Felipe Pinglo Alva

 

Felipe Pinglo Alva 

 

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Information fom article Felipe Pinglo y la cancion criolla

 

 

Felipe Pinglo Alva (July 18, 1899 - May 13, 1936), known as the father of Peruvian Musica criolla and nicknamed the "Immortal Bard" or ("Bardo Inmortal" in Spanish),[1] was an influential and prolific poet and songwriter best known for his often covered "El Plebeyo" (The Commoner). In Peru and Latin America, Pinglo's name is most often associated with the Peruvian vals criollo, which is a uniquely Peruvian music, characterized by the 3/4 time, elaborate guitar work and lyrics about lost love or the Lima of yesteryear.

 

Biography

Pinglo with other composers 

Felipe Pinglo Alva was born in one of the oldest sections of Lima, (Barrios Altos), known as an historical district with a working class population, to a schoolteacher and his wife on July 18, 1899. Felipe's mother died when he was still a child. The poverty in which young Felipe was raised as well as the instruction received by his father and aunts created a young mind that was both learned and socially conscious. During his lifetime, Pinglo was known as a Bohemian, sickly and frail, and walking with a slight limp. A naturally talented musician, Pinglo earned money as a youth by replaying songs he had heard the local military bands playing by ear in the central plaza. As a child, he studied the works of Rubén Darío, Leonidas Yerovi Douat, Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer and Amado Nervo.[1] In 1917, he produced his first vals, "Amelia" at the age of 18, which instantly became a popular and respected song. He was buried at Presbítero Maestro. For the next 19 years until his death in 1936 he composed approximately 300 songs, many of them lost forever or surviving in fragments only. In 1939, the broadcasting of "El Plebeyo" was banned by Óscar R. Benavides but Benavides claimed it was actually Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre.[1] In 1957 Rafael Del Carpio interviewed nearly 60 persons who personally knew Pinglo, in an attempt to document his life. The recordings of these interviews were stored in a radio station and over time, deteriorated before any analysis or transcription was done.

A man of his time

Felipe Federico Pinglo Alva was born on July 18, 1899, in the thirteenth block of Jirón Junín (formerly Prado), in Barrios Altos, in the

center of Lima. He was the son of María Florinda Alva,

who died as a result of complications during childbirth, and the educator Felipe

Pinglo Meneses, who had an important influence on his life, particularly in his approach to literature. Although Felipe Pinglo

did his primary studies in a public school and attended secondary school at the Colegio Nacional Nuestra Señora

de Guadalupe, he did not have an academic background in music, being in fact self-taught, who

began to write poetry and then provided it with music, innovating the Creole songbook with his own style. He

worked at a very young age in a printing press, then in a gas company, and was also a public servant. He was left-handed - that's why he played the guitar with the neck and headstock on the right -, a football fan, a bohemian, and was married from a young age to Hermelinda Rivera, with whom he had two children: Felipe and Carmen.

The music of the Peruvian coast, often called "creole music," brings together various genres,

 

among which the waltz, marinera, polka and Afro-Peruvian rhythms stand out. All of them arose in the

 

popular sectors and have gone through a process of fusion, which has shaped them as

 

part of the identity of the nation. A great exponent, whose work marks a before and after in

 

the evolutionary process of the waltz and its subsequent consolidation, is Felipe Pinglo Alva, a character

 

whose prolific musical work as a composer touches the most intimate fibers of that feeling of

 

belonging to a space like the city of Lima.

The social aspect of his work

 

Pinglo's musical work can be organized into three

 

broad groups: the first is characterized by songs

 

with an idyllic, romantic language and very influenced by

 

modernism, among which we can mention Celos,

 

Claro de luna, Horas de amor, Aldeana, Emilia, Oh mujer,

 

Ramito de flores, Sueños de opio. The second group addresses

 

the problems of his time: the lyrics do not lose their

 

poetic sense, but become the means to transmit messages loaded with denunciation and social criticism; he

 

does not only want to attract attention, but to empathize with those marginal characters. Finally, a third group

 

covers themes that reflect other interests of the author such as

 

football and its great idols, or the influence of American

 

culture on city lifestyles.

the second group, the "social" one.

