FROM COLOMBIAN "NATIONAL" SONG TO "COLOMBIAN
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FROM COLOMBIAN »NATIONAL« SONG TO »COLOMBIAN
SONG«: 1860–1960
EGBERTO BERMÚDEZ
In December 1957 the Colombian branch of Shell, the English-Dutch oil multi-
national corporation, that had a substantial share of national oil exports and the
local market of oil-derived products, decided to offer as a Christmas gift to his
clients an LP entitled Album Shell de ritmos colombianos that featured a very signifi-
cant variety of Colombian songs and instrumental pieces. It was mainly a sample
of popular music newly orchestrated and arranged that embodied – in cutting edge
sound and high-tech – the main trends of what since the last decade of the 19th
century was identified as Colombian »national music«. The move was a response
to competitors who were exploring the visual arts and cultural radio, and an ag-
gressive move to consolidate through the media their expansion plan that since
1954 had promoted Shell to the national leader in oil service stations.1 Champion-
ing the safeguard of Colombian musical heritage while fostering cultural national-
ism (obviously a less dangerous type) was a clear strategy on the part of multina-
tional companies to neutralize dissident voices concerning their presence in the
country. As we shall see below, it was not something altogether new, because in the
1940s Colombian industrialists had used the same strategy for similar purposes.
The recording project ran uninterrupted through the following decade leaving an
interesting corpus of what the media (mainly newspapers and radio), the phono-
graphic industry and – following them – the general public endorsed as Colom-
bian culturally representative music.2
1 Lámpara, a cultural magazine sponsored by Esso and directed by poet Alvaro Mutis ap-
peared in 1954. The magazine attracted intellectuals and artists and channeled publicity
to cultural radio. See: http://cvc.cervantes.es/actcult/mutis/cronologia/1944_1958.htm
(all internet references in this article were controlled in 3/2008).
2 Album Shell de Ritmos Colombianos, Bogotá: Shell, 1957–1967, 10 LPs. About the history
of Shell operation in Colombia see Sol A. Giraldo, 60 años de Shell en Colombia, 1936–
1996, Bogotá: Compañías Shell de Colombia, 1996.
Lied und populäre Kultur / Song and Popular Culture 53 (2008)Egberto Bermudez
At the end of the 1950s Colombia lived in an overtly optimistic climate brought
about by the decision of the two main political parties to share power in turns for
sixteen years (the length of four presidential terms) thus ending several decades of
political confrontation. This came after a short but significant period of military
rule that started in June 1953 when General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla took power with
the hope of ending a period of political crisis and social unrest (almost a civil war)
known in Colombian history as LA VIOLENCIA. After leaving power to a military
Junta in May 1957 populist General Rojas Pinilla was forced to exile in Franco’s
Spain. The following year – also in Spain – Conservative Laureano Gómez and
Liberal Alfonso López Pumarejo met and agreed to install the FRENTE NACIONAL,
recognized by Robert H. Dix in a broader sense as »elite accommodation«.3
This essay looks back one century and examines historically the main musical
trends within Colombian song concentrating in MÚSICA NACIONAL and later
MÚSICA COLOMBIANA as established during the last decades of the 19th century.
Inevitably, this discussion also includes classical or art song, insofar as during the
last part of the period covered here, its style was also mainly nationalistic and in
the popular vein, although it had much less cultural importance and only marginal
representation in the record industry and the mass media.
Introduction
Early accounts of the main trends in Colombian »National song« and its relation-
ship to art song and popular music are given in 1915 by Santos Cifuentes (1870–
1932), a Colombian composer living in Buenos Aires; in 1927 by Victor J. Rosales
(c.1890–c.1928), a recording artist who lived for a while in the United States; and
in 1932 by Emirto de Lima (1881–1970), a pianist and composer émigré from
Curazao living in Barranquilla. The merit of these publications notwithstanding
their schematic scope, is having located Colombian music and songs in the inter-
national musicological literature. During the same period, Guillermo Uribe Holguín
(1880–1971), composer and director of the National Conservatory of Music pro-
voked controversy in articles and conferences referring to MÚSICA NACIONAL. In
3 Amongst others, general historical reference works on Colombia are: Frank Safford and
Marco Palacios: Colombia: País fragmentado, sociedad dividida. Bogotá: Norma, 2002;
Marco Palacios: Entre la legitimidad y la violencia. Bogotá: Norma, 1995 and Hermes To-
var Pinzón: Colombia: imágenes de su diversidad (1492 a hoy). Bogotá: Educar, 2007; Ro-
bert H. Dix: »Consociational Democracy: The Case of Colombia«, Comparative Politics,
12, 3 (Apr., 1980), pp. 304–306.
168From Colombian »national« song to »Colombian song«
1936, Daniel Zamudio (1887–1952) composer and music educator, contributed
(in a work that remained unpublished until 1949) with a first attempt to an ana-
lytical survey of Colombian popular music structures.4 However it was not until
1951 that Jorge Añez (1892–1952) a composer, performer and radio entrepreneur,
offered the first historical narrative of the development of Colombian song com-
bining personal experience and a critical appraisal and intending the first systema-
tization of the vast repertoire current before 1950. His idea was to be comprehen-
sive but – promising other studies – he finally centered on Bogotá. Alas, he died
shortly after the publication of his work.5 At about the same time, music historian
José I. Perdomo Escobar discussed patriotic songs and popular music in the Inde-
pendence period.6 Elsewhere I have attempted to sketch a brief survey of Colom-
bian song and its main trends before 1938 and to study the repertoires of MÚSICA
DE DESPECHO and MÚSICA DE PARRANDA consolidated in the 1950s and 60s.7
From 1971, Hernán Restrepo Duque (1927–1991) – a direct participant in the
expansion of Colombian radio, entertainment and recording industries – published
over the years several studies adding valuable first-hand information, attempting to
establish discographies and placing the Colombian repertoires in a wider Latin-
4 »Hacia el Americanismo musical: La música en Colombia«, El Correo Musical Sudamericano,
Sept. 22, 1915 and »La música en Colombia y sus cultivadores«, Boletín de la Unión Panameri-
cana, (mayo 1927), pp. 454–57. Zamudio’s »El folklore musical en Colombia« was delivered
orally as a conference in 1936 and later published in Revista de las Indias, (1949). All these texts
are included in Textos de Música y Folklore, Eds. Hjalmar de Greiff and David Feferbaum, Bo-
gotá: Instituto Colombiano de Cultura, 1978, I, pp. 33–47 (Cifuentes); pp. 282–91 (Rosales)
and pp. 398–421 (Zamudio). E de Lima, »La chanson populaire en Colombie«, Acta Musico-
logica, IV, 3, (1932), pp. 28–29 and »La canción popular colombiana (c.1930)«, and »Un con-
curso interesante (1942)«, in Folklore Colombiano, Barranquilla: [Author’s edition], 1942,
pp. 20–23, 200–204. Uribe Holguín’s conference »Sobre la música nacional« is included in his
Vida de un músico colombiano, Bogotá: Librería Voluntad, 1942, pp. 127–42.
