties economic forces forced him to abandon his primary studies (not musicals). He started out as a timpanist in his teacher's orchestra, later becoming a violinist. During that time, in the mornings he executed funeral responses and at night he played at private parties.

At this early age he made his first compositions, including a mass. In the year 1895 he went to study in Mexico City, entering the National Conservatory of Music thanks to a letter of recommendation from the state government. Among his teachers were Pedro Manzano (violin), Melesio Morales (composition) and Francisco Ortega y Fonseca (physics, acoustics and mathematics). He also formed a small orchestra with other students from the conservatory.

On July 13, 1895, he began his work on microtonal music. While in his acoustics class with Maestro Ortega, Carrillo was shown the supposed "Ley de División de Cuerdas" which maintains that if a chord is divided into two segments, each one will sound like the eighth; if in three, each one will be the fifth, etc. He was very surprised to study the production laws of the fundamental intervals. All this led him to experiment on his own account. That same day, Carrillo carried out an experiment in his small apartment: using the edge of a razor to press the string at the exact point between the notes sol and la of its string. violin, he obtained sixteen distinctly different tones. In all of his subsequent work he followed this same line, studying more and more deeply the physical and mathematical bases of music. He initially called Sound 13 the interval of a sixteenth of a tone, whose mathematical value is 1.0072. He later used the term to refer to his entire microtonal system. He achieved 4640 different sounds in the octave. He opted for 16ths of a tone increasing to 96 sounds per octave.

Study Abroad

During a presentation he gave as a soloist at a high-level awards ceremony in 1899, the President of the Republic, General Porfirio Díaz, listened to him and decided to grant him a scholarship to study at the Leipzig Royal Conservatory. There his main teachers were Hans Becker (violin), in turn a disciple of Joachim Nikolas Eggert; Johan Merkel (piano) and Salomon Jadassohn (composition, harmony and counterpoint).

At that time he composed his First Symphony, which was premiered by the Royal Orchestra of the Leipzig Conservatory in 1901, under the direction of Carrillo himself. He was also, by competition, first violin in the Leipzig Conservatory Orchestra and in the Gewandhaus Orchestra. At the 1900 International Music Congress, held in Paris, he proposed naming all new notes with monosyllables to facilitate music theory. The proposal was accepted and published. After finishing his studies in Leipzig he moved to Belgium and entered the Royal Conservatory of Ghent, where he won first place in the 1904 International Violin Competition.

He returns to Mexico after his studies

That year he returned to Mexico where President Díaz recognized his good performance in Europe by giving him an Amati violin on behalf of the nation. He is appointed professor of composition, counterpoint, fugue and instrumentation at the National Conservatory and promoted to director in 1913, the year in which he is admitted as a member of the Society of Geography and Statistics of Mexico. He organized the Beethoven Symphony Orchestra and the Beethoven String Quartet. As director of the Conservatory, he reformed the study programs, emphasizing not only rigorous technical preparation, but also subjects such as literature or Spanish.

The Theory of Sound 13 is Born

Representation of the tones in an octave and their equivalence in the system known as Son 13.

In 1914, when the government of Victoriano Huerta fell, Carrillo moved to the United States and went into exile in New York City, where he organized and directed the America Symphony Orchestra. The debut of this orchestra is made with the presentation of his First Symphony, having such success that the press names it & # 34; The herald of a musical Monroe Doctrine & # 34; (Herald of the musical Monroe Doctrine). It is in New York where he edits the second volume of Platicas Musicales, published in Mexico in 1922 and where the first public reference to the Theory of Sound appears 13. He also wrote Pre-Sound 13: Basic rectification of the classical-romantic musical system.

On February 15, 1925, a function was presented with all the microtonal works in quarters, eighths and sixteenths of a tone. This would be the beginning of the dissemination of Sound 13 throughout the republic on a tour that would take him to Cuba and New York, where he met Leopold Stokowski, who would become a great friend and support in his career.

