Book Description

How did a musical instrument transplanted to South America by European missionaries earn the official designation as Paraguay's cultural national symbol?This ethnomusicological and organological study of the Paraguayan diatonic harp in the twentieth century tells its story as an emblematic national musical instrument. First used liturgically by Jesuit missions in colonial times, the transplanted European diatonic harp was transformed and adopted into the folk music vocabulary of Paraguay and the Rio de la Plata region. Following the commercial success of Paraguayan harpist Felix Perez Cardozo in the 1930s in Argentina, the instrument's symbolic value as an icon of social, cultural, and national identity was articulated in local traditions such as popular folk music festivals. It received the designation of arpa paraguaya (Paraguayan harp) and, in 2010, official recognition as simbolo de la cultura nacional (cultural national symbol).The book integrates an account of the historical and musical development of the diatonic harp in Paraguay, an analysis of the musical contributions by harp composers and performers, a survey of the various traditional genres associated with the instrument, and a discussion of the popular and academic settings where the instrument has been cultivated and performed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The author's fieldwork in Paraguay and continuous contact with composers, educators, festival organizers, harp performers, researchers, and festival organizers have provided unique insights into the development of the Paraguayan harp tradition as a cultural icon of the nation.This book will be of interest to a large and varied audience, including scholars and professionals in the fields of musicology and ethnomusicology, Latin American specialists, historians, libraries, harp performers and other musicians, and general readers interested in the history of musical instruments and culture.