Vera Wolkowicz (2024). REIMAGINANDO LA MÚSICA INCA. Discursos indigenistas en la música de arte de América Latina, 1910–1930. [Translated by Luis Enrique Bossio Montellanos], Instituto de Etnomusicología PUCP

Abstract

This book, with abundant evidence, offers in-depth analysis, and careful reflection on how Latin American music in the first third of the 20th century drew on the imagery of indigenous music to attempt to construct a sonic symbol of the young republican countries that had barely reached a century of existence. To do so, it analyzes three case studies—in Peru, Ecuador, and Argentina—and reaches a pessimistic conclusion: that the attempt to construct a national art form based on an idealized Inca imperial past failed, both because of its inability to reach the public and because of the wide diversity of political positions surrounding the idea of ??the Incas as inhabitants of a glorious past, yet absent from a present governed by other ethnic, cultural, and economic interests.