Artistry in Action: Paul Laraia, Viola Faculty Recital

The sarabande, as Bach composed, came from the German and French derivations of the 15th-century zarabanda dance that originated in the Spanish new world, complete with castanets and copious amounts of sensuality—so much so that it was for a long time banned in Europe for its "sinful" nature. In the 1600s, Cervantes wrote that hell was its birthplace and breeding place (origen y principio). In 2023, we can now take a deeper look into the sarabande's origins and reflect on the unique combinations of cultural assimilation, appropriation, colonialism, moral shaming, and eroticism that originated Bach's sarabandes. 

The guitar music of Paraguayan guitar master Augustín Barrios harkens to the zarabanda's original textures of lutes and theorbos. Although the composer, who lived from 1885 to 1944, wrote much of his music in the late romantic style, there is the undeniable influence of Bach in much of his output. Barrios, as a composer, brought to a head elements of his Guaraní culture through folk elements, classical structures from Europe such as from Bach and Chopin, and Romanzero culture in the new world (traveling, guitar-playing troubadours), melding the sounds and stories of many different cultures into pure musical poetry.

The seven Concepciónes by violist Paul Laraia were composed to provide the "negative space" that would focus the Bach and Barrios into entirely new light. Each movement uses a different Latin dance form as its motivic kernel, and sonically depicts and distills the "seven deadly sins" as a meditation on morality and censorship between colonizers and the colonized.

It was Mexican composer Manuel Ponce who anonymously created the striking arrangement for guitar of Bach's Prelude from the first cello suite, as performed and recorded by the guitar legend Segovia. The Sonata en duo was composed in 1938 and combines folklore with form, and at once looks back to the masters of the past, such as Bach, but also embraces the modernity of the mid-20th century.