Knowing Venezuelan traditional-popular music. Today's song: the Waltz "Conticinio"

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In Venezuela, as in other Latin American countries, the waltz ended up acquiring a deep and exuberant rhythmic wealth unknown in Europe. This was due, surely, to the creative effort and inventiveness of our peoples as a result of the incorporation of rhythmic designs similar to those of the joropo, as well as elements of the coup of Six to Eight of some European waltzes, and particularly Spanish of the type zapateado, surely with a whole series of abundant syncopes of perhaps African origin, and it is not known to what extent native-indigenous elements, whose fusion occurred during the years between the time of the Venezuelan Presidents: Monagas and Guzmán White. We believe that this is how the Venezuelan Creole waltz arises, conscious of a whole supposition of different rhythms and even different beats, which made it a musical genre with a strong rhythmic charge.

In this way, the Venezuelan musicians began to create innumerable compositions with new mixtures, the syncopa often appears and the beginnings of melodies also begin with some eighth-note rests. In the same way, the rhythms of the basses flourish, always changing and variable, in contrast to the stiffness of the Viennese waltz, as well as the sequence of four pulses of blacks followed, almost always in four successive degrees of the scale (sol - la). - been). Likewise, the bass of two pulses of duration each arises, which produces a momentary sensation of rhythmic bewilderment (hemiola) until the low quarter coincides with the first beat of a compass.

This fertility and rhythmic richness is manifested, mainly, in the performing musicians. In this way, singing and playing a waltz represented an opportunity to improvise new rhythms. Thus, this simultaneity of different blows was produced, as they often called this type of musical recreation. The musicians who performed some type of singers - soloists such as the violin, the flute or the clarinet, which were the most frequent, gave him occasionally to play, no longer the melody composed by the author, but melodic variations that improvised directly in full concerts. This gave the Venezuelan waltz an extraordinary accumulation of unpredictable musical elements that were not determined by the composer. In this sense, the improvisations of the performers enriched and transformed the original work of the authors.

In general terms, we can say that the classic Venezuelan waltz basically has two or more parts built according to the European model; a first part composed in a melancholic musical texture, nostalgic and slow where the melody moves smoothly, full of voluptuousness and a bit of abandonment. Then it is up to the other parties to make the rhythm a little more alive and lively, reappearing enthusiasm and exaltation with some third parties that come to moderate and to hold the joys in a kind of dialogue, festive and gallant.

It is true that the definitive and unquestionable rise of the Venezuelan waltz was due to different reasons, and even such a particular event was due to the fact that the waltz became the complement and accessory of the amorous conquests, since most of the couples the first part, a both sad and quite moderate, to then fan the idyllic emotions, very much in accordance with the passionate fashion of the time, as they moved on to the hasty and dizzy joy of the following parts, in which the feelings contained during the first part were allowed to run.

Definitely, Venezuelan creole waltz is a music that has traditional and popular characteristics, in other words, ancient and modern. The oldest waltzes can be classified as anonymous tradition (folkloric - traditional) and can have two themes or parts, sometimes eight bars and other times sixteen. These waltzes are intimate and reserved because of their thematic and structural simplicity. It is from this fertile and fertile condition that the three-part and four-part waltzes would be developed, and the concert waltzes for piano, so much to the taste of the time, and in whose composition many of our composers at the end of the XIX century.

With this formal explanatory note I want to present the instrumental song of today: "Conticinio". This Venezuelan waltz was composed by Laudelino Mejías (1893 - 1963) in 1922 and the lyrics were written by Egisto Delgado (1900 -). Conticinio means the time of the night when everything is silent. In the overwhelming nocturnal stillness, the lovers are invited to enjoy the intimate silence of love. Conticinio is considered one of the most important songs in the Venezuelan repertoire.

Estelio Padilla

Track No. 6
Title of the Song: Conticinio
Genre: Waltz
Music by Laudelino Mejías and lyrics by Egisto Delgado
Performed: London Philharmonic Orchestra
Direction and Arrangement: Sergio Elguín
Leon Productions: Caracas- Venezuela
Mix and Equalization: Eng. Ricardo Landaeta
Production and Direction: Freddy León
Recording Studios
C.B.S. Studio (London - England)

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