Hacer Cuba con la música: La construcción de una identidad nacional cubana a través de la ensayística musical carpenteriana

Abstract

The popularization of essays and theories that deal with Carpentier took place throughout the 80's and early 90's. However, after a smooth fever about Carpentier in the recent years of the last century, the number of such interdisciplinary approaches, which have already been made to the general work of the author, is, by far, poor and meagre. With this article we proceed, on one hand, to dissect, analyze and present the capital Carpentier’s essay Music in Cuba, the importance of which as a significant part of the essays by the Cuban author has so far evaded critically, and to examine, on the other hand, the process of making a Latin American – and also national- identity, through the pages of the essay that concerns us. We will proceed, also, to an exercise in intertextuality linking Music in Cuba with various other works by Carpentier, which also develop and connect concepts such as music and nationalism