5 Canciones y recuerdos, Bogotá: Ediciones Mundial, 1951, pp. 217–9. His other work, that
he claimed was advanced at the time but never appeared, would cover Antioquia, Caldas,
Bolivar and Santander.
6 »La música popular y la Independencia«, Hojas de Cultura Popular Colombiana, 6, (1951) and
»La canción patriótica y política en la historia de Colombia«, Radiotelevisora Nacional de Co-
lombia. Boletín de Programas, XXI, 214, (julio 1962) both incorporated in his Historia de la
Música en Colombia, Bogotá: Biblioteca de Historia Nacional, 1963, Ch. XVII, pp. 178–94
7 Historia de la Música en Santafé y Bogotá, Bogotá: Fundación de Musica, 2000, pp. 60–65,
with 2 CDs; »Del humor y el amor. La música de parranda y la música de despecho en
Colombia«, Part I, Cátedra de Artes, 3, (2006), pp. 81–111; Part II, 4, (2007), pp. 63–89.
169Egberto Bermudez American perspective.8 In the same years our knowledge about Colombian song increased thanks to the works of Heriberto Zapata Cuencar (1910–1980) concen- trating mainly on composers and performers and their discographies and chronol- ogies including a valuable anthology of popular song devoted to Antioquia, pub- lished posthumously.9 In recent years – and mainly based on the works of Añez, Restrepo Duque, Zapata Cuencar, Ruiz Hernández and others – Jaime Rico Sala- zar offers a collector’s view, adding minute biographical information about com- posers, lyricists and performers and advancing previous efforts in establishing dis- cographies and their chronologies.10 Alfonso de la Espriella’s attempt to view Co- lombian music history through popular music songs – specifically the bolero – deserves due attention, as well as the curious (and often useful) details discovered by Ofelia Peláez. However, their works share with Rico Salazar’s its non-disciplina- 8 Lo que cuentan las canciones, Bogotá: Tercer Mundo, 1971, A mi cánteme un bambuco, Medellín: Autores Antioqueños, 1986; Las cien mejores canciones colombianas y sus autores, Bogotá: RCN/Sonolux, 1991 and his posthumous Lo que cuentan los boleros, Centro Edi- torial de Estudios Musicales, 1992. An interview given around 1986 is also very valuable in synthesizing his ideas: Ana M. Cano, »Hernán Restrepo Duque: La voz de la música popular«, Boletín Cultural y Bibliográfico. Biblioteca Luís A.Arango, XXIII, 6, (1986), pp. 15–29. The supplementary source to these works is the collection of recordings (LPs and CDs), started c. 1972 by Restrepo Duque as Producciones Preludio and continued to- day by Manlio Bedoya as Colecciones Preludio of Discos Preludio Ltd. See Producciones Preludio. Catálogo general: La linda música de ayer especial para coleccionistas de la discoteca de Hernán Restrepo Duque, Medellín: Producciones Preludio, n.d., 46 pp. See also: http://www. discospreludio.com. (Industrially made CDs). 9 Cantores populares de Antioquia, Medellín: [Author’s Edition], 1979 and Antología de la canción en Antioquia, Medellín: Autores Antioqueños, 1995. He is also author of a pio- neering encyclopedic compendium on Colombian composers, Compositores Colombianos, Medellín: [Author’s Edition], 1962, where he deals with his material regionally. Later he published separate regional studies: Compositores Vallecaucanos, Medellín: Author’s Edi- tion, 1968, Compositores Antioqueños, Medellín: [Author’s Edition], 1973 and Composi- tores Nariñenses, Medellín: [Author’s Ed.], 1973. 10 La canción colombiana: Su historia, sus compositores y sus mejores intérpretes, Bogotá: Norma, 2004, with CD collection Joyas de la canción colombiana, 24 vols., published by Club Interna- cional de Coleccionistas de Discos and the magazine Nostalgias Musicales, started in 2006 (Home made CDs). See also Rico Salazar, pp. 782–807. Additional valuable sources are Alva- ro Ruiz Hernández, Personajes y episodios de la canción popular, Barranquilla: Luz Negra Edi- tores, 1983 and Mariano Torres Montes de Oca [Mariano Candela] (ed.), Tertulias musicales del Caribe Colombiano, Barranquilla: Universidad del Atlántico, I, 1998; II, 2000. 170
From Colombian »national« song to »Colombian song«
ry quality, especially in his carelessness in the treatment of sources.11 Orlando Mo-
ra’s reflections on Colombian song texts are perhaps unique on the subject, as is
Fabio Betancur’s preoccupation for understanding the international context of Co-
lombian songs and artists.12 The works of Hernando Tellez B. and Reynaldo Pare-
ja are the main sources for information on radio and TV during this period.13
In general Latin-American song has received limited attention in the musico-
logical literature.14 However, Chase’s contribution to the collective volume edited
by D. Stevens in 1960 identifies its basic elements: a) its highly nationalistic and
popular character and b) the low relevance of the separation between the popular
song and art song spheres. H. Nathan – in his historical treatment of song reper-
toires in the United States – A. Jacobs writing on the British Isles – and Chase –
examining the Spanish case – arrive basically at the same conclusions and stress the
fundamental role played by stage or theatrical songs in the development of popular
song, something Carlos Vega has previously remarked in his studies of Latin
American songs and dances.15 These studies also propose the existence of a very
widespread aesthetic preference (and market) for popular sentimental songs, very
different to the canonic LIED or art songs erected as a paradigm by 19th-century
scholarship. The ROMANCE in France, the VOLKSLIED in Germany as well as ex-
11 Historia de la música en Colombia. A través de nuestro bolero, Bogotá: [Author’s Edition],
2005, 2nd. Ed.; Ofelia Peláez, Verdades, mentiras y anécdotas de las canciones, sus creadores e
intérpretes, Medellín: Discos Fuentes, 2002.
