Essays on Cuban Music: North American and Cuban Perspectives by Peter ManuelReview by: Malena KussNotes, Second Series, Vol. 50, No. 3 (Mar., 1994), pp. 934-941Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/898544 .

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NOTES, March 1994

Essays on Cuban Music: North American and Cuban Perspectives. Ed- ited by Peter Manuel. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1991. [xvi, 327 p. ISBN 0-8191-8430-6. $39.50.]

Few Latin American countries can claim the concentration of talent and level of or- ganization that characterizes the investiga- tion of music in contemporary Cuba. In this collection of thirteen essays by Cuban and United States scholars, Peter Manuel captures many facets of this activity. Bril- liantly conceived to reflect a multiplicity of approaches, the volume

constitutes an attempt to respond to the growing Euro-American interest in Cu- ban music and its offshoots, and, in general, to recognize, through scholarly attention, the extraordinary richness, vi- tality, and international influence of that music over the last two centuries. Indeed, with the possible exception of certain former colonial powers, there is probably no country on earth whose music has had such extensive foreign impact, relative to its size, as has that of Cuba. (P. vii)

In addition to making available in English some previously published seminal state- ments by Cuban scholars spanning three generations, Manuel contributes a critical tissue, shaped as a crescendo, that sets out its premises in the introduction (pp. vii- xvi), builds up in concise analytical remarks preceding each essay, and leads to Manuel's own concluding article, "Music Pluralism in Revolutionary Cuba," where he raises pro- vocative questions.

The thirteen essays are grouped into three topical headings that keep Cuban and North American contributions distinct un- der the first two, but juxtapose perspectives in the third. This "teleological" design ac- cumulates levels of information and mean- ing that prepare readers for Manuel's final essay on the paradoxical coexistence of freedom and control in the musics prac- ticed in contemporary Cuba.

Under the first heading, "Cuban Per- spectives on Traditional Folk and Popular Musics," Manuel groups translations of five "classic" statements on what Cubans prefer to call "musica del pueblo," instead of the less elastic, more artificially distinct (and persistent) English counterparts, "folk" and "popular" musics. These are by such au-

thorities as Argeliers Le6n (1918-1991), the towering figure of Cuban musicology, teacher, and composer who also headed the music section of the Casa de las Americas and its journal, the Boletin de Musica; Ro- gelio Martfnez Fur6 (b. 1937), an ethnolo- gist, poet, musician, founder (1962) and now director of the Conjunto Folklo6rico Nacional; Leonardo Acosta (b. 1933), a sax- ophonist and prolific musicographer, the author of nine books and a contributor to the journal Revolucion y Cultura; Olavo A1en Rodriguez, the youngest scholar in the group and heir to Le6n's pivotal role in Cuban musicology, who now heads the dy- namic Centro de Investigaci6n y Desarrollo de la M6sica Cubana (CIDMUC); and Maria Teresa Linares (b. 1920), a regal presence in a country that has pioneered gender equality, a distinguished ethnolo- gist, and director of the Museo Nacional de la Musica, one of Latin America's model archives.

The first and last essays in this section are vintage Le6n and Linares, a fitting choice given that they shared a lifetime (in mar- riage) of commitment to their work. (Both essays were published in their original lan- guage in Ensayos de musica latinoamericana [Havana: Casa de las Americas, 1982], itself a gathering of articles from the Boletin de Musica.) In "Notes toward a Panorama of Folk and Popular Musics," Le6n surveys the origins, processes of change, and in- terpenetrations in repertories and genres formed from Cuba's idiosyncratic blend of African and Hispanic roots. The three cate- gories into which he groups these popular expressions in the context of their respec- tive environments and spheres of influence are based on the degree of proximity to their sources (the "primeval" elements that forge the rest, or "elementos primigenios"). Under the first category he places "ante- cedents" and defines them as (1) the "can- tos del campesino" or archaic rural folk songs, and (2) the ritual musics of African groups ("grupos afroides"). The third cate- gory, furthest removed from the sources and yet the best known (as "musica popular cubana") is designated as "factor urbano elaborado" or "processed" genres that exist

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in an urban context and include Cuban adaptations of European dances (such as the contradanza and the vals tropical) as well as Cuban genres such as the son, the guajira, bolero, and guaracha. Between these cate- gories he places the second-or interme- diate-"factor urbano primario," trans- lated as urban folk music. This Le6n defines as forms that maintain a link with the "primeval sources," exist within an infra-urban context, and resort to the crea- tive use of "everyday objects" (such as doors, pots, bottles, etc.) for the generation of timbric and rhythmic layers of sound. Under this category he discusses such tra- ditional rumba types as the yambi, columbia, and guaguanc6. Le6n does not specify a dis- tinction between oral and written tradi- tions, though only his third category (the "elaborated" urban genres) implies written transmission and includes the influx of Eu- ropean salon dances that had already reached Cuba in the eighteenth century.