Homecoming

Back in Mexico, in 1918, he was appointed director of the National Symphony Orchestra (1918-1924) and the National Conservatory (1920-1921). Under his baton, the Symphony Orchestra reaches a level of excellence, to the point of being considered better than the New York Philharmonic Orchestra by pianist Leopold Godowsky. This success allows the orchestra to be able to sustain itself with its own resources. His repertoire included compositions from all musical eras, from the Baroque to atonalism and serialism. Carrillo gave importance to the promotion of music by Mexican composers such as Manuel M. Ponce, Antonio Gomezanda and Juan León Mariscal.

Among her composition students, Julia Alonso, Sofía Cancino de Cuevas, and José F. Vásquez stand out, dedicated to tonal music in the classical and romantic tradition. He also influenced other Mexican composers such as Arnulfo Miramontes, Rafael J. Tello, Francisco Camacho Vega and Efraín Pérez Cámara. During the second half of the XX century, all of them were relegated by official musical historiography, which only recognized the work of the nationalist composers.

Pianos and metamorphosis

During that tour, he wrote the Laws of Musical Metamorphoses, a guide to transform any work into any fraction of a tone. In 1928, the San Luis Potosí State Congress declared July 13 as a state holiday, in memory of the 1895 experiment (coinciding with its anniversary). The town of Ahualulco officially changed its name to Ahualulco del Sonido 13 in 1933. Carrillo organized the Symphony of Sound 13, an ensemble in which all the instruments were tuned microtonally. It is then that he understands the need to build special instruments to interpret his compositions. In 1934, he published the Musical Revolution of Sound 13 . He had no government support to carry out his revolution, in fact, all of his research and dissemination was self-funded.

Applying his knowledge of physics and mathematics, in 1940 he patented 15 metamorphosed pianos for each pitch interval, from whole tones to sixteenths; but it will not be until 1949 that the first piano of thirds of tone is built with the Sauter House of Germany. By 1958 he already had 15 pianos and presented them at the World's Fair in Brussels, where he was awarded the gold medal. He built 16 pianos, harps, flutes, guitars, and cellos capable of generating quarters, eighths, and even sixteenths of a tone. Julián Carrillo presented a thesis in 1947 about the difference between dividing a rope by means of a cut or making a node. In the latter case, the resulting segment is not the exact microtone obtained by cutting the string, since the node decreases the length of the string. Julián Carrillo's music was disseminated in Europe by Jean-Étienne Marie and in the United States by Leopold Stokowsky, both admirers of Carrillo and his theory. He was decorated in France in 1956 as a Knight of the Legion of Honor and in Germany with the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit.

Last years

Between 1960 and 1965 he recorded for Philips in Paris about thirty of his compositions (works that represent the three different facets of his musical writing: tonal, atonal and microtonal). Jean-Etienne Marie is the sound engineer for these recordings. In 1960 he composed Atonal Canon for 64 voices, Mass of the Restoration for male voices a cappella in quarter tones and, commissioned by Stokowski, Babbles for piano in sixteenth tones, the latter of which premiered in Huston.

In 1963, Carrillo received the Latin American Music Grand Prix in Paris. He gives a series of lectures at the Mexican embassy in London and is interviewed for the BBC. The Times wrote: & # 34; Julián Carrillo, the venerable of Mexican music, has dedicated his life to scrutinize an unsuspected microtonal world. He has taken apart and rebuilt our chromatic scale, so much so that we are tempted to call him the musical atom buster, only that name alone is not enough to convey the wonderful emotional world he has discovered. This is the greatest and most amazing musical revolution since Terpander twenty-six centuries ago added two notes to the Chinese pentaphonic scale in Greece."

In 1964, Robert Gendre premiered his Concerto for violin and orchestra in quarter tones in Luxembourg. That year he composed several works, including three quarter-tone viola sonatas, a quarter-tone violin sonata, a second violin concerto, and several atonal canons. The Mexican government awarded him the Medal of Civic Merit for the anniversary of his Canto a la Bandera. In 1965 the government of the USSR invited him to carry out a concert tour of Sound 13 in that country, a project that could no longer be carried out. He also won Finland's Sibelius Prize, supported by the leading musical institutes of France, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, but died before receiving it. Julián Carrillo died in Mexico City on September 9, 1965. His remains are deposited in the Rotunda of Illustrious Persons in the Dolores Civil Pantheon.