12 Orlando Mora P., La música que es como la vida, Medellín: Autores Antioqueños, 1989;
Fabio Betancur Alvarez, Sin clave y bongó no hay son: Música afrocubana y confluencias mu-
sicales de Colombia y Cuba, Medellín: Editorial Universidad de Antioquia, 1993.
13 Reynaldo Pareja, Historia de la radio en Colombia, Bogotá: Servicio Colombiano de Co-
municación Social, 1984 and Hernando Téllez B., Cincuenta años de radiodifusión colom-
biana, [Medellín/Bogotá]: Caracol. Primera Cadena Radial Colombiana S.A., 1974.
14 An immense bibliography, not strictly musicological, exists around particular genres such
as tango, bolero, canción ranchera etc. For an introductory bibliography see Bermúdez,
»Del humor, I. Discussions on some Latin-American song traditions (Colombian vallena-
to, Peruvian vals, Paraguayan polka, Brazilian samba and Venezuelan patriotic song)« are
included in Gerard Borras (ed.), Musiques et Sociétés en Amérique Latine, Rennes: Presses
Universitaires de Rennes, 2000.
15 Gilbert Chase, »Latin America« in Dennis Stevens (ed.), A History of Song (1960), New
York: W.W. Norton, 1970, Revised Edition, p. 306; Hans Nathan, »United States of
America«, id., p. 415; Arthur Jacobs, »The British Isles«, id., p. 152 and G. Chase,
»Spain«, p. 383; Carlos Vega, »Los bailes criollos en el teatro«, Música Sudamericana, Bu-
enos Aires: Emecé Editores, 1946; Las danzas populares en Argentina (1952), Buenos Air-
es: Instituto de Musicología Carlos Vega, 1986, 2 vols.
171Egberto Bermudez
amples from Russia suggest a stronger presence of the popular trend and a more
satisfactory explanatory context for the Latin-American and Colombian cases.16
The first anthology of Colombian songs is part of Añez’s work of 1951. It only
considers the repertoire of BAMBUCOS, PASILLOS, DANZAS and VALSES excluding
Costeño music (PORROS, GAITAS, PASEOS, MERENGUES, CUMBIAS, etc.) that at
that very moment were gaining momentum in the Colombian media. Añez in-
cludes the texts of around five hundred songs and twenty-nine scores, presented
with an ingenious index of first verses presuming, correctly, its use as a practical
songbook (CANCIONERO).17 It can be said that Añez’s publication is greatly re-
sponsible for the canonization of that repertoire and its mechanic identification as
»Colombian music«. In his selection, he includes several canciones (art-songs) and
other genres such as Cuban GUAJIRAS, PETENERAS, etc. by Colombian composers.
In 1991, almost half a century later, and at the moment when transnational re-
cording companies fully entered the Colombian market as a product of economic
aperture, Restrepo Duque publishes a selection of one hundred songs considered
to be the most important from a historical point of view. His selection follows a
series of concerts (II Encuentro de la música colombiana) sponsored by one of the
first national radio networks (RCN Radio) and their associate recording company
(Sonolux) that since its establishment in 1949 has specialized in »national« or »Co-
lombian« music.18 In his work, he gives song texts and biographies of composers
and interpreters, in a first attempt of systematization of the repertoire notably
modifying Añez’s balance by including twenty-six pieces from the Costeño reper-
toire (PORROS, CUMBIAS, PASEOS, MERECUMBE and FANDANGO) but maintain-
ing the primacy (58%) of the canonic »Colombian repertoire« of BAMBUCOS, PA-
SILLOS and DANZAS19. Thus Restrepo Duque acknowledges the presence of Cos-
16 David Cox, »France«, in Stevens, p. 200; Gerald Abraham, »Russia«, id., p. 338.
17 Henceforth for Colombian regional origins we will use Antioqueño, Bogotano, Caucano,
Costeño (Atlantic northern coast), Llanero (eastern lowlands) and Pastuso (Pasto south-
ern region bordering Ecuador).
18 The »II Encuentro« took place between 1 April and 3 June 1991. Since 1973 and 1974
respectively, both networks have belonged to the »Organización Ardila Lülle«, the third
Colombian business conglomerate.
19 The breakdown is: 36 bambucos, 14 pasillos, 12 porros, 7 cumbias, 5 vallenato paseos, 4
guabinas and llanero pasajes, 2 valses and Cuban criollas, and the rest represented by a
single bolero, torbellino, merecumbé, fandango, rumba criolla, son paisa, and danza. Sev-
eral pieces are identified generically but its proper identification does not change the bal-
ance shown. This is the case of Con la pata pelá identified as porro but really a fandango
and Cartagena presented as canción but really a bolero.
172From Colombian »national« song to »Colombian song«
teño or »música bailable« repertoire as inserted in the media and phonographic
industries since the late 1930s. Rico Salazar assumes that Colombian song is basi-
cally the canonic repertoire and in his anthology, BAMBUCOS, PASILLOS, DANZAS
and valseswaltzes represent 74% of the total five hundred songs included.20
After the examination of these song repertoires – through scores and recordings
– it is difficult to adhere to the regional approach that permeates Colombian music
studies in recent decades and that has been reinforced by the growth of regional
and local powers as clients of the central government and their cultural policies. As
we shall see, the mass media became a unifying and leveling factor since the 1940s
and by the end of the last millennium, Colombian regional musical cultures – with
very few exceptions – weakened by the endemic disastrous social and economic
situation and the growth of social strife and drug trafficking, are almost a thing of
the past. The main lines along which the paragraphs that follow will run are: i)
songs, politics and religion, ii) songs in private and public entertainment and iii)
songs and the mass media and the cultural industry. The enormous size of the re-
pertoires – especially of the 1940s and 50s – makes it very difficult to maintain the
balance between context and music analysis; therefore, a deeper treatment of this
later aspect would be the subject of a separate publication.
Part One: Hymns to God and the People
I.
Religious and patriotic songs are very similar in their main traits, but most of all,
in their essentially functional character and restricted and hardly flexible perfor-
mance contexts. As a clear heritage of the blurred boundaries of the function of
Hispanic villancico, where the style of theatrical and amorous songs permeated
the religious sphere, in 19th-century Colombia – as well as in Europe and the
United States – the aesthetics of opera and song also permeated church music.
