Word-Music Relations and the Musical Performance History of Juan Zorrilla de San Martín’s Poem Tabaré: Interview with Composer Sergio Cervetti

Autora: Victoria Wolff ((Dr. Victoria Wolff is Assistant Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada. She has a Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies from McGill University, a M.A. in Latin American Studies with specializations in Literature and Art History from the University of New Mexico, and a B.A. in Romance Languages (Spanish) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her main research interest is the intersection of literature and music in the Hispanic world, specifically the collaborations between writers, librettists, and composers and their adaptations of works of Hispanic literature for musical-dramatic performance..))

(University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada)

E-mail: [email protected]




In the early stages of my Ph.D. dissertation at McGill University (2004-2008), my research interest in the intersection of literature and music in the Hispanic world led me to search for works of Hispanic literature that had been adapted for musical-dramatic performance as zarzuela or opera in late nineteenth- and early twentieth- century Spain and Latin America. In the style of the Brazilian novel O Guaraní (1857), originally written by José de Alencar (1829-1877) and adapted into the four-act opera Il Guarany (1870) by composer Antônio Carlos Gomes (1836-1896) and librettists Antonio Scalvini (1835-1881) and Carlo D’Ormeville (1840-1924) for performance in both Milan and Rio de Janeiro, my instincts told me that foundational literary works of Latin-American national identity would have been especially appealing to writers, librettists, and composers working on musical-dramatic projects.

Re-reading literary scholar Doris Sommer’s seminal work Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America, I was intrigued to find that the extensive narrative poem Tabaré (1888) by Uruguayan writer Juan Zorrilla de San Martín (1855-1931) had inspired Spanish composer Tomás Bretón (1850-1923) to use it as the basis for his three-act opera Tabaré (1913), premiering in both Madrid and Buenos Aires. Further research showed me that Zorrilla de San Martín’s poem Tabaré was the inspiration for not one, but numerous other musical adaptations in the Hispanic world: The lyric poem Tabaré for soprano, female chorus, and orchestra (1910) by Uruguayan composer Alfonso Broqua (1876-1946); the three-act opera Tabaré (1925) by Argentinean composer Alfredo Schiuma (1885-1963) and librettist Jorge Carlos Servetti Reeves (dates unknown); and possibly two operas of Mexican origin by composers Arturo Cosgaya Ceballos (1869?-1937) and Heliodoro Oseguera Silva (dates unknown).

Aware of my interest in Tabaré, in September of 2011, one of my colleagues in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of Western Ontario, Dr. Juan Luis Suárez, informed me that the classical station of the Spanish National Radio would be broadcasting via internet a performance of Tabaré in Madrid. Since my understanding was that all of the above-mentioned adaptations of Tabaré had been relegated to the archive and were not part of any current repertoire, I was immediately intrigued. This would be my fortuitous introduction to yet another vocal work inspired by Juan Zorrilla de San Martín’s poem Tabaré: Leyenda (1994) by composer Sergio Cervetti.

Cervetti, a distinguished composer, pianist, and professor of music, was born in Dolores, Uruguay in 1940. The foundations of his music career were set in the 1960s, when he received a scholarship to study at the Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore (1962), won an important prize for chamber music at the Festival of American Music in Caracas (1966), and was invited to Berlin by the Academy of Art as composer-in-residence (1969-1970). After Berlin, Cervetti settled in New York City where he continued to study, teach, and definitively established himself as an important composer of electronic music, dance scores, and other musical works for the concert stage, theater, and film.

I contacted Cervetti via email and in between performances of Leyenda and other works with the Joven Orquesta Nacional de España in September of 2011 and January of 2012 to discuss with him word-music relations, the musical performance history of Juan Zorrilla de San Martín’s poem Tabaré, and his Leyenda and other musical works inspired by South America.




Why were you inspired to adapt Tabaré into vocal music for soprano and orchestra? When you undertook the project, were you aware of its long performance history in the Hispanic world?

My inspiration and desire to write a work based on Tabaré are purely personal. My father was a great admirer of Zorrilla’s poetry. Many times, usually after dinner, he would recite to me and my mother long stretches of Tabaré and Leyenda patria. I was always deeply moved and finally, in 1991, I felt the time was ripe to write something in memory of my father. At the time I was not aware of Tomás Breton’s opera and knew very little about Broqua. It is unfortunate but I have never heard a note of Broqua’s music, not even now after many years in the music field.  Uruguayans are not particularly connected to their past or their musical culture and that is very unfortunate. Leyenda had to wait three years after completion to be performed, and I owe that to Julia Clara García Usher, the soprano who premiered this difficult work in October of 1994 at the Solís theatre with Federico García Vigil conducting the Filarmónica de Montevideo.