Timeline of Julián Carrillo (1875-1965)

1875 Born in Ahualulco. San Luis Potosi on January 28.

1885 He was taken to his state capital to study music.

1895 He entered the National Conservatory of Mexico City as a student of composition (Melesio Morales), violin (Pedro Manzano) and acoustics (Francisco Ortega y Fonseca) classes. On July 13, while experimenting on his violin with the division of the 4th string into multiple parts, he made a discovery that would come to represent his entry into the microtonal universe: I hear between G and A “a strange sound”, a sound whose mathematical ratio is 2 (1.007246412), that is: I hear 1/16 of a tone. This 16th tone (which would be the first to break the tonal cycle of the 12 chromatic sounds), would symbolically represent for him "the 13th sound": the symbolization of the discovery of microintervals and their use and development in his music.

1899 He appeared as a soloist, accompanied by the symphony orchestra of the Conservatory, and in the solemn distribution of awards made by the President of the Republic, General Porfirio Díaz in the Chamber of Deputies, who, admired for the talent of Julián Carrillo, he gave him a special prize to go to Europe to continue his studies. In that same year, already in Germany, he entered the Royal Leipzig Conservatory, where he studied composition with Salomon Jadassohn, violin with Hans Becker, theory with Karl Reinecke and became a violinist in the Gewandhaus Orchestra, directed by Arthur Nikisch..

1900 He attended, without official representation, the International Music Congress of the City of Paris. Carrillo presented a paper proposing new names for musical notes, a thesis that was approved and published by Congress itself.

1901 He wrote his Sextet for bowed instruments, within the classical molds.

1902 He premiered his First Symphony in D major.

1903 He wrote his Quartet in E Flat in Brussels, Belgium, in which he expressed his thesis on “Ideological Unity and Tonal Variety”.

1905 He returned to Mexico, and at his presentation concert he received from President Porfirio Díaz an Amati violin with a prize from the Mexican Nation.

1906 He was appointed professor of composition at the National Conservatory.

1908 He was General Inspector of Music in Mexico City.

1909 He organized and conducted the “Beethoven” Symphony Orchestra and the quartet of the same name.

1911 He was a delegate of Mexico to the International Music Congress in Rome, Italy, which was organized by Debussy, R. Strauss, Puccini and Paderewski, and of which Carrillo was president. He presented a paper calling for a reform and structural reorganization of the classical forms of composition: the sonata, the symphony, the concerto, and the quartet, based on his thesis on "Ideological unity and tonal variety."

1913 He was appointed director of the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico City.

1914 He went to New York, where he founded and conducted the “America” Symphony Orchestra.

1918 On the recommendation of the Carranza government, Carrillo returns to Mexico where he was appointed director of the National Symphony Orchestra.

1919 He was appointed director of the National Conservatory for the second time and professor of composition classes.

1924 When an article in Le Menestral of the city of Paris said that new sounds were already necessary for the “progress” of music, Carrillo publicly announced his achievements since 1895, saying that he had in his power all the sounds Europe could need.

1925 Carrillo invented a musical script based on numbers for his new sounds; he built the necessary instruments to produce them and formed a choir to sing them, and with these elements, he presented on February 15, at the Teatro Principal in Mexico City, "the first concert in the world with compositions based on sixteenths of a tone." and its compounds.

1926 He went to New York and the League of Composers (integrated among others by Bartok, Bax, Bliss, Casella, de Falla, Hindemith, Honegger, Milhaud, Respighi, Roussel, Szymanowski, etc.), asked Carrillo for a special composition for his Música Nueva concert series: Carrillo wrote his almost-fantasy Sonata, whose debut was on March 13 at Town Hall in N.Y. This concert marked the beginning of a long friendship and fruitful artistic collaboration with Leopold Stokowski, who upon hearing the success of the almost-fantasy Sonata, and knowing the bases of Carrillo's musical revolution, asked him to write a composition for the Philadelphia Orchestra., and expresses: "With the sixteenths of a tone, you begin a new musical era and I want to be at the service of this cause."

1927 On March 8 at Carnegie Hall in New York, the commissioned work: Concertino (for microtonal group and orchestra) was premiered by the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Stokowski himself.