On the other hand the changes brought along by the French revolution and the
emergence of nationalism boosted the appearance of patriotic song as a separate
musical genre and as part of the construction of the »national«, along with terri-
tory, language and religion.21 The fever of French »revolutionary« songs covered
20 Rico Salazar’s anthology is included as the third part of his work (pp. 440–781).
21 The classic discussions are Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflection on the
origins and spread of Nationalism, London: Verso, 1991 and Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and
173Egberto Bermudez
all grounds from liberty, equality and fraternity to anything the Convention
considered adequate. Masters such as Gossec and Méhul were – as J. H. Elliot
states – drawn »into the vortex« as the former’s many hymns and patriotic works
very well corroborate, being dedicated to nature, monuments, funerals, victories,
etc. His Hymne à l’Etre suprême (»Hymn to the Supreme Being«) for band and
choir, using octaves, unisons and simple chords joins the two spheres by invok-
ing religiously: »Père de l’univers, suprême intelligence« (»Father of the Un-
iverse, supreme intelligence«).22
Revolution and extreme politics reconcile with God and also arrived in Ameri-
ca. North-American patriotic songs also seem to reveal a stylistic combination of
hymnody and popular song.23 The only known examples in our area (Venezuela)
seem to be the revolutionary Carmañola Americana, an adaptation of Spanish
words to the French tune of 1792 and the Canción Americana (1797) by the Vene-
zuelan composer Lino Gallardo (c.1773–1837), also the author of his country’s
national anthem. Unfortunately, we do not have traces of other »canciones subver-
sivas« (subversive songs) sung by »exaltados patriotas« (angry patriots) mentioned
in historical documents.24
In Colombia, José J. Guarín (1825–1854) is the author of large-scale works for
choir and orchestra that illustrate the two styles here discussed. In Bogotá on Inde-
pendence Day 1849, the orchestra and (four part) mixed choir of the Sociedad Fi-
larmónica performed at a grand concert both his set of Lamentaciones de Jeremias
and his Himno al aniversario de la Independecia. Exactly two years earlier, Henry
Price (1819–1863) – the Society’s British founder – premiered a »Canción Na-
cional« along with the orchestral overture »El 20 de julio«, both especially written
for the occasion. The engraved vocal score of Guarin’s anthem was later included
in the voyage narrative of Miguel Maria Lisboa, Portuguese-Brazilian envoy to Bo-
gotá in 1853. Coming back to the relationship between patriotic and religious
songs, it is symptomatic that the same evening of 20 July 1849 the public also
Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, London: Canto/Cambridge University
Press, 1997, 2nd. Ed.
22 J. H. Elliot, »The French Revolution: Beethoven and Berlioz c.1770–c.1850«, Choral Mu-
sic. A Symposium, Ed. Arthur Jacobs, Harmodsworth: Penguin Books, 1969, pp. 201–204.
23 Nathan, pp. 410–11.
24 Alberto Calzavara, Historia de la Música en Venezuela. Periodo hispánico con referencias al
teatro y la danza, Caracas: Fundación Pampero, 1987, pp. 137–39, 159, 267–70. See also
Veronique Hebrand, »Pratiques musicales et chansons patriotiques au Venezuela«, in G.
Borras, pp. 212–13.
174From Colombian »national« song to »Colombian song«
heard an anonymous Himno a Pio IX, dedicated to Pope Pius IX, renowned for his
liberality.25 The following month in a »concierto extraordinario« the Society per-
formed another CANCIÓN NACIONAL by Guarín, this time for women’s voices
only, and in the following year, on Bolivar’s birthday, Lino Gallardo’s song (with
words by José M. Salazar) was included in a concert prepared by Nicolas Quevedo
Rachadell (1803–1874), Venezuelan composer and aid to the late Libertador, a
permanent resident in Bogotá since the mid-1820s.26
Caicedo Rojas and Perdomo Escobar offer information on several attempts in
search for a Colombian national song or anthem. Spanish dramatist Francisco Vil-
laba’s Himno Patriótico of 1837 was also performed at Independence Day and on
the same occasion in 1869, the recently composed Himno Nacional of Daniel Fi-
gueroa (?–1887) opened the theatrical performance of the day.27 Four years later,
Figueroa set to music verses from Villalba and other notable Colombian poets and
performed the resulting anthem at the Plaza de Bolivar employing two military
bands and a massive children’s choir.28 Caicedo Rojas’s comments on the current
Colombian national anthem – premiered in 1887 with music by Italian émigré
and opera singer Oreste Sindici (1837–1904) and lyrics by politician and amateur
poet Rafael Nuñez (1825–1894) – are worth paraphrasing. Without mentioning
its authors, Caicedo refers to »recent efforts in composing a national anthem« as
vain compared to Villalba’s setting whose text was »simple and the music very
simple, essential conditions for a work of this kind«.29 Its »elevated music«, Caice-
do continues, will make the new anthem »fall out of grace« and ironically warns to
keep »polished and recherché verses« for other genres, in a direct allusion to Núñez’s
25 Concert Programs in María V. Rodríguez and Jesús Duarte, »La Sociedad Filarmónica y
la cultura musical en Santafé a mediados del siglo XIX«, Boletín Cultural y Bibliográfico,
XXIX, 31, (1992), pp. 46–47; Perdomo Escobar, Historia, p. 122; Miguel Maria Lisboa,
Relaçao de uma viagem a Venezuela, Nova Granada, e Equador, pelo Conselheiro Lisboa,
Brussels: A. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven e Cia, 1866, Chap. XII, pp. 259–60. For Guarín’s
Lamentaciones, see Bermúdez, Historia, CD 1, 23.
26 Concert program in Perdomo Escobar, Historia, plate p. 137.
27 Concert program in Lamus, p. 75.
28 José Caicedo Rojas, »Articulo XXV«, Recuerdos y Apuntamientos (1891), Bogotá: Biblioteca
Popular de Cultura Colombiana, 1950, pp. 193–94, Perdomo Escobar, Historia,
pp. 152–54; Anon., »Viejos Himnos de Colombia«, Boletín de Programas. Instituto Na-
cional de Radio y Televisión, XXII, 231, (Sept. 1966), pp. 32–33. The number given in
this article is 1200 voices.
29 The text is in Canción Nacional en memoria del 20 de julio de 1810, 1º de la libertad, Bo-
gotá: Nicolás Gómez, 1836, »Viejos himnos […]«, pp. 29–30.
