Parangaricutirimícuaro

Posted by Ahmed Anzaldúa on March 20, 2010. 0 comments

Parangaricutirimícuaro is the name of the last piece in Carteles, by Miguel Bernal Jiménez. The word parangaricutirimícuaro is used in Mexican culture as a tongue-twister:

“El rey de Parangaricutirimícuaro se quiere desparangaricutirimicuarizar, aquel que lo desparangararicutirimicuarize buen desparangaricutirimicuarizador será.”

This word takes us back to the home state of Miguel Bernal Jiménez, Michoacán, where there is a very small town called San Juan Parangaricutiro –made famous by the eruption of the volcano Paricutin. This town is affectionately known as Parangaricutirimícuaro (the ending “cuaro” is  of purepecha origin and is very common in place names from Michoacán.)

At the beginning of the piece there is an expression mark that, as far as I know, isn’t present in any other work for the piano: forte populachero. The word populachero is difficult to translate because its meaning depends very much on its context. Populacho literally means a mob of people; it implies common, simple people (as in “the common man”.) Populachero in music refers to popular, not very high-brow music. With the festive, noisy character of this piece, the title referring to a very small farming town and the indication populachero, this piece makes me think of a small-town celebration of some sort, maybe a parade, a fair or a dance.

The piece is in an A-B-A form, as the first piece in Carteles, Volantin. The “A” is made up of a fast, swirling run on top of a constant tremolo of fourths in the bass –this passage makes me think of the parangaricutirimícuaro tongue twister. It reminds me a bit of some passages from Stravinsky’s Petrushka. Not literally, but in the character; they’re both setting the scene for a popular celebration and the music expresses a sense of expectation and of a lot of things happening at once.

The “B” has elements of music that you would normally hear at a small-town fair in Mexico. A fast corrido (which has a rhythm very much like a march), a bass that mimics a tuba, and a section that is very reminiscent of Mexican marches (some of which are very similar to the John Phillip Sousa marches) which are very common in Michoacán because of the traditional town bands –I talked more in-depth about these in my post about the fourth piece in Carteles, Huarache. Just as in Huarache, the accompaniment and the melody are almost always in different tonalities –most of the time a minor second apart– to give the illusion of the bands being extremely out of tune (which is pretty normal in a Michoacán town band.)

So you can hear for yourself how this sounds in real life, here is the band from Galeana, Michoacán. Galeana is about the same size as San Juan Parangaricutiro so this is probably what you would find in any small town in Michoacán. They’re playing the Marcha de Zacatecas, one of the most popular marches in Mexico.

The “B” section from Parangaricutirimícuaro contains quotes from the middle section of this march; also note the tuba line, very similar to the way the left hand plays in all of section “B”. Here is something with a tempo more approaching the work by Miguel Bernal Jimenez (quarter=144), La Basurita:

Note the repeated notes in the melody, these are very common in this genre. In Parangaricutirimícuaro, at the beginning of the “B” section, the repeated notes have tenuto markings to stress their importance and to make the dissonance really stand out.

One of the things I love most about Carteles is the way it evokes popular music from Mexican everyday life. The pieces are very well crafted and carefully constructed but they have an element that is very populachero. This makes them a lot of fun to play and very easy on an audience (despite being quite dissonant at times.) Even though Miguel Bernal Jiménez is best known for Tata Vasco, his Concertino, and several masses, I think that his best compositions are his small-scale secular works, such as Carteles, which I highly recommend both to listen and to play.