While these three inductive categories are Le6n's own and do not constitute "native" categories (as perceived by practitioners-informants), they remain more allied to the phenomena surveyed than the categories of "folk" and "popular" to which Manuel reverts in his otherwise excellent translation of the article. I am well aware of the complexities involved in trans- lating Le6n's sinuously magnificent Cuban prose, and Manuel's sensitivity to the prob- lem is clear from his decision to take a liberal rather than a literal approach to the task. But the question is whether Manuel's decision to substitute Le6n's more contex- tual and fluid categories-the "primary ur- ban element" and the "elaborated urban element"-by the "less ambiguous" English terms "urban folk" and "urban popular" enriches or impoverishes the translation. The justification for Manuel's decision is clear: the familiar terms enhance commu- nication with an Anglophone audience. Lost however is the opportunity to intro- duce the same audience to alternative categories, precisely because "folk" and "popular" do not convey the necessary am- biguity to denote the network of interpene- trations that Le6n covers in his survey. Conversely, as Charles Hamm has noted, the labels "folk" and "popular" can lose definition in general discourse and become too vague. In his essay on "The Trans- formation of Folk into Popular Music

through Mass Dissemination," presented to the XIVth Congress of the International Musicological Society in 1987 (and pub- lished in its Proceedings [Torino: E.D.T., 1990], vol. 1, pp. 616-21), Hamm quotes the definition of "folk music" as formulated by the International Folk Music Council in 1955 and points to the general loss of meaning by this term "when used for such a wide range of musical genres ... and when intertwined with various ideological positions" (ibid., pp. 616-17). On the term "popular," Hamm adduces the failure of the 1983 conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music to define its object of study and "produce a document equivalent to the IFM's proc- lamation of 1955"; he notes, however, "some consensus that 'popular music' should be understood as a mass-dissemi- nated product in a generalized musical style, intended to be consumed by listeners of different geographical and cultural or- igins" (ibid.). These assumptions do not ac- commodate the range of expressions that Le6n covers under "factor urbano elabo- rado," inclusive of European-derived salon dances ("elementos cultistas"). This cate- gory is sufficiently ensconced in Le6n's thinking to reappear in his second essay in this volume ("Of the Axis and the Hinge"), where it is mistranslated by Terence Sweeny as "urban folk music" (pp. 279- 80), and is therefore inconsistent with Man- uel's translation of the same category as "urban popular music" (pp. 1-23). More- over, the categories in Manuel's translation of "Notes toward a Panorama" do not com- municate Le6n's mode of discourse, which he may have conceived intentionally to avoid the term "folklo6rico," while the Span- ish term "popular" covers the entire range of expressions he surveys ("musica del pueblo"). In the context of the need for a definition of "popular music" that Hamm identified not so long ago, it seems appro- priate to include here the dimension that Olavo Alen Rodriguez builds into his def- inition:

That which is "popular" depends on the level of aesthetic information that a work (or form of expression) requires to be perceived and valued by a group of people. That is, a work must possess a number or quantity of aesthetic elements already known to the individuals at the

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NOTES, March 1994

moment of reception that would permit quick grasping of the aesthetic message and-at the same time-a proportional number of unknown elements that would transmit new aesthetic informa- tion with which the attention and plea- sure of the receiver can be captured.... Since music unfolds in time, the possi- bility of perception is determined by the quantity of aesthetic information con- tained and its relation to the total unit of time within which it is unfolded. Thus, a new relationship emerges between the time used to present a specific amount of aesthetic information and the time needed by an individual to process this information. ("La tradici6on popular y su significaci6n social y polftica," in Musi- cologia en Latinoamerica, ed. Zoila G6mez Garcfa [Havana: Editorial Arte y Liter- atura, 1984], pp. 393-94)

