XIMENEZ QUARTET PROGRAM NOTES

Pedro Ximenez’s Salon celebrates the music of Peruvian composer Pedro Ximenez Abrill Tirado (1784-1856), the most prolific South American composer of the first half of the nineteenth century. His output, impressive for its quality, size, and aesthetic breath, reflects the ways in which South American composers of the early nineteenth century molded their aesthetic identities in the midst of enlightenment movements, colonial reforms, and independence revolutions.

Ximenez was born in 1786 in Arequipa at a critical moment in the city’s history––1780 marked the beginning of the revolutions which ultimately led to Peru’s foundation as a country in 1821. In 1833, Bolivia’s President, Mariscal Andrés de Santa Cruz, offered him the post of Maestro de Capilla at the Cathedral in Sucre, the capital of Bolivia, position that had been previously occupied by Juan de Araujo, Blas Tardío de Guzmán, and Roque Jacinto Chavarría. Ximenez held this position until his death in 1856.

Before he moved to Bolivia, he was known for hosting the famous tertulias literarias at his house the Quinta Tirado. These salon gatherings became essential for the construction of a criollo independentist identity in Arequipa and were frequented by poets, musicians, and members of the most prestigious families; their presence enabled ideological debates among conservatives, royalists, and patriots, and provided Ximenez with a diverse audience for the performances of his compositions.

Written in the quatuor concertante style during the first decades of the nineteenth century, Quarteto Concertante op.55 was most probably premiered in one of these salon gatherings. The concertante style, which had roots in Paris in the last decades of the eighteenth century, is characterized by equal scoring for four instrumentalists and incorporates aspects of two other popular genres: the solo concerto and the comic opera. We can hear these elements in Allegro. Adagio con Sordina, on the other hand, was written in the form of a yaravi, a Peruvian song genre associated with the Independence cause during the Age of Revolutions. Throughout this movement the violins and viola sing the melodies while accompanied by arpeggiated figures that resemble the common guitar accompaniment of the genre. While the Minué Allegro–Trio subscribes to European expected norms, the Rondo Allegro brings us back to the world of commedia dell’arte, with clownish characters, jokes, and jugglers.

Suite Andina, on the hand, is a compilation of movements–taken from chamber works and solo pieces arranged for string quartet–in which Ximenez uses local song genres and dances. Yaraví is taken from Meditaciones para el Quinario, a set of paraliturgical pieces composed for the Quinario––the observance of the five holy wounds of Christ, Vals al estilo americano is an arrangement of a solo guitar piece, and Gallinacito is a movement of the Divertimento op.43 for guitar, two flutes and string quartet.

Ximenez’s music collection was only discovered around a decade ago in Sucre. Housed at the Archivo y Bibliotecas Nacionales de Bolivia, the collection contains over 120 large format compositions including masses, passions, and symphonies, as well as more than 400 shorter sacred and secular works. The collection also includes works by other composers, including Cambini, Pleyel, Haydn, Beethoven, and Boccherini. The discovery of Ximenez’s collection not only enlightens us about musical tastes of the time and his influences, but attests to the rich musical production in South America during the first half of the nineteenth century.

Pedro Ximenez’s Salon offers a glimpse into Ximenez’s musical world, presenting a new voice of the nineteenth century salon tradition and celebrating the crossroads of a musical endeavour shaped by colonialism, the fight for freedom, liberty, independence and ultimately democracy.

©Karin Cuellar Rendon

INDIVIDUAL BIOGRAPHIES

Karin A. Cuellar Rendon is a Bolivian historical violinist and scholar currently residing in Montreal, Canada. Cuellar performs regularly with leading period ensembles in Quebec such as Ensemble Caprice, Arion, Les Boreades, and L’Harmonie des Saison. As an advocate for inclusion, diversity, equity, and access in early music, she serves as co-chair of Early Music America’s IDEA Task Force. Cuellar is currently pursuing a PhD in Musicology at McGill University with a research focus on performance practices in South America in the first half of the nineteenth century, using as a case study the music of Peruvian composer Pedro Ximenez Abrill Tirado (1784-1856).

Simon Alexandre completed his Bachelor's and Master's degree at Université de Montréal in the class of Claude Richard in 2013. In 2020, he also completed a Graduate and Artist diplomas from McGill University in the class of Violaine Melançon. He has since played with many orchestras in the province of Quebec, such as Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, Sherbrooke and Agora. Simon is also a permanent member of the Orchestre Symphonique du Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean. He is a founding member of La Traverse, a duo mixing French Canadian and Scandinavian traditional music and a founding member of the Ximenez Quartet.

Violinist and Violist Jimin Dobson discovered the Baroque Violin as a freshman at the Cleveland Institute of Music with the esteemed Early Music faculty at the Case Western Reserve University, since then she had pursued her passion for performing on gut strings through various programs and summer festivals. She is an active performer in the Montreal Early Music scene where she appears with numerous ensembles including Arion Orchestre Baroque, l’Harmonie des Saisons, Orchestre Galileo, Studio de Musique Ancienne de Montreal, Clavecin en Concert, les Boreades de Montreal and Ensemble Telemann, as well as being the newest member of the Ximenez Quartet.

Jessica Korotkin is a passionate chamber musician, composer, and cellist. She specializes in baroque cello and plays a number of historical bowed bass instruments including the viola da gamba, violone, and bass violin. Ms. Korotkin has performed and recorded with a variety of award-winning ensembles from Canada and the United States. She received a Bachelor’s degree in music from the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, as well as a Master’s degree in historical performance from the Oberlin Conservatory, and she is currently a Doctoral candidate at McGill's Schulich School of Music.