Thank you for sending me the text from Tabaré that you use in Leyenda. Why did you select this particular part of the poem?

For Leyenda I have chosen the most known verses of Zorrilla’s poem, eliminating the anecdotic and without dwelling on the racial conflict that anihilated the Charrúa race. I emphasize the love of Magdalena towards her son (“Sleep my child, look, the wind has gone to slumber”) as well as lamenting the extinction of that race whose blood “not the slightest stains remains.” This profound lyricism always touched my heart.

What are your particular views on literature, text, and music in your artistic creations? Can you explain your creative process, especially the creative process related to the genesis of your Leyenda?

I have been an avid reader since childhood. My father had much to do with this since he provided me with an ample library that ranged from Homer to Lord Byron. I also went to the Alliance Française that gave me a great appreciation of French literature and poetry. In fact my very early compositions when I was eighteen years old were songs with poems by Rimbaud. I can honestly say that I would be at a loss without the inspiration of the written word. Two composers have always guided me along the path of musical creation and both of them are strongly associated with poetry and literature. They are Monteverdi and Wagner. They are the only composers who I never get tired of listening to or studying their works.  Explaining the creative process is not an easy task for me. Now, from a mature vantage point, I can give you a glimpse of it simply by citing this example: When I was seven years old and read The Happy Prince, the fairytale by Oscar Wilde, I then wanted to write some music for it. It was an impossible task for me at that tender age but the desire and the inspiration filtered slowly during the following fifty-five years. Finally in 2005 I composed and orchestrated my first opera, which I titled Elegy For A Prince based on The Happy Prince.  The librettist, Elizabeth Esris, and I shared the same love and admiration for this fairytale. The work was given a reading in excerpt by New York City Opera in 2007.  Opera is a very expensive enterprise and I have not yet succeeded in securing a fully staged performance.


Where and when has Leyenda been performed? I know that it continues to be an important part of the repertoire. What are your plans for future performances?

Leyenda has been performed in Montevideo (Uruguay), Olomouc (Czech Republic), Alicante, Albarracín and Madrid (Spain). At the moment there are no plans for future performances but a recording has been made by the VERSO label in Spain and will be released sometime in 2012. Leyenda will also be included on a new Navona CD titled NAZCA, which will be released in early 2012. This January (2012) I have been invited by the Spanish Ministry of Culture again to work with JONDE (Joven Orquesta Nacional de España) during a three-week tour of performances and recordings. Candombe for orchestra is one of the works. It is based on a Uruguayan dance of African origins.


I notice that you also have an interest in creating musical pieces related to the indigenous world of South America (Nazca, Chacona para el martirio de Atahualpa, etc), which has also long inspired many Latin-American composers to create a variety of musical works. Explain this interest. What, if any, are your literary or textual (or musical) sources for these works?

I think that this interest stems in part from my early life in Uruguay and the influence of teachers during my school years, which awakened my deep curiosity in the South American continent. I remember that in the fifth grade an assignment was given to present a fifteen-minute report on any of the native South American cultures. The Incas were assigned to me and I delved into their tragic history for many weeks. Atahualpa’s cruel fate made the greatest impact on me. When, in 1992, I received a commission for a new work from the VII Alicante Contemporary Music Festival to commemorate the quincentennial of Columbus’ discovery, I jumped at the opportunity to celebrate, not Spain or the conquistadores, but the native tribes of South America and their long history of oppression and neglect. I wrote a harpsichord concerto for this keyboard and eleven instruments, which I titled Las Indias olvidadas. Each of the four movements reference this such as the martyrdom of Atahualpa, the Amazon tribes, and the arrows of the Charrúa Indians that killed Juan Díaz de Solís, who was the first Spaniard to set foot on the shores of the Río de la Plata. Another inspiration for me has been the Nazca lines, the mysterious drawings in the Atacama dessert of Peru. Ever since I became acquainted with them in the late 1950’s, they excited my imagination.  For decades I toyed with the idea of writing evocative music based on these drawings. During the summer of 2010 I finally did and it was subsequently recorded, superbly I might add, by the Moravian Philharmonic conducted by Petr Vronsky. The work, scored for string orchestra, is the centerpiece of the CD mentioned earlier to be released by Navona Records titled NAZCA.

I feel all music must possess provenance. When one hears any work, it should sound of its place or source of origin and always sound of its time or era. I know that I probably sound terribly pedantic by saying this but I do subscribe to Olivier Messiaen’s complaint about a great deal of twentieth-century music sounding like an “international grey.”