Sweeny's translation of Le6n's "Del eje y la bisagra" (best translated as "Of the Axis and the Hinge") casts the only shadow on this remarkable compilation. Unless Sweeny worked from a different Spanish original than that in Ensayos de misica lat- inoamericana, "Buenos Aires" here becomes "Brazil" (especially disquieting to this Argentine-born reviewer). Leon's article mainly concerns the pivotal role of the Cu- ban composers Amadeo Roldan (1900- 1939) and Alejandro Garcia Caturia (1906-1940), whose neo-Africanisms are far from "self-conscious" (compare Man- uel, p. 25, and Acosta, p. 212). In his trans- lation, Sweeny obscures Le6n's insightful point that the interests of the avant- garde-notably the Afro-Cubanisms of the 1920s as represented by Roldan- conflicted with an earlier "Europeaniza- tion" of Cuban composition, as represented by Eduardo Sanchez de Fuentes (1874- 1944). Le6n holds that these "interests" were defended and attacked more by po- lemics carried out in the press than by con- frontations inspired by actual perfor- mances, since many of Roldan's works were premiered only after the 1959 Revolution (compare Le6n's original, p. 305, with the translation here, p. 270). The typograph- ical errors and misaccented or misspelled Spanish words that one notes elsewhere in this volume are relatively insignificant com- pared to the value of the message (for in- stance, note 7 on p. 56 should read Del canto

y el tiempo). In Sweeny's translation how- ever, we miss the sophisticated prose sus- tained throughout in Manuel's own trans- lations, in the translation of Martinez Fure's "Regarding Folklore" by Sandra Levinson and Jerome Nickel, as well as by the authors writing in English.

Between Le6n's inclusive "Panorama" and Linares's masterful study of the wide- spread rural punto cubano of Hispanic roots and its rich cancionero, Manuel places two poetic vindications of Cuba's African her- itage as the defining element in the welding of Cuban identity ("Tambor" by Martfnez Fure, and "Rumba, Guaguanc6, and Tfo Tom" by Acosta) and a rigorous ethno- graphic description of the traditional so- cieties known as tumbas francesas by A1en Rodriguez. In the symbolic journey of the "Tambor" as "metaphorical sketch of the vicissitudes of black Cubans in general" (p. 26)-that informs Le6n's "elementos primigenios"-and in the historical journey of the traditional guaguanc6 or "sung rumba par excellence" as "social chronicle of the dispossessed" (p. 54)-which ex- pands on Le6n's "primary urban factor"- both Martfnez Fure and Acosta apply the "great man theory" to popular culture by drafting living portraits of two legends. These are the batd player and builder of sacred Yoruba drums, Jose del Carmen de la Trinidad Torregosa y Hernandez, also known as Omf Asainde in his role of santero or officiant in the practice of santeria, a Cuban cult of Yoruba origins; and the legendary rumbero Gonzalo Asencio or Tfo Tom (1919-1991), a versatile composer, lead singer, dancer, and lead drum player, the "King of guaguanco" (pp. 62-73). The neo-African societies of mutual aid and re- creation known as tumbas francesas were founded by the first descendants of French-speaking immigrants from Haiti who reached Cuba around 1790. The popu- larity of the tumbas francesas peaked about 1900, with only two societies remaining ac- tive at the present time. This tradition is fully documented in Alen Rodrfguez's de- finitive book on the subject (La musica de las sociedades de tumbafrancesa en Cuba [Havana: Casa de las Americas, 1986]), awarded the Musicology Prize of the Casa de las Ameri- cas, and the basis for the synthesis pre- sented in this volume.

