Catoctin clarion., 1920-05-27

Last week it was a Malay cycle.
short time before 1t was the Japanese
tone-poem, and next week and the
week after perhaps the league Of piano
playing nations will be the richer by
the rhapsodies and the dance poems
of the Incas. who might be supposed
to be a civilization so old and SO fed
up with the changes in culture that
they would have forgotten all the
tunes they ever knew, says the New
York Evening Sun
But through the indefatigable efforts
Of one Carlos Valderrama, Peruvian
pianist, the ancient and unimpaired
Inca melodies have been unearthed
from the Peruvian jungle. And for
all who may care to come and hear
them, he has embodied them IN COM
positions which simulate exactly the
strange and savage Inca harmonies,
both those which have come down
from the centuries Of that civilization,
and those which show the influence
Of the Spanish conquest.
Not % GASy 90 SotH0s
The Inca melodies which Mr.. Val
derrama has taken down and harmon
lied In his compositions have not come
to him az easily as those of the sands
and the desert schools Of American
Indian composers. 1t must be said al
so that In proportion as the Inca melo-
dies were hard to get they are vivid
highly colOred and suggestive OF the
intricate tribal culture OF the people
The Incas do not hang around the
coast of Peru waiting for the Peruvian
artist and cOsmopolite to study their
culture.
They have carried themselves and
their customs into the remote receSseS
of the Peruvian forests. Mr.. Valdez
rama spent several months cutting his
way through the undergrowths. and
he spent likewise II couple of year
studying the language-which IL en-
titled Quecha-with the natives OF
Cajamarca, Peruvian Indians, who ar
descendants from the original Incas.
Their music, says Mr.. Vnlderrama
who was brought up to be an engineer
but whose talents have led him int,
the ways of a musician, has the same
melancholy romanticism which Is char
acteristic of the western Indian. Of tn,
Egyptian, Of the South Sea isande
and of most primitive civilizations.
SkiiIfuI In fermentation.
Where the progress of the Peruvian
art differs from Othr. primitive mus.
cal outbnrsIs is I'm their skillful har-
mHnization. Their Instruments are all
of the reed and the powerful drum.
but they have produced SO many differ
ent types and they have harmonized
them so cleverly that they can pro-
duce the effect of n full orchestra.
The flute and an instrument called
the clarinet-which, however, Is moth
ing like clarinet-are their favOrites.
All of their compositions are written,
Of course, In the minor, like most prim-
tive peoples; their scale Is usually
pentatonic, but they vary 1t by skill
ful use of the semitOne. All In all,
these Peruvi; MS seemed to have chased
after DebuSsy and the rest of them
as fast as they might be expected to
with the instruments Of their culture.
Mr.. Nalderrama has attempted to
arrange for the piano long list Of
compositions which reproduce exactly
the tonal efforts Of the Peruvian In
dians at oil the significant episodes of
their history and through the daily
ritual of the savages' life, beginning,
of course, with the Salute to the
Morning Sun"
In fact, he has written down in one
rhapsody not merely the Incas' eight
hour day, but In an Inca-Spanish rhap-
sody the struggle and the roar of
the Spanish invasion. Modern music
seems little tame and exotic after
listening to the downfall and the mar
tyrdOm of the harmoniZed Incas.