page_title: Julián Carrillo
section_title: Last years
hierarchical_section_title: Julián Carrillo / Biography / Last years
caption_attribution_description: English: Tomb of Julian Carrillo in the Panteon Civil de Dolores cemetery in Mexico City
context_page_description: Julián Carrillo Trujillo was a Mexican composer, conductor, violinist and music theorist, famous for developing a theory of microtonal music which he dubbed "The Thirteenth Sound".
context_section_description: From 1960 to 1965 Carrillo recorded about thirty musical works with the Lamoureaux Concerts' Association Symphony Orchestra with renowned French musicians like Jean-Pierre Rampal, Bernard Flavigny, Robert Gendre, and Reine Flachot. These records were made by Philips in Paris. Jean-Etienne Marie was the sound engineer. In 1960 Carrillo composed his Canon atonal a 64 voces (Atonal Canon for 64 Voices); the Misa de la Restauración dedicada a Juan XXIII (Mass of the Restoration dedicated to Pope John XXIII for male voices a capella in quarter-tones); Balbuceos (Babbles for metamorphoser piano in sixteenth-tones and orchestra).
  This last work was commissioned by Leopold Stokowski and performed for the first time in Houston. In Paris during 1963, Carrillo won the Great Award of Latin American Music. He lectured in the Mexican Embassy in London and was interviewed by the BBC. The Times of London published an article from their Mexico City correspondent:
  The grand old man of Mexican music, Julián Carrillo, has spent his life peering into an unsuspected microtonic world of sound. He has shattered and then remade our chromatic scale, and we might be tempted to call him the atom-splitter of music, except that the name gives no idea of the rich emotional world he has opened. … This was a more startling revolution than when Terpander, in Greece 26 centuries ago, added two notes to the Chinese five-tone scale.
  In 1964 Robert Gendre premiered Carrillo's First Violin Concerto in quarter- tones. That year, Carrillo wrote several works: three sonatas for viola in quarter-tones, a Sonata for violin in quarter-tones, the Second Violin Concerto in quarter-tones, and several atonal canons. Mexico's government awarded him the Civic Merit Medal because of the anniversary of the Canto a la Bandera (Song to the National Flag).
  In 1965 the USSR invited Carrillo to perform several concerts across the country, but he died before it could be a reality. He also won the Sibelius Award of Finland, with the support of the most important musical institutes of France, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, but his death prevented his receiving it personally. Carrillo died in Mexico City on September 9, 1965. His body was placed in the Rotonda de los Hombres Ilustres (the Rotunda of Illustrious Persons) of the Panteón de Dolores.
caption: Tomb of Julian Carrillo in the Panteon Civil de Dolores cemetery in Mexico City.
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D60", "Image Software": "Ver.1.00", "Image DateTime": "2009:05:24 10:56:33", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "144", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/125", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:05:24 10:56:33", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:05:24 10:56:33", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "24/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "40", "EXIF SubSecTime": "80", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "80", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "80", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3872", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2592", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 2, 0, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "60", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}