175Egberto Bermudez
ultra distilled poetry.30 Unfortunately none of the above mentioned scores (but
Guarín’s and Sindici’s anthems) survives. Neither Guarín’s anthem complies with
Caicedo Rojas requirements, alternating a solo with a chorus that includes an an-
tiphonal section. And to what would have been Caicedo’s total dismay, its solo and
chorus both showing a very high tessitura. Only in 1920 was Sindici’s anthem ac-
cepted as national, although unofficially it fulfilled this function from 1887 onwards.
In 1899 its vocal score was published in the fashionable Revista Ilustrada urging the
government for its official recognition and reporting that on the previous 20 July it
had been sung at Bogotá’s main square by a choir of 1,500 children from the city’s
public schools (those for the lower classes). The anonymous writer states that the
choir was assembled by the local Education Secretary and praised its lofty goal of
inspiring »love for the fatherland« amongst »the sons of the people«.31 Such popul-
ism had been reinforced since the suffocation of the popular revolt of 1893 and
would become a key element in recruiting the same »sons of the people« to defend
the government in the bloody civil war that broke two months later.32
The spirit of AMERICANISMO also found space in the limited Colombian musi-
cal life of the first years of the 20th century and composers like Santos Cifuentes
(1870–1932) believed – along with the ideologues of literary modernism – that
Latin America was the »refuge and safeguard of world civilization« and proposed
the development of musical nationalism as a starting point and contribution to his
doctrine. He had already been one of the first composers to rework national
themes into a symphonic score (Scherzo sinfónico) from 1894 and observed that
songs (BAMBUCO and TORBELLINO) were the main potential source for such ob-
jectives.33 Apparently, Cifuentes was not alone and in 1908, at the height of Gen-
eral Rafael Reyes regime, the 1st Infantry Battalion Band performed at the Presi-
dential Palace a programme that included (along with works by Verdi, Rossini and
Leoncavallo) a Himno Lationoamericano by an intellectual and amateur composer
of Panamanian descent, Carlos Vallarino.34
30 Caicedo Rojas, »Artículo XXV«, pp. 194–95.
31 Revista Ilustrada, I, 15, (agosto 1899), pp. 234–37.
32 On the 1893 revolt see David Sowell, »The 1893 Bogotazo: Artisans and public violence in late
Nineteenth Century Bogotá«, Journal of Latin American Studies, 21, 2, (1989), pp. 267–82.
33 In De Greiff and Feferbaum, p. 38–39, 46, Bermúdez, Historia, p. 139.
34 Concert program in Diego Roldán Luna, Jerónimo Velasco: Recortes musicales de su vida,
Cali: Alonso Quijada Editores, 1985, p. 17. For »Americanismo musical« in later decades in
Colombia see E. Bermúdez, »La Universidad Nacional y la investigación musical en Co-
lombia: Tres momentos«, Miradas a la Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 3, Bogotá: Uni-
versidad Nacional de Colombia, 2006, pp. 22–50.
176From Colombian »national« song to »Colombian song«
It is worth mentioning that following Spanish colonial traditions, songs were
part of public festivities during the Republican period and during the war of Inde-
pendence. American native history and the Indian as a symbol – systematically
used until the 1830s – were elaborated visually, poetically, dramatically and musi-
cally during the long process of nation-building.35 The texts of patriotic and politi-
cal songs mentioned by Perdomo Escobar – unfortunately without any indication
to its sources – seem to be linked to amateur composers and poets, and most prob-
ably were set to popular melodies and cyclical improvisation schemes (see below).
They are mostly COPLAS and cover a long period, focusing in late civil wars such as
those of 1885 and 1899–1902.36 Specific examples are rare but some COPLAS
(whose unmistakable hymn-like style strongly suggests they were meant to be
sung) appear in a soldier’s memoir of the events of the decisive battle of La Huma-
reda, the end of the civil war of 1885.37 Probably related to the same war was the
anonymous song El Soldado (PASILLO?) composed for its namesake historical dra-
ma of 1892 by Adolfo León Gómez (see Part Two, II). The drama’s second edi-
tion of 1903 may have suggested its association with the civil war of 1899–1902.38
In domestic anecdotes – the favorite context for the performance of this type of
songs – we find information that throws light on the highly eclectic character of
contemporary musical taste. Luis M. Mora recalls dancing and singing on the Con-
servative side in the THOUSAND DAYS WAR (1899–1902) with local musical string
instruments. On the other hand Max Grillo (1868–1949) poet and literary critic
who fought on the Liberal side, recalls in his memoirs the singing of La Marsellaise
to regain morale after the defeat at Palonegro that ended the fierce and bloody
northern campaign.39 Nevertheless, it was not only intellectual and rather snobish
35 Hans J. König, En el camino hacia la nación. Nacionalismo en el proceso de formación del estado y
de la nación de la Nueva Granada, 1750–1856, Bogotá: Banco de la República, pp. 247–52.
36 Perdomo, Historia, pp. 182–88.
37 Rudesindo Cáceres, Un soldado de la República en la Costa Atlántica, Bogotá: Imprenta de
Fernando Pontón, 1888 quoted by Gonzalo España, La guerra civil de 1885. Nuñez y la
derrota del radicalismo, Bogotá: El Ancora, 1985, pp. 187–88.
38 Héctor Orjuela, Bibliografía del Teatro Colombiano, Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo, 1974,
p. 106. Title-page in Lamus, p. 80; Añez, pp. 319–20 text attributed to Julio Garavito; Perdo-
mo, Historia, pp. 185–86; Ellie Anne Duque, »Música en tiempos de guerra«, in Gonzalo
Sánchez and Mario Aguilera (eds.), Memoria de un país en guerra. Los Mil Días 1899–1902, Bo-
gotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia/IEPRI/UNIJUS/Planeta, 2001, pp. 265–66.