Two of the three contributions under the heading "Cuban Music in New York" doc-

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ument different types of retention of Cu- ban traditions in the city: the declining but tenacious charanga, or popular music in ti- pico style and the practice of traditional santeria. The third essay here probes the impact of media policies on the phenom- enon known as salsa. Besides French and Haitian immigration during the eighteenth century, the Louisiana purchase of 1812 redirected wealthy French settlers to Cuba. They imported, among other genres, the contredanse, and the classic trio of piano, violin, and flute. Although the (by then Cu- ban) nineteenth-century contradanza was initially performed by an ensemble called tipico (two violins, two clarinets, one double bass, one trumpet, one trombone, ophi- cleide, Cuban pailas, and gtiiro), this en- semble was gradually replaced by the cha- ranga francesa, based on the "French" trio to which Cuban percussion instruments, three violins, one flute, one 'cello, and one double bass were added. This became the "sound" of the orquesta tipica, and-as noted by Alen Rodriguez-the evolution of the charanga francesa (now called orquesta tipica) remained associated with the development of the Cuban contradanza into related forms such as the danza, danz6n, danzonete, and cha-cha-chd, especially after the composition of the first danz6n, "Las alturas de Simpson" (1879) by Miguel Fafide (1852-1921) (see also Alen Rodriguez's "On the Cuban Con- tradanza and Habanera," forthcoming in The Universe of Music: A History [Washing- ton, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press], vol. 11: South America, Central America, Mex- ico, and the Caribbean, ed. Malena Kuss). John Murphy's "The Charanga in New York and the Persistence of the Tipico Style" is a model of ethnographic method applied to document and interpret the re- tention of the more conservative tipico style among a specific sector of New York's Latin population. Unlike salsa, which can accom- modate multiple identities, Murphy argues that it is the stable and therefore "typical" frame of aesthetic reference that accounts for both the decline and persistence of the charanga as deterritorialized, residual cul- ture (pp. 130-33).

By contrast, "Drumming for the Orishas" in New York is a growing practice. Steven Cornelius frames his engaging account of the reconstruction of the batd tradition of drumming in santeria within the larger issue of the impact of recorded sound and

published research on the intentional re- creation and transmission of oral traditions when they became deterritorialized. As a religious system, Cuban santeria absorbs the Regia de Ocha, or cult of the orishas (deities of the ancient Yoruba pantheon syncre- tized with external affinities to Catholic saints). It was not until the Mariel boats brought an authentic santero (Orlando "Puntilla" Rios) in 1980 that New York practitioners, reconstructing the tradition since about 1950 from recordings and tran- scriptions, could measure their re-creation against the art of a "real" master drummer (pp. 148-50). By now, the orishas speak En- glish and drummers have adopted the faster tempo of the city. In "Salsa and the Music Industry" Manuel probes the inter- play between corporate mass media policies and the evolution of salsa to argue that monopolized ownership homogenizes the content of popular music by transforming its ideal function as vehicle of social identity (e.g., salsa as "barrio music" with a militant message) into a bland, decontextualized commodity that diffuses identity and con- sequently alienates ethnic groups.

Thus, the development of salsa can be seen as an ongoing dialectic between, on the one hand, the Latino community's attempt to shape salsa as its own sub- cultural expression, and, on the other hand, the tendency of the commercial music industry to glamorize, decontex- tualize, and depoliticize the music as a bland and innocuous dance music-as ketchup rather than salsa. (P. 163)

Although aesthetic innovation (as stem- ming from the creativity of individuals) is not the focus of his study, Manuel concedes that factors not originating with the music industry (though affecting it) played a role in the decline of salsa in the mid- to late 1970s. Among these factors he cites the second and third generations of young Lat- ino immigrants who favored rock, the eruption of Dominican merengue on the New York scene, and the association of salsa with lower class values by middle- class, English-speaking Latino descendants. While the popularity of salsa performed live in clubs and festivals has not declined (p. 179), Manuel stresses that media ad- vertising policies targetting the largest com- mon denominator among Latino groups

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NOTES, March 1994

have manipulated public taste by promot- ing what he calls the "homogenizing and bland sentimental ballad." This is the cul- prit that cultivates "passive consumers rather than active community participants, and, like bourgeois ideology in general, [it seeks to] obscure class antagonisms" (p. 180). Manuel concludes on a utopian note:

Diversity of ownership and media con- trol is the only reliable source of diversity in content; thus, the more that the mass media are in genuinely public hands, whether via public/state control or grass- roots ownership, the more will the media be potentially able to represent the ethnic and class pluralism of a given society. (P. 180)

But where have we proved a cause and effect relationship between policy (whether private or state controlled) and human creativity? Methodologically, can we bypass aesthetic information when attempting such a correlation? Can the media ever be "neutral"? What are "genuinely public hands"? And, how genuine are the public hands that control the media in Cuba? That Manuel intends us to raise these and other questions is clear from the concluding group of essays under the heading of "Socialism, Nationalism, and Music in Twentieth-Century Cuba."

