Julián Carrillo's lack of scores is the main obstacle to his recognition: Víctor Barrera

Angel Vargas

La Jornada Newspaper, Friday, May 9, 2025, p. 5

It's time to begin paying off the historic debt owed to Julián Carrillo, says musicologist Víctor Barrera, director of the Carlos Chávez National Center for Musical Research, Documentation, and Information (Cenidim).

According to the researcher, it is not that the composer, conductor, violinist and theorist originally from Ahualulco, San Luis Potosí (1875-1965), is totally unknown in Mexico, but rather that he is not valued as he deserves.

How can we admire him if his music can't be heard? asks the educator, who believes that this year's commemoration of his sesquicentennial serves as a starting point for recognizing and reconnecting with Julián Carrillo, and sharing it with Mexico through the editing and performance of his work.

On the occasion of this anniversary – which also marks the six decades since his death (September 9) and the 110th anniversary of the discovery of Sound 13, with which the creator revolutionized the world of music at the beginning of the last century – the Cenidim will pay tribute to him today with a round table and a concert at the Palacio Bellas Artes.

The panel discussion, to be held at 6:00 p.m. in the Adamo Boari Room and titled "Tribute to Julián Carrillo: Science and Music in Dialogue," will address the duality of this figure as a scientist and musician, as well as his legacy in the fusion of science and art that defines his work.

The central part of the event will be the preliminary presentation of the edition of his Symphony No. 1, the result of a collaborative project between the music research center and the National Symphony Orchestra (OSN), a group that will later perform the work in the main hall at 8 p.m.

The tribute will feature Ludwig Carrasco, principal conductor of the OSN; Pedro Castillo, researcher at the Center for Complexity Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM); and Armando Torres, master of medical sciences and composer; as well as musicologist Elena Kopylova, responsible for the edition of the symphony; and Víctor Barrera, both from Cenidim.

This is the first in a series of tributes we will pay to Carrillo throughout the year. He is a monumental figure, and we can't reduce him to a single tribute. That would be unfair; he is a musical giant not only in Mexico but around the world, with a very extensive and important career , said Víctor Barrera.

In an interview, he emphasized that this initiative was possible thanks to the joint efforts of Cenidim, the OSN, and the San Luis Potosí Ministry of Culture, which provided the facilities for the publication of the composer's work, as the custodian of its rights.

He announced that, once the final edition of that first symphony is completed, work will begin on his works for solo violin, violin and piano, the string sextet, and a few other pieces. The editions will be presented throughout the year and will revolve around different moments in Carrillo's life.

It's noteworthy that Symphony No. 1 is the first written by a Mexican abroad. The musician and scientist from San Luis Potosí composed it while studying at the Leipzig Conservatory in Germany—one of the most important music education institutions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—where he premiered it himself, conducting the institution's orchestra, in 1902.

It's a beautiful symphony. It reveals the figure of a largely forgotten Julián Carrillo , the musicologist emphasizes, going on to clarify that the piece has already been performed in Mexico. He even asserts that it was recorded along with Symphony No. 2 by the Potosí-born conductor José Miramontes Zapata—who died on April 19—who distinguished himself with his commendable work on the music of that creator and its dissemination.

There are some earlier works, but this symphony marks the beginning. It's a very beautiful piece that fuses styles; conceptually, it reflects the flavors and colors of Mexico with the traditions of German music. What Carrillo does is fantastic and very little known. There are some isolated efforts, such as that of Maestro Miramontes; that's why it's important that these editions be made in this context.

According to Víctor Barrera, the lack of sheet music for this composer's music has been the main obstacle to his widespread recognition and appreciation. "I don't think there's any animosity toward him. As the saying goes, 'No one loves what they don't know.' If there are no materials, how are they going to play it?" he maintains.

The best tribute we can offer to Julián Carrillo is to make his works accessible so that orchestras, musicians, professors, and students can play them. It's essential for us that these materials be available in updated editions, in the formats currently used editorially (print and digital), free of printing errors, as was the case when the process was manual.

Debussy's Invitation

In his time, the late 19th century and early 20th century, this artist and scientist from Potosí was considered in Europe and the United States to be one of the greatest musical revolutionaries of all time.

He was seen as a visionary and daring figure with his creation of Sound 13, a new way of understanding music: a theory based on microtones. There is information, as yet unverified, that he was a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1950 for an experiment on the rectification of the law of the node.

I've searched the Nobel Foundation's historical archives and haven't found his name. There was certainly an application, but, in the end, it may not have been successful. That's what I imagine , says the musicologist, who points out that, before Sonido 13, Carrillo was invited in 1911 by Claude Debussy to chair an international conference on music theory.

Added to this is the fact that he was also an exceptional violinist, a virtuoso who won an international competition with honorable mention in 1904, when he was in Belgium .

According to the director of Cenidim, there is a certain injustice surrounding Julián Carrillo's figure and music. He believes that his work with Sonido 13 obscures the other, very brilliant part of his career and his creative fruits.

We owe him a historic debt. In a way, through the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature, we are taking on this initiative to make his musical work once again available to Mexico and the rest of the world.