39 Luís M. Mora, »A la lumbre del vivac«, Croniquillas de mi ciudad, Bogota: Editorial ABC,
1936, p. 114; Grillo, Emociones de la guerra: Apuntes tomados durante la campaña del Norte en
177Egberto Bermudez
to do so, because the famous patriotic song and national anthem was known to the
public since the 1880s as it appears in a manuscript song anthology compiled in
Bogotá in the same years.40 There we find it in a Spanish phonetic rendition of the
French text with an unaltered melody with guitar accompaniment. During the
same war, when Liberal artists and intellectuals from Bogotá were retained in the
local prison under conspiracy charges after the coup of July 1900, they organized
in October a celebration of the uprising with speeches, poetry, songs and instru-
mental music (flute, BANDOLAS and TIPLES) where as a central act they sang a
Himno Liberal composed by Emilio Murillo on a text by Julio Florez, two of the
distinguished prisoners.41 E. A. Duque is surprised at the absence of other songs
related to that war but discusses several instrumental piano pieces related to it;
amongst them two – equally sonorous and vigorous – composed to celebrate Lib-
eral victory at Peralonso (a PASILLO by Carmen Manrique Garay) and later the
Conservative victory at Palonegro (a BAMBUCO by José Eleuterio Suarez).42
We know very little about the songs that vented public dissent or were used by
those who opposed or defended the governments before and in the worst years of
LA VIOLENCIA. However, during the Conservative hegemony (1886–1930) we
have some references to music used in urban social mobilizations such as the PA-
SILLO El Boycoteo (»The Boycott«) by the singer and composer Alejandro Wills
(1884–1943). It was created in 1905 on the occasion of the students’ and the
people’s boycotting of the mule trams owned by an American company that even-
tually handed them over to the local government and left the country. Four years
before, Wills and his duet partner Arturo Patiño were asked to participate in a civic
parade of craftsmen and workers so that – wrote one of the organizers, the com-
poser Emilio Murillo – »the musical instruments that had nursed the sons of the
people can have its due representation on this feast of Democracy«.43
Coffee – as an asset and economic symbol – seemed to have acquired a qua-
si-religious and mythical status in the central Colombian coffee-growing regions
la guerra civil de los tres años, Bogotá: Imprenta de La Luz, 1903, quoted by Rafael H. More-
no Durán, »Ficción y realidad en la Guerra de los Mil días«, Sánchez and Aguilera, p. 284.
40 Biblioteca Luis A. Arango, Bogotá, Colección Perdomo, Ms. MI 1453, f. 25v. (The folia-
tion is mine).
41 Adolfo León Gómez, »Los presos políticos de la guerra (1905)«, in Sánchez and Aguilera,
pp. 233–34. Eduardo Domínguez reports other aspects of the same anecdote in 1927,
quoted in E. A. Duque, Música, p. 263.
42 Duque, Música, pp. 252, 264–65.
43 Wills’ personal memoir and concert bills album quoted in Restrepo Duque, Lo que cuen-
tan, pp. 20–22. El Boycoteo was possibly an instrumental piece.
178From Colombian »national« song to »Colombian song«
especially during its initial period of widespread international presence in the
1920s and 1930s, when coffee exports trebled from one million sacks in 1910 to
three million in 1930.44 According to some references we know that in the Anti-
oqueño countryside coffee was celebrated in songs such as one – at the same time
patriotic, romantic and religious – reported to have been sung as a child by the
Colombian ex-president Belisario Betancur, who has always made a point of being
proud of his rural background. The lyrics read: »Colombian coffee, filled with am-
brosia/Colombian smooth tasting coffee/from the Virgin Mary’s home-
land/Coffee, Colombian coffee/sovereign nectar!«.45
In 1924, a privately published Bogotá songbook included satiric and politically
critical texts that were sung to tunes such as the Mexican hit La Cucaracha and the
famous tango-canción Mi noche triste (1916). Pedro A. Rebollo, their author,
called these versions PLAGIOS (»plagiarisms«) and sometimes included the original
text of the songs.46 Additionally, we have some references to urban political COP-
LAS (sung to the tune of a popular Mexican hit of the moment) reflecting the op-
timism of Tolima’s liberals in 1930 and criticizing President Eduardo Santos, and
a few coplas related to the guerilla groups in the Llanos in the early 1950s, possibly
intented to be sung.47 In the same years, an official version of the Colom-
bian-Peruvian conflict, Los sucesos de Leticia (Victor X–1000) labelled »canción
patriotica«, was recorded by Jorge Añez with orchestra and small choir in New
York just before his return to Colombia in 1933.48
There are other examples (direct, almost crude, and to the point) as the poems
and COPLAS recited and sung by peasants and artisans such as those recorded in a
newspaper in 1937 in relation to the government repression of colonists and
smallholders who were in direct conflict with big landowners in central Colombia,
or the satirical COPLAS improvised on the participation of both political parties in
the defeat of the socialist-revolutionary rebellion in El Libano, Tolima (central Co-
lombia, northwest of Bogotá) in 1929. During the same period, the poems (ROM-
ANCES) of Jorge Ferreira on the realities of coffee cultivation and the social condi-
44 Luís F. Molina, p. 13.
45 Testimony of Belisario Betancur (1923) in »El orgullo paisa en la espalda« (2003), Las
voces de la memoria. Conversatorio fiestas populares de Colombia 2002 y 2003, Tomo II,
Bogotá: Fundación BAT, 2004, p. 218.
46 Pedro A. Rebollo, Cancionero santafereño (Plagios y coplas), Bogotá: Editorial Nuevo Mundo, 1924.
47 James D. Henderson, Cuando Colombia se desangró. Un estudio de la violencia en metrópoli y
provincia, Bogotá: El Ancora, 1984, p. 95; Palacios, Entre la legitimidad …, pp. 222, 226.
48 Spottswood, IV, p. 1709.
179Egberto Bermudez
tions of its manpower contrast sharply with the naive and ethereal romanticism of
the BAMBUCOS composed in the same region (see Part Three, II) or with Betan-
cur’s religious childhood recollections.49
This ethereal quality was absent from some Mexican popular music especially
the CORRIDOS. But unlike their counterparts in their revolutionary heyday, most
new CORRIDOS were the product of urban middle-class composers. However,
popular CANCIONES RANCHERAS and CORRIDOS of the mid-1940s and early
1950s began to have great resonance in Colombian rural and low-class urban cul-
ture. In the mid-1940s, cinema and radio teamed with the expansion of
coin-operated automated electric music machines (Rock-Ola, Wurlitzer, Seeburg
and AMI jukeboxes) that, as a result of the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, began its
»golden age« during which 300,000 units were in use all over the United States by
1939. Its presence in our region in the following decade helped to disseminate es-
pecially the Mexican, Cuban and other recorded song repertoires.50 Tovar Pinzón
takes the opening lamenting lines of the CANCIÓN RANCHERA Cuatro milpas
(c.1920) (»only four patches of corn have remained of my destroyed ranch«) as
fitting to Colombian rural social and political reality. Yet, in the analysis one can-
not overlook the overtly romantic and non-political essence of the song, composed
by the military musician Belisario de Jesús García (1892–1952) and made popular
in Latin America as part of the sentimental musical comedy (Las Cuatro Milpas,
1937), a film starring Pedro Armendáriz and featuring the Trio Calavera.51 How-
ever, the Mexican connection existed and it is possible that eventually we can trace
songbooks with texts written in the areas (southern Tolima, Caldas, northern Valle
del Cauca) where – around 1958 – Jacobo Prias Alape, a communist guerilla leader
calling himself »Charro Negro« and his government-financed enemy Jesús María
Oviedo, chose »Mariachi« as a combat name.52
The heritage of satirical and topical songs of African and Caribbean origin
(discussed in Part Three, II) explains why, in the texts of the Atlantic Coast,
49 Gonzalo Sánchez, »Las ligas campesinas en Colombia (1977)«, Ensayos de historia social y
política del siglo XX, Bogotá: El Ancora, 1984, pp. 121–22; Gonzalo Sánchez, »Los bol-
cheviques del Líbano (1976)«, Ensayos, pp. 44–47 and 95–97.