Indeed, the conclusion to Manuel's article-that the media driven by capital- istic goals have a homogenizing effect on popular music-is implicitly counterargued in the companion piece by Leonardo Acosta. Addressing "The Problem of Music and Its Dissemination in Cuba," Acosta describes how the state-controlled media can hinder creativity and its dissemination when encumbered by a bureaucratic ma- chine, theoretically set in motion to support musicians and rank musical activities among the highest priorities of the state. Writing in 1983, Acosta endorses cultural policies such as the preservation of neo- African traditions through recordings (though he finds the results "conserva- tive"), and the ranked salaries that support professional musicians (even when they lead to inertia). He objects, however, to an overcentralized system of contracting mu- sicians that delays media responsiveness to public taste and consumption; to the lack of objective means to measure taste, lead-

ing to subjective decisions about what is disseminated; and, in general, to proce- dures that suffocate what he calls "natural" dynamic processes of change (he avoids the word "freedom"). (In his contribution to this volume, James Robbins cites more re- cent studies that measure "taste," con- ducted by the development department of the Centro de Investigaci6n y Desarrollo de la Musica Cubana [see pp. 237, 238, note 54].) While unparalleled creativity still sur- faces (in composers such as Pablo Milanes), in spite of factors that impair its dissem- ination in Cuba and abroad, Acosta's plea for "more support of innovation" leads Manuel to conclude that

the Cuban socialist music industry and its capitalist counterpart in the USA tend actively to shape the music they dissemi- nate, rather than serving as neutral [?] vehicles of transmission. (P. xiii)

As an engaged view of the machine that sustains musical activities, Acosta's article also provides the insider's counterpart to James Robbins's more systematic and broader perspective on the same regulating network. In "Institutions, Incentives, and Evaluation in Cuban Music-Making," Rob- bins penetrates the anatomy of this bureau- cracy and, most impressively, the degree to which the bodies that control decisions work at congruent or cross-purposes. Pro- fessional musicians, for instance, become salaried through an evaluation system that starts at the level of local councils, whose members may or may not be competent to judge them. While not unlike systems of faculty evaluation at North American uni- versities, the "wage spread" of these ten- ured (plantilla) musicians ranges from 171 to 400 pesos. Bonuses are possible through a cumbersome system of designation. Mu- sicians can also be on indefinite or limited contract, thus nontenured, and many mu- sic teachers are in this category. Cultural institutions, as another instance, are fi- nanced by the state. The choice of what the self-financed recording company EGREM records falls on a system of evaluation that depends on the Ministry of Culture. EGREM, though self-financed, bears no marketing responsibility for its product. A central office distributes recordings to re- tail stores, while these have virtually no control over what they stock. Unsold stock

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moreover, becomes the responsibility of the Ministry of Interior Commerce. And so on. While Cubans are spared the abomination of advertising, they are not spared the small-minded functionaries who influence the implementation of policy. At the same time, some outstanding personalities- Argeliers Le6n (d. 1991), Leo Brouwer, Alicia Perea Plaza, to name a few-are also placed at the top of the decision-making process.

Significantly, Robbins minimizes the tar- gets of Acosta's criticism (aimed also at showing a measure of freedom within Cu- ban discourse). As a foreign observer rather than a native practitioner, however, Robbins can hardly be expected to share Acosta's impassioned need to preserve the rate of innovation that has characterized Cuban musics throughout their history. What Robbins describes so effectively is a closed, entropic system whose idealistic (or ideological) components seem defeated by the unavoidable ceiling on economic re- ward. Manuel would disagree. In his in- troduction to Robbins's article, he writes:

For indeed, the most significant char- acteristics-and, one could argue, achieve- ments-of music-making in communist Cuba are those which are ultimately sub- jective and intangible, having to do with the ideological effects of the substantial elimination of commercialism and profit motives from music-making. However extensive and frustrating the inefficien- cies and bureaucratic impediments en- gendered by public control may be, the relative liberation of art from commerce remains a unique and fundamental at- tainment, and one that is inherently im- possible in capitalism. (P. 216)

As did Acosta's plea for "support of in- novation," Robbins concludes that the musicians themselves should have greater input on the decision-making process that affects them. "The point of socialism is, after all, that is it not the one who pays the piper, but the one who pipes, who calls the tune" (p. 247). The problem remains the assumption that the Cuban case can be of- fered as an alternative to the perils of the not-so-free enterprise and profit incentive.

