Off-campus UNL users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your NU ID and password. When you are done browsing please remember to return to this page and log out.

Non-UNL users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.

Rediscovering Argentine Repertoire Written in the 1930s: A Performative Study of Concert Piano Works by Lita Spena and Celia Torrá

Florencia Mariel Zuloaga, University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Abstract

A survey of the piano repertoire written during the decade of 1930 in Argentina reveals the rising number of several works written by women composers. For the first time, the years that followed the inauguration of the National Conservatory of Music and Theater in 1924 witnessed a professionalization of women in the field of music composition, and two figures made great strides in this regard. Celia Torrá and Lita Spena stood out among the first female composition students at the National Conservatory and some of the first to succeed as professional composers. Furthermore, they were among the first women to be admitted into the National Music Society. The prestigious credential provided by this institution is a testimony of Torrá and Spena’s relevance in the Argentine academic music scene during the decade of 1930s. The following study aims to rediscover the concert piano works written by Celia Torrá and Lita Spena between 1933 and 1939. The main purpose of this document is to create an analytical and interpretative guide for the performance of three pieces: Celia Torrá’s Piano Sonata (1933), Lita Spena’s Piano Sonata (1937) and Lita Spena’s Piano Preludes (1939). The goal of such stylistic examination is to demonstrate that the concert piano works written by Torrá and Spena represent two polar opposites of the compositional schools that coexisted in Argentina during the 1930s. How can we explain the contemporaneity of Celia Torrá’s Sonata, a piece with overt Romantic roots whose main theme evokes the Argentine northwest pre-Columbian past and its Indigenous traditions, and Lita Spena’s Preludes, which reflect the Debussyan approach of objective symbolism? A detailed study of the diverse musical trends occurring in Argentina during the 1930s will shed light on this matter. Through the performance and advancement of scholarly-based studies, I hope to bring awareness to this particular repertoire, bridging the gap between works of underrepresented composers and the traditional concert piano repertoire in general.

Subject Area

Performing Arts|Music|Music history

Recommended Citation

Zuloaga, Florencia Mariel, "Rediscovering Argentine Repertoire Written in the 1930s: A Performative Study of Concert Piano Works by Lita Spena and Celia Torrá" (2022). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI29999912.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI29999912

Share

COinS