50 Although invented around 1889 and electrified in 1927 these automated phonographs
gained universal popularity in the 1940s. See Samuel S. Brylawski. »Jukebox.« Grove Mu-
sic Online. Oxford Music Online. 4 Aug. 2008 .
51 Tovar Pinzón, pp. 278–79.
52 E. Bermúdez, »Del tequila al aguardiente«, Horas. Tiempo Cultural, 3, (February 2004), p. 39
and www.ebermudezcursos.unal.edu.co/bibrew.htm and Henderson, pp. 273–77.
180From Colombian »national« song to »Colombian song«
dance-music repertoires (PORRO, PASEO, MERENGUE) we find direct allusions to
political events from the 1930s up to the 1950s.53 The region was a Liberal Party
stronghold so partisanship is ever-present in texts ranging from acclaim at electoral
triumphs, to fears – later confirmed – of dirty war and official violence when the
Conservative opponents seized power (as in La chulavita, a MERENGUE by Chico
Bolaño).54 Texts like these did not penetrate deeply into the industry and pose an
interesting aesthetic paradox, the incongruity of setting topical and political texts
to musical genres that were basically understood and bought commercially as
dance music. The equivalent, caricaturizing, of having denounced Nazi extermina-
tion camp’s atrocities to the tune of Glenn Miller’s Chattanooga Choo Choo, a
dance hit of 1941–1942.
Songs about real events are rare in our repertoires and one of the very few that
can be documented fully is Alban fly’ to Colon, a foxtrot about Captain Alban
McLean and a group of San Andrés islanders who were rescued and taken to
Colón (Panamá) by an American hydroplane after their schooner, the »Resolute«,
was sunk by a German submarine on June 1942.55 As we had just mentioned, in
the texts of PORROS, PASEOS and MERENGUES we also find references to Colom-
bian current affairs of the 1940s and 50s. A notable example is the MERENGUE
that Guillermo Buitrago composed on the curfew (El toque de queda) imposed all
over the country after EL BOGOTAZO, the popular insurrection that followed the
assassination, on the 9 April 1948, of the Liberal Party chief and presidential can-
didate Jorge Eliecer Gaitán.56
Along with political allusions comes censorship. Several circumstances sur-
round reports of censorship of El Caiman or Se va el caimán (»The caiman goes«) a
porro attributed in the early 1940s to José M. Peñaranda (1907–2006) and rec-
orded for the first time (as El hombre caimán) in Buenos Aires in 1945.57 Appar-
ently the song was used in Panamá to voice anti-American feelings when the
Filós-Hines treaty (that guaranteed the permanence of American troops in strategic
53 For a general overview see Julio Oñate, El abc del vallenato, Bogotá: Taurus, 2003,
Ch. 22, pp. 207–37.
54 Oñate, pp. 214–15. Apparently this piece was never recorded commercially.
55 Nodoby Business but my Own: Traditional and Popular Music from Old Providence, Bogotá:
Fundación de Musica, (1996) 2007, MA–TCOL 002, CD, 12. On the liner notes (p. 12)
the date is given incorrectly as 1943. See David Bushnell, Eduardo Santos y la política del
buen vecino, 1938–1942, Bogotá: El Ancora Editores, 1984, pp. 130–31 and Thomas J.
Williford, Laureano Gómez y los Masones, 1936–1942, Bogota: Planeta, 2005, p. 206.
56 Ruiz Hernández, »La guitarra de Guillermo Buitrago«, in Personajes, p. 20.
57 Oñate, p. 466, CD, 6.
181Egberto Bermudez
places to protect the Canal) was signed in 1947 but finally was not approved by
the National Assembly and President Enrique A. Jimenez, a supporter of the treaty
‘did not go’ until the following year. On the other hand, also in 1947, Quiñones Kommentar [XH1]: Le sens du reste de
la phrase est obscur
Pardo reports that the song was being used – with different words – by anti-Franco
activists in Spain.58 Apparently in those years Franco kept giving confusing signals
about his permanence in power while he negotiated and announced the future res-
toration of the monarchy. It was also a period (1946–1948) of intense internation-
al isolation: most Western diplomatic representatives were retired and the regime
counted only on the support of the Argentinian dictator Juan D. Perón. But as in Kommentar [XH2]: Cette prhase est
incompréhensible
Panamá, neither Franco ‘did go’ until 1975. In his recent work on radio music
censorship in Spain José M. Rodríguez shows that the censored version of Se va el
caimán was that of Paraguayan singer Luis Alberto del Paraná.59 Censorship of this
type affected the discs themselves that were scratched or engraved physically to
render them useless. For different reasons (being against public morality) another
Colombian song was censored in Spain around 1956, this time Bésame morenita
sang by the Colombian tenor Régulo Ramírez.60 It is interesting that in 1947
Quiñones Pardo does not quote any author for El Caimán and states that it already
had gained currency in Latin America and in Europe. While Peñaranda was very
unclear in interviews with the details about »his« song, other specialists made ef-
forts to locate its genealogy based on the oral tradition (see Part Three).61
The meaning and practice of democracy was one of the pillars of Gaitán’s ar-
guments and political struggle and undoubtedly it was democracy that received the
major of blows after his assassination in 1948. In the same year a non-commercial
recording entitled La democracia (SON) by Pacho Rada – performed by Abel Anto-
nio Villa with Bovea y sus Vallenatos – appeared in Barranquilla. However its text
– a quasi-incoherent mix of love stanzas – had nothing to do with democracy. Per-
haps the answer to such a paradox is that the song starts with a spoken commercial
advertisement for vinegar that presumably sold a lot that year.62 The opportunistic
58 Octavio Quiñones Pardo, »El porro«, in Interpretación de la poesía popular, Bogotá: 1947, p. 177.
59 Un caballero del Paraguay, 10’’ LP, c.1946, A, 1.
60 José Manuel Rodríguez, Una historia de la censura musical en la radio española años 50 y 60,
Madrid: RTVE-Música, 2007, 2 CDs. Se va el caimán, CD 2, 4. Bésame Morenita, CD 1, 4.
