Carrillo, Julián (EN)

Carrillo Julián, born Julián Antonio Carrillo-Trujillo, *28 January 1875 Ahualulco (San Luis Potosí), †9 September 1965 San Angél (present-day Mexico City), a Mexican composer, music theorist, conductor, violinist, and teacher of Indigenous descent. He studied at the conservatoire in Mexico City under P. Manzano (violin) and M. Morales (composition); between 1899 and 1905 he continued his studies at the Leipzig Conservatoire under S. Jadassohn (composition), H. Becker (violin) and H. Sitt (conducting), whilst also studying at the Conservatoire in Ghent from 1902 to 1904 (first prize in A. Zimmer’s violin class). His violin studies, and in particular the issues of intonation, led him as early as around 1895 to explore the subject of microtonality. Upon his return to Mexico, he became a professor and, in 1913–14, conductor at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música in Mexico City, where he also served as general inspector of music. He performed frequently as a violinist and conductor; he founded and led the Beethoven Orchestra and String Quartet.

Political instability in Mexico forced him to leave the country: between 1914 and 1918 he lived in New York, where he founded the American Symphony Orchestra; in 1918 – at the invitation of the Mexican government – he took over the management of the symphony orchestra in Mexico City, and between 1920 and 1924 he was once again director of the conservatoire. In 1924 he gave up all his positions to devote himself to musical composition and theory: between 1924 and 1926 he published the monthly journal “El Sonido 13”, devoted to the theory of microtonality. From 1926, his works began to find their way to the USA, where they gained prominence, mainly thanks to the support of L. Stokowski, with whom Carrillo formed a lifelong friendship. In the same year, Carrillo presented his self-constructed microtonal instruments, such as the octavina, arpa-citara and ⅓-tone piano, to New York audiences. In 1930, he founded the Orquesta Sonido 13, specialising in the performance of microtonal works, and undertook numerous tours of Mexico with the orchestra, conducting in turn with Stokowski. In 1940, he patented 15 models of microtone pianos, which were subsequently manufactured by C. Sauter and M. Gaveau. He continued to conduct his own works almost until the end of his life; for example, as late as 1961, he recorded a significant number of them with the Lamoureux Orchestra in Paris.

The development of Carrillo’s musical personality took place in two stages. The first (ca. 1895–1922) was characterised by intense concert, organisational and teaching activity; the works composed during this period display traditional features, evident either in their references to the prevailing European style of the late 19th century (the first two symphonies), or in the development of certain sonic and formal ideas from Liszt’s music (String Quartet in E-flat major). Only in a few works (operas, vocal pieces) did elements of native music also come to the fore. A very early – as with Ives – recognition of the potential of microtonal music (1895) found no reflection in Carrillo’s compositional output during this period. In the second phase (ca. 1922–65), two parallel strands of interest emerged in Carrillo’s work. The first strand was related to the general concept of atonality: within the framework of the equal temperament system, Carrillo explored various scale arrangements, though he did not develop any fixed system – the solutions remained unique to each of the works composed in this style (Symphony No. 3 “Heroica”, the string quartets, the Pequeño requiem atonal); Carrillo frequently included the term “atonal” or a description of the specific scale system in the title. The second and principal strand was most closely linked to Carrillo’s theoretical concept of microtonality (the so-called “sonido 13”, where the number 13 symbolised a departure from the 12-tone division of the octave), consisting of the division of the octave into 96 different tones (a ⅟₆-tone system), the principles of which he expounded in his works. Carrillo applied the resulting scale material for the first time in 5 primeras composiciones, though he most frequently used the ⅟₄-tone system. A wider introduction of the idea of microtonality was to be ensured by a numerical system of musical notation specially devised by Carrillo around 1925 (closely resembling the idea of the figured bass), which could be applied to any scale system.

Much of Carrillo’s work was aimed at demonstrating the potential of microtonal music; theoretical considerations always took precedence over artistic concerns. Whilst churning out his radically innovative works, the composer remained committed to thematic thinking and employed traditional formal structures (etudes, concertos, sonatas, symphonies), which – as in the case of A. Hába – accounts for a certain lack of organic unity in his music. Nor did it gain much popularity – apart from a few chamber works (Sonata cazi-fantasía) and concertos (Concerto for ⅓-tone piano and orchestra). Nevertheless, Carrillo is regarded as one of the classics of 20th-century music, as it is largely to his credit that the use of microtonal systems has become a natural part of contemporary compositional technique.

Literature: J. Velasco-Urda, Julián Carrillo. Su vida y su obra, Mexico City 1945; A. Pike, The Discoveries and Theories of Julián Carrillo 1875–1956, “Inter-American Musie Bulletin”, 1966, No. 55; G. R. Benjamin, Julián Carrillo and “sonido trece”, Yearbook for Inter-American Musical Research, 1967; B. Schaeffer, Muzyka XX wieku, Krakow 1975.