Although I do not want to be labeled a nationalistic composer, since music does transcend a nation’s border, many of my works might be considered as such due to subject matter indigenous to my native South America. For example my next recording project exemplifies this and adds to the works previously discussed. It is a piece written for piano in three movements, Tres estudios australes. Each of the three movements deals with a particular technical difficulty. I also wanted to include my cherished thoughts about the Southern Hemisphere where I was born. Sangre en flor en las Malvinas is my homage to the young soldiers fallen during the Falkland War between Argentina and England. El agujero en el cielo de la Antártida suggets the endangered frozen landscape of the Antarctic. Las nubes de Magallanes, with its complicated rhythms and placid mid-section, is a rendition of my teenage years during which I spent many nights deciphering the night sky that crowned my hometown in Uruguay.





LEYENDA de Sergio Cervetti
Texto: fragmentos de Tabaré de Juan Zorrilla de San Martín


AY! CAYÓ LA FLOR AL RÍO!
DERRAMÓ SU PERFUME ENTRE LAS ALGAS.
SE HA MARCHITADO HA MUERTO.
LAS ALGAS LA ESTRECHARON EN SUS BRAZOS DE HIELO…
HA BROTADO, EN LAS GRIETAS DEL SEPULCRO,
UN LIRIO AMARILLENTO.

COMO EL PÁJARO CANTA EN UNA RUINA
EL TROVADOR LEVANTA
LA TRÉMULA ELEGÍA INDESCIFRABLE
QUE A TRAVÉS DE LOS ÁRBOLES RESBALA.
CUANDO OS SIENTO PASAR EN LAS TINIEBLAS
Y TOCAR CON LAS ALAS SU CABEZA
QUE ENTREGA A LOS EMBATES
DEL VIENTO SECULAR DE LAS MONTAÑAS
SOMBRAS DESNUDAS QUE PASÁIS DE NOCHE
EN PÁLIDAS BANDADAS,
GOTEANDO SANGRE QUE AL TOCAR EL SUELO,
COMO SALVAJE IMPRECACIÓN ESTALLA
YO OS SALUDO AL PASAR.

DUERME HIJO MÍO, ENTRE LAS RAMAS
ESTA DORMIDO EL VIENTO.
EL TIGRE EN EL FLOTANTE CAMALOTE
Y EN EL NIDO LOS PÁJAROS PEQUEÑOS.
DUERME HIJO MÍO, ENTRE LAS RAMAS
ESTÁ DORMIDO EL VIENTO.
YA NO SE VEN LOS MONTES DE LAS ISLAS:
TAMBIÉN ESTAN DURMIENDO.
HAN SALIDO LAS NUTRIAS DE SUS CUEVAS,
SE OYE APENAS LA VOZ DEL TERU-TERO.
LAS TRIBUS EMBRIAGADAS, AULLABAN A LO LEJOS,
EL AIRE CON LOS RONCOS ALARIDOS
ELABORABA QUEJAS Y LAMENTOS

HÉROES SIN REDENCIÓN Y SIN HISTORIA,
SIN TUMBAS Y SIN LÁGRIMAS!,
ESTIRPE LENTAMENTE SUMERGIDA
EN LA INFINITA SOLEDAD ARCANA!,
LUMBRE EXPIRANTE QUE APAGÓ LA AURORA.
SOMBRA DESNUDA, MUERTA ENTRE LAS ZARZAS,
NI LAS MANCHAS SIQUIERA DE VUESTRA SANGRE,
NUESTRA TIERRA GUARDA.

Y AUN VIVEN LOS JAGUARES AMARILLOS
Y AUN SUS CACHORROS MAMAN,
Y AUN BROTAN LAS ESPINAS QUE MORDIERON
LA PIEL COBRIZA DE LA EXTINTA RAZA!

DUERME HIJO MÍO, MIRA ENTRE LAS RAMAS
ESTA DORMIDO EL VIENTO.
EL TIGRE EN EL FLOTANTE CAMALOTE
Y EN EL NIDO LOS PÁJAROS PEQUEÑOS.
HASTA EN EL VALLE DUERMEN LOS ECOS, DUERME…
SI AL DESPERTAR NO ME ENCONTRARAS
YO TE HABLARÉ A LO LEJOS!
UNA AURORA SIN SOL VENDRÁ A DEJAR
ENTRE LOS LABIOS MI INVISIBLE BESO.
DUERME, ME LLAMAN… CONCILIA EL SUEÑO.

YO FORMARÉ CREPÚSCULOS AZULES
PARA FLOTAR EN ELLOS,
PARA INFUNDIR EN TU ALMA SOLITARIA
LA TRISTEZA MAS DULCE DE LOS CIELOS!