Much ado among academic musicians: the first national congress of music (1926, 1928)

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to raise some of the debates that took place around the renewal of academic music in the context of the first two national music congresses (Mexico City, 1926, 1928). Rather than give an account of the event itself, it would be more interesting to venture, from the perspective of cultural history, into the political and cultural surroundings that reflect the stress field that is at stake in the process of building a national identity, the modernization of musical studies and the emergence of Mexican modernism. This highlights the alleged false homogeneity of the revolutionary project, as what is shown is the outcropping of the great diversity of trends and position taking that took place during the first few decades of the twentieth century. Given the vastness of the debates and topics discussed at both meetings, I focus on some of the main discussions.