What the Cuban state, in 1973, should do about "folklore" is the subject of a militant "manifesto [by an orthodox Marxist] on

the progressive role of Afro-Cuban culture in revolutionary Cuba" (Manuel's introduc- tion, p. 250). "Regarding Folklore" by Ro- gelio Martfnez Fure is as classic as it is self- contradictory and as such eludes argument. Not even the author's attempt to reconcile practice with irreconcilable theory how- ever, can jeopardize the penetrating in- sights on "folklore" contained therein. Compare, for instance, the more rigorous definition of "folk music" as formulated by the International Folk Music Council in 1955 with Martfnez Fur6's choice of lan- guage to harness the same phenomenon:

Folklore is a people's culture, as trans- mitted generally through oral tradition. It consists of the manners and customs of a society which reflect the group's ex- periences, tastes, aspirations, conceptions of life and death, and so on; the ways it builds and decorates its houses, its oral prose and poetry, remedies, home cook- ing, popular art, beliefs and supersti- tions, mythology, music, dance, holidays, traditional dress, and all that which scholars have called "popular knowl- edge" or "traditional popular culture." Folklore is the opposite of the official, the bookish, and the institutionalized. It is the product of the socio-economic and historical experiences which character- ize that community as a social entity. Folklore is from the people, and for the people. It is anonymous, empirical, col- lective, and functional. (P. 251)

Even more compelling is Martinez FurC's vision of "an Antillean civilization" (pp. 263-65), whose parallel expressions of folk culture he documents with virtuosity as links between different Caribbean colonial histories (Spanish, English, French, and Dutch).

The only article in this volume to address Western "art" music composition is Le6n's "Of the Axis and the Hinge" that I have mentioned in the context of its translation. If the purpose of its inclusion was to inform us of Cuban "nationalism," it does so only insofar as it deals partially with the recep- tion of prerevolutionary works by Roldan and by Garcfa Caturla in postrevolution- ary Cuba. It is significant that the sub- stance construed as "national" with which they identified in the 1920s and 1930s is predominantly neo-African-and thus

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congruent with the revolutionary cultural policy to preserve and "vindicate" tradi- tions of neo-African roots. This association however, is not borne out by close analytical scrutiny of the works of Caturla, for in- stance, since the popular elements he se- lected as constructivistic compositional de- vices show that neo-African and neo- Hispanic traditions had already fused at the folk level before they appear assimi- lated into his works (cf. my "The Conflu- ence of Historical Coordinates in Car- pentier/Cartula's Puppet Opera Manita en el Suelo," in Musical Repercussions of 1492, ed. Carol Robertson [Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992], pp. 299-335). More recent art music compo- sition in Cuba-as represented by such in- ternationally recognized figures as Juan Blanco (b. 1919), Carlos Farifias (b. 1934), and Leo Brouwer (b. 1939)-adheres to a multiplicity of procedures that range from serialism, postserialism, and aleatory, to ex- perimentation with musique concrete and electronic sound generation. Whatever is "Cuban" about them is a sublimation of national character that eludes confinement under "nationalism." It is precisely their freedom to choose any level of complexity of aesthetic information, potentially inac- cessible to mass audiences, that we could term paradoxical. In short, we miss a state- ment on this piece of the puzzle in this volume, since it should enter into the "Mu- sical Pluralism in Revolutionary Cuba" that Manuel interprets in his concluding essay.

This study centers on the following ques- tion: How can the practice of musics of neo-African animistic cults, the retention of cabaret kitsch (as left over from the Tropi- cana shows of the 1950s), and the promo- tion of Western "concert" music, be rec- onciled with orthodox Marxist doctrine? The beliefs surrounding neo-African reli- gions are "unscientific" and therefore in- compatible with Marxism, which is secular and atheistic. Cabaret kitsch is "decadent" and at best "sexist," in a society that pro- motes gender equality. Mozart, along with the whole canon of Western art music, is at best "bourgeois." This is the pluralism he calls paradoxical. The answers reflect per- ceptions gathered mostly from interviews with Cuban scholars and government of- ficials. The study, preservation, and even encouragement of Afro-Cuban traditions, "vital to Cuban national identity," combat

racism and "preserve the cultural patri- mony of the lower classes, in whose name the Revolution has been implemented" (p. 295), a convincing explanation. The glitter of cabaret extravaganzas is vindicated by the absence of gambling and the curbing of explicit pornography, their 'sexism' neu- tralized by the "context of a non-sexist so- ciety" (pp. 302-4).