61 Torres Montes de Oca, I, pp. 151–55; Guillermo Henríquez Torres, »La música en el
Magdalena Grande en el siglo XIX. Eulalio Melendez«, Historia, identidades, cultura popu-
lar y música tradicional en el caribe colombiano, Velledupar: Unicesar, 2004, Eds. Hughes
Sanchez, Leovedis Martínez, pp. 104–09.
62 Oñate, CD, 9.
182From Colombian »national« song to »Colombian song«
producer and the naive buyer (and possibly the needy musicians) all shared their
low grasp of the meaning of democracy and they all contributed to transform a
dear – and from April that year – frustrated social aspiration, into a commodity.
II.
Robert Stevenson argues how at Bogotá’s Cathedral, the extant liturgical music of
early-19th-century chapel master Juan de Dios Torres (c.1795–c.1844) – whose
father was a theatre musician – shows a totally different style to the previous reper-
toire using very few voices (one or two singing in thirds), simple melodic lines and
very straightforward harmonic accompaniment. However, Stevenson considers it
»rudimentary« and conservative historians such as Perdomo Escobar glossed his
comments to conclude that this adaptation to new international schemes was a
sign of »decadence« and »degeneration«.63 Drew E. Davies has shown how the
adoption of an international melodic opera »galant« style by some composers in
18th century Mexico also has been seen as a sign of »contamination« by nationalist
Mexican musicology, refusing to accept its modernity and the existence of a re-
fined international taste.64
Decades later in Colombia, that melodic simplicity and clear popular vein is
found in the vocal music of professional local musicians such as Tiburcio Hortúa
(c.1818–c.1880), represented by a very simple Responsión (Response) for voice and
guitar composed for the Feast of the Conception of the Virgin and contained in
the manuscript song collection mentioned above. The same could be concluded
from Los Negritos, a Christmas VILLANCICO by Manuel M. Rueda (?–c.1881) –
Quijano’s antecessor as chapel master – that presents a fusion of the old tradition,
following all the conventions of the colonial VILLANCICO DE NEGROS, with the
accompaniment of guitar and bandola, two of the typical companions of popular
songs, this time set to the hemiolic rhythmic structure of the BAMBUCO. Rueda is
also the author of a set of Lamentations based on the waltz (Aire de Valse).65 In ear-
ly 1829, canon Manuel M. Mosquera (General Tomás Cipriano’s brother) de-
63 Perdomo Escobar, »La música colonial en Colombia«, Revista Musical Chilena, 81–82,
(1962), pp. 170–71; El Archivo Musical de la Catedral de Bogotá, Bogotá: Instituto Caro y
Cuervo, 1976, pp. 69, 115.
64 Drew E. Davies, »México galante: Hacia una historiografía precisa de la música italianiza-
da en la Nueva España«, paper presented at Coloquio Internacional de Musicología. Casa de
Las Américas, La Habana, Cuba, 14–18 April, 2008.
65 Ms. MI 1453, ff. 40, 54; Bermúdez, Historia, pp. 31–33, 171 and CD 2, 5 and 7.
183Egberto Bermudez
nounced in a letter the intrusion of »very obscene dances« into the previous
Christmas religious services. But as early as 1783 church authorities tried to ban
VILLANCICOS and CANCIONES PROFANAS (secular songs) from Christmas func-
tions.66 That they were not very successful is implied in references to the BAMBU-
CO, TORBELLINO and other SONES POPULARES being sung and played at churches
near and in Bogotá from 1845 to 1864 during Christmas, and to waltzes, mazur-
kas, Cuban DANZAS and PASILLOS played on the piano during Holy Week in
1867 and 1876.67 The presence from 1892 of foreign chapel masters, the Spanish
Lorenzo Elcoro and later the Italian Egisto Giovanetti would signal the disman-
tling of this tradition, which – at least in the opinion of some – incarnated
old-fashioned aesthetics. As we shall see below, in the first half of the 20th-century
song composers such as Gonzalo Vidal (1863–1946), Guillermo Quevedo Zorno-
za (1886–1964), Luis A. Calvo (1882–1945), Adolfo Mejía (1905–1973) and José
Rozo Contreras (1894–1976) amongst others, contributed to religious music and
to a vast repertoire of anthems dedicated to various private and public institutions
and to many Colombian cities and regions.68
The popularity of festival choirs and the emergence of a market for oratorio
can be seen as a result of the democratization of European social and cultural life,
which also had a positive impact on the improvement of music printing and the
growth of musical literacy, sometimes through the invention of simplified systems
of notation.69 To a certain extent, we find a similar situation in mid-19th-century
Colombia where, from 1851 onwards, a few theory books and a new system of
music notation catered for a very limited demand. In the Latin-American context,
however, oratorio never competed with opera and ZARZUELA but interesting mid-
way solutions between the religious and the popular were found, such as the ZAR-
ZUELA MÍSTICA (»religious zarzuela«) Quevedo Rachadell assembled a company for
that purpose in Bogotá in 1857 and in the manuscript song-collection of around
1880 one section of a Venezuelan ZARZUELA MÍSTICA is to be found.70 Decades
later, popular song also made its way to one of the very few oratorios composed in
66 Perdomo Escobar, El Archivo, pp. 115–16.
67 Davidson, I, pp. 423–24.
68 See Stella Bonilla de Páramo, Compositores Colombianos.Vida y Obra. Catalogo No. 1, Bo-
gotá: Instituto Colombiano de Cultura/Centro de Documentación Musical, 1992.
69 Theodore M. Finney, »The Oratorio and Cantata Market: Britain, Germany, America
c.1830–c.1910«, in Jacobs, Choral, pp. 217–30.
70 José M. Cordovez Moure, Reminiscencias de Santafé y Bogotá, Bogotá: Gerado Rivas Edi-
tor, 1997, p. 918; Ms. MI 1453, f. 44v.
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