This article evaluates the limitations that formalist musical analysis finds when studying the popular music developed in Buenos Aires between the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In order to account for these limitations, we analyze an estilo (a vocal popular music genre usually accompanied by guitar) played at the end of the nineteenth century in the theatre and circus adaptations of the novel Juan Moreira written by Eduardo Gutiérrez. Firstly, we introduce the definitions of this genre found in some early musicological works and we examine the influence that these definitions have in the estilo’s analysis. Secondly, the estilo played in Juan Moreira is described and contextualized, and it is developed a formal musical analysis of its changes between the end of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century. Finally, we study the particular performance and the signification processes of the selected example and, after that, we highlight the tensions that arise between the etic and emic conceptualizations of this genre.
Keywords:
Bonaerense Popular music, musical analysis, estilo, Eduardo Gutiérrez
González, D. (2019). Some reflections on the analysis of rioplatense popular music at the turn of the century, with regard to the estilo of “Juan Moreira”. Revista Musical Chilena, 73(232), 70–89. Retrieved from https://revistamusicalchilena.uchile.cl/index.php/RMCH/article/view/55817
