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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Jack Délano’s (1914-1997) Burundanga or Cantata Antillana: an art-music portrayal of Luis Palés Matos’s (1898-1959) black Caribbean

Abstract

dc:description

This is an analytical study of "Burundanga" or "Cantata Antillana" by Jack Délano (1914-1997). One of Délano’s most ambitious choral-orchestral compositions, "Burundanga" was completed in 1989 in response to a commission from the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture and is based on Luis Palés Matos’s (1898-1959) extravagant and elaborate poem "Canción festiva para ser llorada" (A Festive Song to be Wept). "Burundanga" stands at the foreground of Puerto Rican art-music in the twentieth century. With its neoclassical language and integration of Caribbean folkloric material, it emerges as a unique reflection of the highly complex geographical, social, cultural and musical reality of Puerto Rico and the Antilles. The analysis underscores the relationships between the textual images and the musical resources employed in their setting, focusing on the composition’s formal, melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, orchestrational and expressive elements. It also discerns particular methods by which the composer utilized and adapted Afro-Antillean idioms and combined them with art-music components to portray idiosyncratic aspects of Caribbean culture in a universalistic musical language.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
A.Mus.D.
Level thesis:degree_level
Dissertation
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Music
Grantor
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Year dc:date
2011

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Tapia-Santiago, Daniel A.
Contributors dc:contributor
  • Alwes, Chester L.
  • Moersch, Charlotte Mattax
  • Taylor, Stephen A.
  • Ward, Thomas R.

Subjects

dc:subject × 8

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • Copyright© 2011 Daniel A. Tapia-Santiago.
Language dc:language
en

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Handle dc:identifier
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/26022
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/26022

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
Base URL
www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Tapia-Santiago, Daniel A.. Jack Délano’s (1914-1997) Burundanga or Cantata Antillana: an art-music portrayal of Luis Palés Matos’s (1898-1959) black Caribbean. Dissertation thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/2142/26022