Felipe Pinglo Alva: The interview he gave weeks before he died

 

Felipe Pinglo Alva: The interview he gave weeks before he died 

Our Creole bard was interviewed only once and it was done in his hospital bed

 

RPP Editorial Team

 

August 21, 2016 · Updated on October 11, 2016

The interview was done by Juan Francisco Castillo Alatrista for the weekly “Cascabel” , on his sickbed at the Dos de Mayo hospital, three weeks before his departure.

The recent declaration of his work as Cultural Heritage of the Nation, leads us to share the only interview made to Felipe Pinglo Alva, thanks to the kind contribution of our listener Carlos Alberto Vásquez, who sent us the material that we transcribe for our readers.

The interview was made on his sickbed in the Odriozola ward of the Dos de Mayo hospital and published on Saturday, April 25, 1936, weeks before his death

Felipe Pinglo Alva demanded from his sickbed greater support for Creole composers

 

RPP Editorial

 

August 21, 2016 Updated on October 11, 2016

The interview was conducted by Juan Francisco Castillo Alatrista for the weekly “Cascabel,” in his sickbed at the Dos de Mayo hospital, three weeks before his death.

The recent declaration of his work as Cultural Heritage of the Nation, leads us to share the only interview made to Felipe Pinglo Alva, thanks to the kind contribution of our listener Carlos Alberto Vásquez, who sent us the material that we transcribed for our readers.

The interview was conducted in his sickbed in the Odriozola ward of the Dos de Mayo hospital and published on Saturday, April 25, 1936, weeks before his death.

(S.N)

 

Felipe Pinglo Alva demanded from his sickbed greater support for Creole composers

Article by Juan Francisco Castillo Alatrista

 

RPP Editorial Team

“Among us, success is much more difficult than in Paris and Buenos Aires. Creole music has had to live hidden like the sowbugs of humanity. Carrying a violin could be for artists or elegant, but carrying a guitar is a thing of junk dealers

 

And much more if on the guitar you play things from home. We live buried by the Argentine tango. Our own Creoles are, in many ways, responsible. They are ashamed of playing a waltz. Or when they play it, they deliberately forget the dates. And then, a motif from 1906, fights vainly against the fresh and young import.”

 

Pinglo is the best Creole composer of these times of rumba and tango. But he is a good man, dreamy and sickly, who has been fighting adversity for some years. Defending himself and producing. This is how he has gained that popularity that he amassed by word of mouth, but as far as we know, it is the first time that it reaches a newspaper.

 

Compositions such as “Rosa Luz” and “El huerto de mi amada” begin to attract attention. After some time, a popular and modern composer appears. We hear about such a sudden author, but it is not common to see him on stage, nor do we know where he hides to copy poor motifs that he later turns into magnificent waltzes.

He is a bohemian, a man who has been fighting illness for eight years or rather, illnesses. His resentful body has ended up dragging him to the hospital. He occupies a section of the Odriozola hall in Dos de Mayo.

One of Pinglo's greatest joys was being interviewed for Cascabel magazine

At the concierge's office they gave us number 27. We found that it was a small apartment. Family and friends have to pay for it with great sacrifices. Pinglo is half upright, leaning back on his pillows. He welcomes us as if our visit suddenly made him a debtor. He thanks us. He speaks first on behalf of music and Creole art. Then, secondly, on behalf of his personal life.

- I feel grateful, Cascabel is the owner of all my sympathies. He is defending what no one defends. It is not possible for the visiting music to dislodge the music that owns the house.

 

He is in preparation for three operations. When he gives the news of those three operations, he does not even flinch. It is a simple thing.

The strange ideology of the optimist and brave vibrates in this thin and bohemian man. Pinglo has been ill for eight years. However, he believes that these three operations would leave him in a condition to “continue doing something”.

 

In the pale green room, Pinglo's voice sounds, full of fatigue. He speaks... speaks... His story, those eight years without being able to move comfortably. The most painful last times. And finally, those three simple operations, which will free him. Pinglo gives us explanations of the fatigue that prevents him from speaking as he would like. The pleura suffers a shock. The sympathetic will be touched in one of the operations. Also the stomach. But instead of the catastrophe, our interlocutor thinks of the success of science and the scalpel.

A fair recognition of his work as Cultural Heritage of the Nation

“Amelia” and he gets excited. He does not like illness. On the contrary, fever and long insomnias give him reason to achieve the best of his musical stock. Thus appear “The Plebeian”, “Jacobo the Woodcutter”, etc.

We remind him that in the compositions that we know of him, the Argentine influence is noticeable. Pinglo protests. He does not believe in the influence. He feels musically Peruvian in every way.

 

And he continues talking. as if he had made an urgent commitment.

He touches on the various reasons that interest those who are interested in Creole music. He tells us the via crucis of the national composer, who must become a kind of beggar to get his music printed. For his part, and thanks to much effort, only three pieces have been able to be published. The rest… only in the songbook.

 

We do not want Pinglo to tire himself out. That can bring him complications and pain; but it is the first time that “the journalists” have dealt with a modest musician. The contests, he emphasizes, can promote popular music, as long as they are well organized and that a jury of experts in Creole music participates in the tests… professionals, people who know that it is not possible to play a Peruvian waltz with gaucho accompaniment.

 

We ask about some unknown composer, who in Pinglo's opinion, has merits and a future. - I know several, he answers, I think I should mention Pablo Casas, a young man who has composed very successfully. Of what I like most, I will mention “Olga” and “Mal procedura”, a couple of waltzes of merit.

- He ends: There are many like Casas. Let them support them and we will have a renewed art that perfectly reflects popular existence

With affection,

Ruben