By: Tlacaélel Cáceres, CUNY Graduate Center
Abstract of Video:
Juan Carlos Paz's Third Composition for Twelve Tones occupies a significant place in the history of Latin American modernism as one of the earliest applications of twelve-tone technique in the region. This video examines the first movement, "Tocata," with the aim of reconstructing how Paz may have understood and adapted twelve-tone procedures during his initial engagement with the technique. The analysis focuses on the continuous deployment of a single row, the limited use of row operations, melodic construction, and intervallic organization. The study shows that the clarinet part presents the row with remarkable transparency, relying primarily on Prime and Retrograde forms, while the piano contributes to a dense saturation of row content across both horizontal and vertical dimensions. Attention is also given to the row's restricted intervallic vocabulary and parsimonious voice-leading properties, suggesting an aesthetic preference for smooth melodic motion and coherent phrase construction. Viewed from this perspective, Third Composition for Twelve Tones offers insight into how serial techniques were initially received, interpreted, and reimagined within a Latin American context. Ultimately, the video argues that Paz's early serialism should be understood not as a derivative application of European models, but as a process of adaptation that reimagines twelve-tone technique within an established musical language and its historical context.
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About the Author:
Tlacaélel Cáceres is a Ph.D. student in Music Theory and Analysis at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). His research focuses on twentieth and twenty-first-century music from Mexico and the United States, with emphasis on Mexican modernism, transnational musical exchange, and twelve-tone and serial practices in Latin America. His work examines Latin American modernist repertoires in relation to compositional technique, institutional networks, and broader histories of musical modernism.