Traditional music and dance
In a certain way, we can say that the Peruvian music is older than Peru. It is what testifies the discovery of prehistoric instruments telling that music was played 10 000 years ago in these lands. Among them, the quenas (flute), zampoñas (pan flute), pututos (shell trumpets) and a great variety of wind instruments elaborated from sugar cane, bones, mud, horns and metals tell the ingenuity of the first Andean artists.
Along with Bolivia, Peru is the stronghold of what is commonly referred to as "Andean music" - those original pre-Hispanic songs and melodies that have merged over time with Spanish music. However, it would be more accurate to speak of music and dances, in the plural, as the field is so rich. On the whole of the Peruvian Andes, one thinks that there are several thousands of regional variants. But on the national scale, the most popular traditional Andean genre is without question the huayno . Very popular with the Quechua people - but appreciated throughout the country - it is recognizable by its fiery rhythm and piercing voices. Generally played in groups of accordions, guitars, harp, saxophone, brass instruments and also flutes (like the sikus) during the festivities, the genre has known some emblematic artists like Leonila Martina Portocarrero Ramos, also a researcher in Andean culture, Dina Páucar, one of the best record sellers, Raúl García Zárate, great national guitarist or Sonia Morales. In terms of choreography, the huayno is danced in couples, with agile stomping and joyful and facetious movements.
Besides this emblematic aesthetic, Peru counts numerous other traditional musics and dances, specific to each region. On the coast, in the west, it is the territory of the musica criolla, a big musical family combining European, African and Andean influences. One of the most representative genres of this branch is the Peruvian waltz (also called vals criollo), a cousin of the Viennese waltz, faster and more rhythmic, a true explosion of joy. Another great criolla expression: the marinera. Of African origin and having undergone later Indian and mixed influences, it became with time a national dance of Peru. Performed in couple, with gracefully handled scarves, it mimes, as a danced theater, a nuptial parade, punctuated by percussions. There are several forms: the marinera criolla (Creole) or Lima, the elegant marinera norteña, more alert and sensual, and the marinera del sur, more sentimental and austere. To see and dance it, a good opportunity is to go to the National Marinera Contest held every year at the beginning of the year in Trujillo. Ancestor of the marinera, the zamacueca is a rhythmic and seductive Creole song and dance from Lima. Like the marinera, other dances originating from the same region are also syntheses of African, indigenous and Spanish roots: the festejo, a sensual dance of courtship, all in jerky and vigorous movements, marked by powerful percussions; the tondero, close to the marinera and which, on a wild rhythm, draws its choreography from the fights of roosters and finally the lando, of Angolan origin and possibly ancestor of the zamacueca.
If we go further south in the country, we cross the Sierra, a mountainous region as rich in beautiful landscapes as in musical traditions. The huaylarsh is a very lively dance and music, whose gestures are linked to agricultural work. It is also in this region that we can see the tunantada, a masked dance emblematic of Jauja, containing a satire of the colonial society of the past. Still satirical, in the region of Junin, one can dance the chonguinada, an elegant choreography mocking the minuet that was danced in the bourgeois salons of the Spanish settlers. In the same region, it is not uncommon to see a muliza, a dance invented by the donkey drivers and inspired by the mules' step. Less visible is the cachua, a dance performed in the round. However, none of the latter dances is as popular as the danza de las tijeras, the famous "scissors dance". The reason it is so famous is undoubtedly because the immense physical skill displayed by the danzaq, the participants in the ritual, is sensational. Fusion of the Hispanic and Andean cultures, this dance pushes its participants to multiply the acrobatics while passing "tests" as eating insects, snakes or toads, sliding a sword in the areopagus, etc. A Peruvian treasure, the scissors dance was included in the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010.
In the Altiplano, in the heart of the Andes Mountains, the high altitude has not dampened the local culture and there are many traditions specific to the region. To begin with the diablada, one of the most colorful and spectacular dances of Peru. To the sound of the sikú or the zampoña, the dancers masked and dressed in sumptuous costumes embroidered with gold and silver put in dance a representation between the good and the evil. It is particularly visible during the Virgen de la Candelaria festival in Puno in February. In Huancayo, one of the most popular dances is El Santiago. It is practiced during the ceremonies of marking the cattle or for the rituals of fertility of the herd. It is usually performed by young women who sing simple and moving songs. Also inspired by the animal world, in the same region it is common to see the llamerada. In this dance, the performers imitate the swaying step of the llama as well as the march of the herders through the winding paths of the territory. Another important dance of the region is the morenada. Although particularly representative of the Bolivian culture, the morenada is very common in the Peruvian Altiplano region. Dating back to the colonial era, it mimics the African dances imported by the slaves. Among the other remarkable traditions of the region, let us quote El Sikuri, a dance a little martial encircling and accompanying a group of players of siku (the traditional flute of Pan) or el kajelo, a dance of the love. It is also impossible not to mention el harawi, a melancholic indigenous musical theme and lyrical poetry, which is not danced and which has its origins in the pre-Columbian era. Accompanied by the charango, mandolin and quena, this music is also recognized by the frequent silences that punctuate the melody.