Wrote the book Laws of musical metamorphosis.

1928 The San Luis Potosí State Congress declared July 13 a civic holiday, in honor of Julián Carrillo.

1930 Carrillo accomplished the prodigy of forming and presenting a Symphony Orchestra in which all the instruments were outside the system of twelve sounds and was capable of playing exclusively in micro tones.

He edits his book Pre-Sound 13: Basic Rectification of the Classical Musical System, physical-musical analysis.

1931 The Congress of the Union granted Julián Carrillo “The Grand Prize of the Mexican Nation” for his sound revolution 13.

1938 He publishes in Mexico City his book Logical Theory of Music.

1940 He patented his fifteen metamorphosing pianos, each one producing different microtonal intervals (from 16ths of a tone to whole tones: 1/16,1/15,1/14,1/13, 1/12,1/11,1/10,1/9 … 1/1). These were eventually built by the Carl Sauter firm in Spaichingen Wurt, Germany.

1943 The Consultative Council of Mexico City awarded him the “Medalla al Mérito Cívico”.

1947 He carried out an experiment at New York University, in which he rectified the classical theory of the “node”, a phenomenon that had been considered infallible since Pythagoras.

1948 He publishes his book Sound 13: scientific and historical foundation.

1949 Built an experimental third-tone piano, the world's first.

Publishes his book Laws of musical metamorphosis.

1950 The dean of physical sciences M. Jean Cabannes said “there was hope that the studies carried out by Carrillo in musical acoustics would remedy the 'chaos' that had been caused in this matter the most eminent physicists and musicians”.

1951 At Stokowski's request, Carrillo wrote his Horizontes Symphonic Poem in fourth, eighth and 16th tones, for microtonal ensemble with orchestra accompaniment.

1954 The President of France, M. Rene Coty, honored Carrillo, naming him a Knight of the Legion of Honor.

In turn, the President of Germany, Herr Teodor Heus, honored Carrillo with the Collar of the Grand Cross of Merit.

1956 He published his book Two laws of musical physics in Mexico City

1957 He publishes his books General system of musical writing and The infinite in scales and chords in Mexico City.

1958 By agreement of the Belgian Government, Carrillo's fifteen metamorphosing pianos were exhibited at the Royal Palace no. 3 within the Universal Exhibition in Brussels, where they were awarded a great gold medal, “because of the high cultural value that they represented for Humanity”.

In the same year, Carrillo's fifteen pianos were exhibited at the Gaveau Hall in Paris, which coincided with the International Music Congress, sponsored by UNESCO, where eminent musicians from all over Europe (including the illustrious composers Haba and Vyshnegradski) were amazed at their immense musical possibilities.

1960 Carrillo wrote, at the request of Stokowski, the Concertmaster for piano in 3rd tone and orchestra.

1961 The feat of recording 21 of his compositions is accomplished in Europe with the Philips Company, the Lamoureux Orchestra and distinguished French soloists. These works contained in a deluxe album present three periods of Carrillo's artistic life: his youth, works written within the classical guidelines of the severe German technique, although already applying the principles of his revolutionary character; then comes the period of transition in which he writes atonal music although without any relation to Schönberg's system; and finally his new music, never heard before, with new intervals such as thirds of a tone, fourths, eighths and sixteenths, works that mark a new musical era as Stokowski said, who in his enthusiasm and admiration for the work of Carrillo told the public at Carnegie Hall these words: "Fortunately for America, we European musicians have nothing to claim in this revolution, since everything is due to an Indian who descends from the owners of the continent."

1965 Julián Carrillo dies on September 9 at his home in San Ángel.

Main musical works

• Sexteto in the Big Sun for two violins, two violas and two cellos
• First Symphony in Re mayor for great orchestra
• Canto a la Bandera (letra of the poet Rafael López)
• Score for the film Intolerance of David Griffith
• Sonata almost fantasy, in quarters, eighth and sixteenth tone
• Concertino, in quarters, eighth and sixteenth tone (at the request of Leopold Stokowski
• Rational method of solf (base the exercises in the Mexican National Anthem)
• Horizons, symphonic poem for violin, cello and harp in rooms, eighth and sixteenth tone.
• Canon atonal 64 voices* Restoration Mass for male voices to capella in tone rooms
• Balbuceos, for piano in sixteen tone (by order of Leopold Stokowski)
• Two concerts for violin and orchestra in tone rooms
• Three sonatas for rape in tone rooms* Sonata for violin in tone rooms

Operas

• Ossian , opera in an act.
• Matilde or Mexico in 1810Opera in four acts.
• Xulitlopera.

