Miguel Bernal Jiménez

Statue of Miguel Bernal Jiménez in the courtyard of the Conservatorio de las Rosas in Morelia

Miguel Bernal Jiménez (born February 16, 1910 in Morelia , † July 26, 1956 in León ) was a Mexican composer , organist , teacher and musicologist .

Jiménez is widely regarded as the most important exponent of 20th century Mexican religious music. He also made significant contributions to the country's nationalist music movement and is considered an important representative of nacionalismo sacro (Mexican movement of "sacred nationalism").

biography

Bernal Jiménez was born at the time of the Mexican Revolution . His musical career began as a choirboy at the age of seven. His teachers Felipe Ruiz Aguilera and Ignacio Mier y Arriaga discovered his talent. With their recommendation and the help of Canon José María Villaseñor, Bernal Jiménez succeeded in 1928 to be admitted to the Pontifical Institute for Church Music in Rome ( Pontificium Institutum Musicæ Sacræ ). There he studied the organ , counterpoint , fugue , composition , palaeographic musicology , instrumentation , harmony and Gregorian singing . At the age of just 23, Jiménez left the institute in 1933 with a doctorate in Gregorian chant, a diploma in composition and as a concert organist.

In the same year he returned to Mexico and became director of the Escuela Superior de Música Sagrada (College of Church Music) in Morelia , which he directed for twenty years. In his hometown he fought tirelessly for schools, gave concerts, organized courses and held congresses. He published numerous books, scores and writings on church music. From 1939 he published withSchola Cantorum was the first regular music magazine in the country with a focus on musicology and music education, one of the most important Mexican specialist publications of its time.

In 1944 he founded and directed the boys' choir Coro de los Niños Cantores de Morelia . In 1945 he became director of the Conservatorio de las Rosas , modernized the school and shaped it to this day. Between 1945 and 1946 he performed numerous organ concerts in the United States and Canada .

Miguel Bernal Jiménez was an important member of several socially active circles in Mexico. He was friends with other well-known musicians of his time, including Manuel M. Ponce and Silvestre Revueltas . Jiménez was also recognized internationally; many of his works were premiered in Spain .

He spent the last years of his life in the USA, where he was Dean of the College of Music at Loyola University New Orleans until his death . Bernal Jiménez died of a heart attack on July 26, 1956 while visiting family in Léon at the age of only 46.

Works

Miguel Bernal's catalog includes 251 works, including sacred and secular music, symphonic dramas, music, theater, sonatas, symphonies, masses, motets , hymns and Christmas carols.

His large musical repertoire consists of very different works. One of the most notable is “Tata Vasco” (1941), a symphonic drama which commemorates the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the Archbishop of Michoacán, Vasco de Quiroga, who was called Tarascan Tata Vasco by the local people . The premiere took place in Madrid with costumes and sets by Alejandro Rangel Hidalgo . The work combines the music of the indigenous population with Gregorian chant and romantic melodies, which stand for the respective sections of the story.

Bernal composed many of his works at the request of others. "Noche de Morelia" (1941) was created at the request of the local Red Cross and was premiered by the Matinal Symphony Orchestra under the direction of its founder Carlos Chávez . This work is representative of many of the customs of the Morelia people at that time. His symphony poem "Mexico" (1946) is one of his most important nationalist works and was recognized by the Spanish composer Joaquín Turina .

In his “Concertino para Órgano y Orquesta” (1949) he shows his own admiration for the great composers of the baroque and classical music, whose influence is little expressed in his earlier works. Bernal Jiménez shows his harmonic skill by arranging the organ as a solo instrument and accompanying it with a grandiose, bombastic orchestra. In the first two parts, "Mester de Juglares" and "Mester de Clerecia", the work describes a medieval altarpiece using musical means .

“El Chueco” (1951) is considered to be one of the most important works of Mexican ballet of the 20th century. The work shows a nationalist sonority in the form of popular themes against a religious background. It premiered in 1951 at the Palacio de Bellas Artes Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City . Bernal Jiménez conducted the Mexican Symphony Orchestra himself.

His “Sinfonia Hidalgo” (1953) was commissioned by the “Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo” and premiered by the Mexican Symphony Orchestra in Morelia 's “Teatro Ocampo” .

Style and Influences

Not least because of his birth at the beginning of the Mexican Revolution , the works of Miguel Bernal Jiménez are clearly nationalist in color. The combination of religious education, devotion to Catholicism and nationalism made him the leader of the movement "nacionalismo Sacro" (Sacred nationalism), a product of the Motu proprio , in 1903 Pope Pius X had published. This document encouraged the mixing of traditional church music with regional elements. This, together with the religious tolerance that resulted from the reorganization of relations between the Church and the Mexican state after the "Guerra Cristera", defines the style of the musician who had the greatest influence on contemporary Mexican music.

Miguel Bernal Jiménez defended the use of innovative tendencies in religious music in order to give priority to the profane as a sacred art. His style of music is eclectic , music that intends to incorporate all of Mexico's elements and at the same time reveal their reality.

His music also shares elements with other nationalist composers of the period, such as Manuel María Ponce . The music takes up themes from folk traditions, workers' songs, religious slogans and melodies in a political context.

Although harmonious, his music is subject to a clearly conservative basic tone. It shows the influences of that pan-modal style in the tradition of the Catholic Church of the twentieth century, along with elements from Debussy and other composers that work well together. “Tres Cartas de Mexico”, for example, quotes Debussy's Nocturnes for orchestra .

bibliography

• Lorena Díaz Nuñez: Como un eco lejano ... La vida de Miguel Bernal Jiménez . Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, CENIDIM, Mexico 2003, ISBN 9703502989 .
• Lorena Díaz Nuñez: Miguel Bernal Jiménez. Catálogo y otras fuentes documentales . Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, CENIDIM, Mexico 2000.
• Luis Jaime Cortez: Tabiques rotos: siete ensayos musicológicos . Centro Nacional de Investigación, Documentación e Información Musical Carlos Chávez, Mexico 1985, ISBN 9682906997 .
• José Antonio Alcaraz: ... en una música estelar, . Instituto Nacional de las Bellas Artes, Secretaría de Educación Pública, CENIDIM, Mexico 1985.
• , Jesús Bal y Gay, Carlos Chávez, Blas Galindo, Rodolfo Halffter, J. Pablo Moncayo, Adolfo Salazar, Luis Sandi, et.al. Nuestra música (Reimpresión facsimilar) . Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, CENIDIM, Mexico 1992.

Web links

• Literature by and about Miguel Bernal Jiménez in the catalog of the German National Library
• Rogelio Macías Sánchez: En el 50 aniversario luctuoso de Bernal Jiménez . Article in the newspaper: Cambio de Michoacán July 25, 2006, accessed March 6, 2008 (span.)