When we come to the justification for the promotion of Western art music in Cuba, we stumble upon problematic assumptions. While Manuel quotes Jesus G6mez Cairo, music director in the Ministry of Culture, as saying that art music carries no inherent bourgeois character (p. 299), and thus is not incompatible with Marxist dogma, Manuel asserts that "arts musics are invari- ably associated with elites" (p. 297), refers to Western art music as "bourgeois" (p. 298), and surprises us with the statement that

Mozart's continuing popularity in West- ern bourgeois society is due at least in part to the extent to which the society shares aspects of eighteenth-century bourgeois ideology. (P. 300)

This is in itself incompatible with Manuel's stance on the hegemony of reception:

Ultimately, there is nothing in the notes themselves which is inherently sad, an- gry, or bourgeois, etc., except insofar as these meanings and expressive devices are accepted and understood by audi- ences. (Pp. 299-300)

The obvious explanation for the promotion of Western art music in Cuba is the associa- tion of "high culture" with education or in Carl Dahlhaus's terms (see, e.g., his Foun- dations of Music History [Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press, 1983], chapter 10) the transmission of prestige as a criterion for the survival of a canon of works. To characterize the attitude of the Cuban state on this association, Manuel quotes from Ar- nold Hauser's The Social History of Art (New York: Knopf, 1951) on the need to prevent the monopoly of high art by elites, through mass education and improvement of socio- economic conditions (p. 301, note 22). He also elicits the support of Theodor Adorno (namely the Aesthetic Theory, cited ibid.), whose writings, however, would not sup- port any direct correlation between types of

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musics and specific social classes. Adorno implicitly differentiates between the social meaning that a type of music (as text) may embody within its social context at the time of composition, and the history of its later reception that-almost invariably- changes its social function.

The non-objective and non-conceptual character of music balks at tangible clas- sifications and identifications between its various dimensions, on the one hand, and classes or strata on the other. (In- troduction to the Sociology of Music, trans. E. B. Ashton [New York: Seabury Press, 1976], p. 55)

On the side of the producer, or composer, "the search for correspondences between class membership and a composer's so- cial origin, involves an error in principle" (ibid., pp. 56-57). On the side of reception, Adorno disavows the analysis of "effects" or listening habits as "unfit to yield insights into the specific social sense of music" be- cause reception can, and will, "turn it into something altogether different ... from what is currently believed to be its inalien- able content" (p. 61). As to how much the social function, in reception, can change the "meaning" of a text, Adorno cites the model of Frederic Chopin. "If a social bear- ing can without arbitrariness be attributed to any music at all, Chopin's music is aris- tocratic," the very side of him that invites "socialization." By way of household con- sumption and Hollywood hits, millions hum the melody of the Polonaise in Ab - major, thus "vaguely counting themselves with the elite" (pp. 61-62). This is the same Polonaise that-according to Alen Rodriguez -Havana citizens now "associate primarily with ice cream, as the piece is a regular part of the 'mood music' tape played at Copelia, a central park and re- freshment area" (Manuel, p. 299, note 19). Adorno concludes that

musics and specific social classes. Adorno implicitly differentiates between the social meaning that a type of music (as text) may embody within its social context at the time of composition, and the history of its later reception that-almost invariably- changes its social function.

The non-objective and non-conceptual character of music balks at tangible clas- sifications and identifications between its various dimensions, on the one hand, and classes or strata on the other. (In- troduction to the Sociology of Music, trans. E. B. Ashton [New York: Seabury Press, 1976], p. 55)

On the side of the producer, or composer, "the search for correspondences between class membership and a composer's so- cial origin, involves an error in principle" (ibid., pp. 56-57). On the side of reception, Adorno disavows the analysis of "effects" or listening habits as "unfit to yield insights into the specific social sense of music" be- cause reception can, and will, "turn it into something altogether different ... from what is currently believed to be its inalien- able content" (p. 61). As to how much the social function, in reception, can change the "meaning" of a text, Adorno cites the model of Frederic Chopin. "If a social bear- ing can without arbitrariness be attributed to any music at all, Chopin's music is aris- tocratic," the very side of him that invites "socialization." By way of household con- sumption and Hollywood hits, millions hum the melody of the Polonaise in Ab - major, thus "vaguely counting themselves with the elite" (pp. 61-62). This is the same Polonaise that-according to Alen Rodriguez -Havana citizens now "associate primarily with ice cream, as the piece is a regular part of the 'mood music' tape played at Copelia, a central park and re- freshment area" (Manuel, p. 299, note 19). Adorno concludes that