Important books and writings

• Carrillo, J. (1914). Musical dishes I. Mexico: Wagner and Leven.
• Carrillo, J. (1914. /2a ed.1925). Counterpoint Synthetic Treaty. Mexico, Aztlán Editores.
• Carrillo, J. (1915). Synthetic Treaty of Harmony. New York: G. Schirmer.
• Carrillo, J. (1916. /2a ed. 1948). Synthetic instrumentation treaty for orchestra and military band. Mexico, Mexico: Julián Carrillo-Talleres Gráficos de la Nación.
• Carrillo, J. (1919). Synthetic canon and escape treaty. Mexico: Julián Carrillo.
• Carrillo, J. (1923). Musical periods II. Mexico: Julián Carrillo (2 vol.).
• Carrillo, J. (1926). Pre-Sound 13: Basic rectification to the classical musical system: Musical physical analysis. New York-Mexico: Editorial del Sonido 13.
• Carrillo, J. (1938 /2a ed.1954). Theory logic of music. Mexico: Julián Carrillo.
• Carrillo, J. (1941). Rational method of solf. Mexico: Imprenta “Universal”.
• Carrillo, J(1948). Sound 13: Scientific and historical foundation. Mexico: Julián Carrillo – Talleres Gráficos de la Nación.
• Carrillo, J. (1949). Through the musical technique. Mexico: Secretary of Public Education.
• Carrillo, J. (1949). Laws on Music Metamorphosis: Written in New York in 1927 and published in Mexico in 1949. Mexico: Graphic Workshops of the Nation.
• Carrillo, J. (1956). Two laws of musical physics: I. Scale of the harmonics. II. New node law. Mexico: Sound Editions 13.
• Carrillo, J. (1957). Infinity in scales and chords. Mexico: Sound Editions 13.
• Carrillo, J. (1957). General system of musical writing. Mexico: Sound Editions 13.
• Carrillo, J. (1967). Universal errors in music and musical physics. Mexico: Seminar of Mexican Culture.

Influence

In his name the following has been established:

• Ahualulco del Sonido 13, hometown of Julián Carrillo.
• Instituto Potosino de Bellas Artes Julián Carrillo.
• Julián Carrillo State School of Musical Initiation, with studies in basic and medium levels of wood, metal, percussions, piano, harp, guitar and choral singing.
• Youth Symphony Orchestra Julián Carrillo, established in 1993 in the city of San Luis Potosí.
• Julián Carrillo Musical Composition Competition, organized by the state government of San Luis Potosí.
• Colonia Julián Carrillo, San Luis Potosí S.L.P.
• Avenida Julián Carrillo, Colonia Centro, Chihuahua, Chih.
• Calle Julián Carrillo, Colonia Rosario. Mexico D.F.
• Calle Julián Carrillo, Colonia Peralvillo. Mexico D.F.
• Elementary School Master Julián Carrillo, Caruso 98,Colonia Peralvillo, Federal District
• Junior High School Carrillo No. 193. UH INFONAVIT EL ROSARIO, Azcapotzalco México D.F.
• Julián Carrillo Room. Radio station UNAM.
• Calle Sonido 13. Colonia Tláhuac, Mexico City.
• A population of the Mexican state Quintana Roo bears its name, although it is currently not on the maps.
• Secundaria Federal Julián Carrillo, in the municipality of Cárdenas in San Luis Potosí
• Technical Secondary School No. 9 Julián Carrillo, in the municipality of Nezahualcóyotl
• Escuela de Artes y Oficios de Anáhuac Julián Carrillo A.C. Newman Star Teacher in Mexico City Historic Center
• Municipal Auditorium Julián Carrillo, Apan Hidalgo.
• Julián Carrillo Room. Benemeritus Conservatory of Music of the State of Puebla.