As far as the Selva is concerned, the region may be sparsely populated, but the music does resonate. Here, in the tropical forest, it has even preserved its original purity. It uses primarily percussion instruments, such as the manguare, a large wooden drum made from a tubular trunk. To fill up on traditional Peruvian music before or after a trip to Peru, we can't recommend watching the documentary Sigo Siendo by Javier Corcuera, a true tribute to national folklore, where we meet local figures such as Susana Baca, the iconic singer of Afro-Peruvian music, or Jaime Guardia, the local master of the charango and a great name in traditional Andean music. Otherwise, on the spot, the events do not miss to caress the traditional Peruvian music as the Fiesta of the Virgen Del Carmen in Paucartambo in the south of Cusco, festival where cross many dances, the birthday of Arequipa, festival of dance on the Misti.Popular music
Flamboyant emblem of Peru, Yma Sumac is without any doubt the most popular Peruvian artist of all times. Mythical diva, this soprano with five octaves is one whose career explodes in the years 1950 when she signs with the American record company Capitol Records. From then on, she played everywhere, dazzled the crowds with the exceptional capacities of her voice, gave her letters of gold to the mambo and remained, far from the portrait of exotic Castafiore that one sometimes tries to draw up for her, the " nightingale of the Andes" .
Passed this icon, the most popular music of Peru, it is the cumbia. Here, the Colombian genre works very well and found a local translation, the chicha, mixture of rock (often psychedelic), of huayno and original Colombian cumbia. Want to dance the cumbia or the chicha? In Lima, we can't advise you better than to go to La Casona de Camana, very dancing and La Emolienteria, where you can eat as well as have fun.Classical music
It is, without surprise, from the colonial period that the musical activity is densified in Peru. The Spaniards imported baroque music with them and some musicians began to distinguish themselves in the country, such as the Spaniard Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco (1644-1728) who composed La Púrpura De La Rosa in 1701, the first opera written and performed on the American continent. After Independence (1821), José Bernardo Alcedo became famous for composing the current national anthem. This last one will be restored later (in 1869) by the Italian-Peruvian composer Claudio Rebagliati, another very big name of the Peruvian music of the XIXth century. By inviting Peruvian folklore and popular tunes into classical music, the composer established himself as one of the precursors of musical nationalism in the country. This last movement brought some of the most important composers of the first half of the 20th century, such as Ernesto Lopez Mindreau (1892-1972), Carlos Valderrama Herrera (1887-1950), Theodoro Valcárcel (1902-1942) or Roberto Carpio (1900-1986), each of whom, in their own way, composed a learned music influenced by Peruvian folklore or Andean music. To get an idea of the form that these compositions took, it is good to remember that it was at this time (in 1913) thatEl condor pasa, an ultra-famous zarzuela, was composed by the composer Daniel Alomía Robles (1871-1942).
As in many countries, the 20th century saw a wind of modernity blowing through Peruvian composition, with atonal music and dodecaphony having a huge influence on local creation. It is particularly palpable in Rodolfo Holzmann (1910-1992) and André Sas (1900-1967), German and French musicians respectively, settled in Peru and became national references. Their interest in these new techniques of composition initiated in the 1950s a new wave of composers combining modernity and Peruvian traditions such as Enrique Iturriaga Romero (1918-2019), José Malsio (1924-2007), Enrique Pinilla Sánchez-Concha (1927-1989), Celso Garrido Lecca, Francisco Vidal Pulgar (1929-2012) and the hyper prolific and revered Edgar Valcárcel (1932-2010).
An avant-garde spirit perpetuated in the 1980s and 1990s by Alejandro Núñez Allauca, working somewhere between neo-indigenism and (what he called) "pointillist atonalism", José Sosaya, trained in France by Yoshihisa Taira or Miguel Oblitas Bustamante, very prolific and covered with awards. In recent years, many young talents have emerged, many of whom have gathered around the Peruvian Composition Circle (Circomper), a group that seeks to promote contemporary classical creation in Peru. Some of them have acquired an international reputation like the pianist Jimmy Lopez, the violinist Clara Petrozzi or Jorge Villavicencio Grossmann, Rajmil Fischman and Pedro Malpica.
Many of the names mentioned in this section have been played by (or with) the National Symphony Orchestra. Since its first concert in 1938, the ensemble performed at the Teatro Municipal de Lima before finding a suitable new home in the Gran Teatro Nacional. Inaugurated in 2013, this modern building hosts the city's best dance, classical music and folkloric shows. Also, it is worth noting that although the country does not have a long tradition of opera, it has nevertheless seen the birth of some famous tenors such as Luigi Alva, who has known all the great stages of the world, Ernesto Palacio, who is very comfortable with Mozart and Rossini, or Juan Diego Flórez, one of the most appreciated voices of bel canto. A country to be seen and heard!