 

This is the core of Pinglo's work, reflected in songs such as El plebeyo, Mendicidad,

 

La obrerita, Jacobo el maderador, which question the status

 

quo and denote that the composer, although he composes lyrics,

 

not only provides them with the music that he likes, but

 

El plebeyo. Converted into a sort of Creole hymn,

 

there are many versions about who inspired this composition

 

which, specifically, narrates the drama of Luis Enrique, in love with a woman from a different and exalted social class, which is precisely why it is difficult to access,

 

given the old and well-known social conventions. The

 

waltz ends with a phrase that is a question and a complaint:

 

Lord, why are beings / not of equal value!?... That is, what

 

is happening in this world that not all human beings have the same value, although it would be love that could

 

break those barriers. And glimpsing the strictly formal nature of that composition and his work in general, it is "the sensitive

 

narrative correspondence between music and lyrics"4

 

that is creating an atmosphere that envelops us in that drama of

 

Love and denunciation.

 

 

 

The Musica Criolla movement was influential throughout Latin America throughout the 20th century,[2][3] producing many romantic standards that are covered by artists of every generation and nationality. Pinglo's songs have been sung by such notable artists as:

 

Los Panchos

Los Embajadores Criollos

Los Chalanes del Perú

Julio Jaramillo

Vicente Fernández

Soledad Bravo

Mercedes Sosa

Los Morochucos

Los Troveros Criollos

Pedro Infante

Caetano Veloso

Plácido Domingo

Eva Ayllon

Olimpo Cárdenas

Julio Iglesias

Some of Pinglo's Songs

El Plebeyo - The Plebeian

El huerto de mi amada - The orchard of my beloved

El espejo de mi vida - The mirror of my life

suenos de Opio - Opium Dreams

Jacobo el Leñador - Jacob the Lumberjack

Oracion del Labriego - Worker's Prayer

Pasion y Odio - Passion and Hate

Social beliefs

Pinglo's affinity for the poorer classes led to much speculation and innuendo throughout the various political eras of Peru. At certain times, such as during the dictatorship of Óscar R. Benavides, El Plebeyo and other songs written by Pinglo, were banned from radio airplay. It was widely circulated that Pinglo was an Aprista, or that he was politically allied with José Carlos Mariátegui. However, being a Bohemian, it is also likely that he was an Anarcho-syndicalist.

 

Contemporary writings indicate that Pinglo participated in cultural events organized by syndicalists of the era, such as the homage to sculptor Delfín Lévano in a theatre in the La Victoria neighborhood in Lima.

 

At different times, governments attempted to slander Pinglo by alleging he was an alcoholic, or addicted to morphine. Contemporary reports indicate that he was a moderate drinker who did not use drugs.

In 1935, Pinglo fell ill with severe pain in his left knee due to a sports injury and also due to increasingly acute spasms caused by poorly cured bronchitis.

 

Three days before he died, Pinglo finished writing what would be his last song, the waltz "Hermelinda" dedicated to his wife. He no longer had the strength to put it to music so he asked his wife to give it to Paco Vilela or Pedro Espinel to be put to music. Hermelinda Rivera did not want to make this last composition known and because she had kept it hidden for so many years, it is not very well known.

 

At 5 in the morning on May 13, 1936, at the age of 36, Felipe Pinglo Alva died with his eyes fixed on the image of the Virgin of Carmen, patron saint of criollismo. The next day, his remains were accompanied by nearly a thousand people to the Santa Rebeca barracks of the Presbítero Maestro Cemetery where he was buried. Four days later, the composer Pedro Espinel, one of Pinglo's best friends, founded the "Felipe Pinglo Alva Music Center."

 

On October 26, 1958, his remains were transferred to a mausoleum crowned by a bust by the sculptor Artemio Ocaña. The attic of the tomb, in the form of musical notes, was designed and forged by the decimist Nicomedes Santa Cruz. These attic are the first notes of the waltz "El plebeyo."

With affection,

Ruben