In our time, with music directly involved in social struggles by partisan propa- ganda and totalitarian measures, judg- ments about the class significance of mu- sical phenomena are doubly precarious. The stamp which political movements put upon musical ones has often nothing to do with the music and its content.... Music has something to do with classes insofar as it reflects the class relationship in toto. (Pp. 65, 69)

What the explanations for an apparently paradoxical pluralism in Cuba have in com- mon is the assumption that the values of the receivers (a classless, educated, nonsu- perstitious, gender-equal society, homoge- nized by doctrine) neutralize any inherent values of the donor (the musics themselves) that may be incompatible with political the- ory. The "hegemony of reception" is nec- essary to accommodate these explanations. Any consideration of immanent properties (whether aesthetic or social) in "texts" would disqualify their coexistence in such a socialist context.

According to Manuel, "The second key to addressing the paradox lies in the re- alization that artistic meaning is not im- manent in the text, but only in its inter- pretation" (p. 310). Manuel does relax for a moment to contemplate the simpler pos- sibility that this pluralism is not discour- aged for far more pragmatic reasons (pp. 309-10). Let me end by posing an unan- swered question: What is the difference between the monopoly of the corporate- owned media that homogenizes popular taste and the monopoly of a dogma that homogenizes systems of explanation, thus circumventing any debate over ideal object theory vis-a-vis reception history that seems to have eluded Manuel's interpretation?

MALENA Kuss University of North Texas

In our time, with music directly involved in social struggles by partisan propa- ganda and totalitarian measures, judg- ments about the class significance of mu- sical phenomena are doubly precarious. The stamp which political movements put upon musical ones has often nothing to do with the music and its content.... Music has something to do with classes insofar as it reflects the class relationship in toto. (Pp. 65, 69)

What the explanations for an apparently paradoxical pluralism in Cuba have in com- mon is the assumption that the values of the receivers (a classless, educated, nonsu- perstitious, gender-equal society, homoge- nized by doctrine) neutralize any inherent values of the donor (the musics themselves) that may be incompatible with political the- ory. The "hegemony of reception" is nec- essary to accommodate these explanations. Any consideration of immanent properties (whether aesthetic or social) in "texts" would disqualify their coexistence in such a socialist context.

According to Manuel, "The second key to addressing the paradox lies in the re- alization that artistic meaning is not im- manent in the text, but only in its inter- pretation" (p. 310). Manuel does relax for a moment to contemplate the simpler pos- sibility that this pluralism is not discour- aged for far more pragmatic reasons (pp. 309-10). Let me end by posing an unan- swered question: What is the difference between the monopoly of the corporate- owned media that homogenizes popular taste and the monopoly of a dogma that homogenizes systems of explanation, thus circumventing any debate over ideal object theory vis-a-vis reception history that seems to have eluded Manuel's interpretation?

MALENA Kuss University of North Texas

MIDDLE AGES AND RENAISSANCE MIDDLE AGES AND RENAISSANCE

Die Orgel im byzantinischen Hofzer- emoniell des 9. und des 10. Jahrh- underts: Eine Quellenuntersuchung. By Nikos Maliaris. (Miscellanea byzan- tina monacensia, 33.) Munich: Institut fur Byzantinistik und neugriesche Phi-

Die Orgel im byzantinischen Hofzer- emoniell des 9. und des 10. Jahrh- underts: Eine Quellenuntersuchung. By Nikos Maliaris. (Miscellanea byzan- tina monacensia, 33.) Munich: Institut fur Byzantinistik und neugriesche Phi-

lologie der Universitat Miinchen, 1991. [xiii, 335 p., plates, maps. No ISBN.]

For the most part, the study of Byzantine music concerns itself exclusively with the vocal music-manuscripts, paleographical

lologie der Universitat Miinchen, 1991. [xiii, 335 p., plates, maps. No ISBN.]

For the most part, the study of Byzantine music concerns itself exclusively with the vocal music-manuscripts, paleographical

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