Jack Délano’s (1914-1997) Burundanga or Cantata Antillana: an art-music portrayal of Luis Palés Matos’s (1898-1959) black Caribbean

Tapia-Santiago, Daniel A.

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Description

Title

Jack Délano’s (1914-1997) Burundanga or Cantata Antillana: an art-music portrayal of Luis Palés Matos’s (1898-1959) black Caribbean

Author(s)

Tapia-Santiago, Daniel A.

Issue Date

2011-08-25T22:09:22Z

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Alwes, Chester L.

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Alwes, Chester L.

Committee Member(s)

• Moersch, Charlotte Mattax
• Taylor, Stephen A.
• Ward, Thomas R.

Department of Study

Music

Discipline

Music

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

A.Mus.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Jack Délano
• Burundanga
• Luis Palés Matos
• Canción festiva para ser llorada
• Cantata Antillana
• Puerto Rican choral-orchestral compositions
• Puerto Rican choral music
• Caribbean art-music

Abstract

This is an analytical study of "Burundanga" or "Cantata Antillana" by Jack Délano (1914-1997). One of Délano’s most ambitious choral-orchestral compositions, "Burundanga" was completed in 1989 in response to a commission from the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture and is based on Luis Palés Matos’s (1898-1959) extravagant and elaborate poem "Canción festiva para ser llorada" (A Festive Song to be Wept). "Burundanga" stands at the foreground of Puerto Rican art-music in the twentieth century. With its neoclassical language and integration of Caribbean folkloric material, it emerges as a unique reflection of the highly complex geographical, social, cultural and musical reality of Puerto Rico and the Antilles. The analysis underscores the relationships between the textual images and the musical resources employed in their setting, focusing on the composition’s formal, melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, orchestrational and expressive elements. It also discerns particular methods by which the composer utilized and adapted Afro-Antillean idioms and combined them with art-music components to portray idiosyncratic aspects of Caribbean culture in a universalistic musical language.

Graduation Semester

2011-08

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/26022

Copyright and License Information

Copyright© 2011 Daniel A. Tapia-Santiago.

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