Music criticism and the making of a civilised Mexico: modernity, cosmopolitanism, and Wagnerism in the second half of the nineteenth century

Abstract

This thesis explores narratives of civilisation and modernity in Mexican musical culture as articulated in the press during the second half of the nineteenth century. It focuses on two key historical moments to trace how ideas of progress circulated through transatlantic networks. The first part examines the Mexican Philharmonic Society and its journal La armonía (November 1866–May 1867), founded in the final year of Maximilian of Habsburg’s empire, which anticipated the concerns later voiced by composer-critic Gustavo Campa (1863–1934). The second part analyses Campa’s writings, particularly the construction of his identity as a reformer of Mexican music and the polemics he sustained between 1882 and 1889.
Existing scholarship has often interpreted nineteenth-century Mexican musical identity through the liberal narratives of mid-nineteenth century and, after 1917, the lens of post-revolutionary nationalism. As a result, music criticism has been either misunderstood or overlooked, seen largely as the product of European aspirations—mostly French—among Mexico’s cultural elite. This thesis instead argues that Campa’s concern with musical progress was part of a broader attempt to respond to a crisis of national identity, one shared by intellectuals in other parts of the world.
Drawing on a wide range of sources—including daily newspapers, literary and musical journals in Mexico City, Paris, and Barcelona, as well as the private correspondence between Campa and the Spanish composer-critic Felipe Pedrell—this study shows how Campa’s criticism connected with international networks that promoted or rejected Wagnerism as a solution for ‘stagnant countries.’
The conclusions contribute to a reassessment of Mexico’s place in the cultural map of the nineteenth century. They challenge centre–periphery models that cast Mexican elites as passive recipients of European influence, highlight the role of music criticism in shaping a national cosmopolitan identity, and open new avenues for studying transnational intellectual networks and the imagined communities that shared cultural projects across borders.

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ORCID for Fernanda Munoz Salazar: orcid.org/0000-0002-4611-4148

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