Violeta Parra

Violeta Parra
Violeta Parra in the 1960s
Background information
Birth name	Violeta del Carmen Parra Sandoval
Born	4 October 1917(1917-10-04)
Origin	San Carlos, Chile
Died	5 February 1967(1967-02-05) (aged 49)
Genres	Folk, Singer-Songwriter, Andean music, Latin music, Chilean music, Experimental Music, Nueva Canción
Occupations	Vocalist, Songwriter, Plastic Arts
Instruments	Vocals, Guitar, Charango, Cuatro, Percussion
Years active	1939–1965
Labels	EMI-Odeon Alerce Warner Music
Associated acts	Víctor Jara, Quilapayún, Inti-illimani, Patricio Manns, Illapu, Ángel Parra, Isabel Parra, Roberto Parra, Sergio Ortega, Margot Loyola, Pablo Neruda, Nicanor Parra, Soledad Bravo, Daniel Viglietti, Mercedes Sosa, Joan Baez, Holly Near, Elis Regina, Dean Reed, Silvio Rodríguez
Website	Official Website

Violeta del Carmen Parra Sandoval (4 October 1917 – 5 February 1967) was a notable Chilean composer, songwriter, folklorist, ethnomusicologist and visual artist. She set the basis for "Chilean' New Song", La Nueva Canción chilena, a renewal and a reinvention of Chilean folk music which would absorb and extend its influence far beyond Chile.

Biography

Parra was born in San Carlos, province of Ñuble, a small town in southern Chile on October the 4, 1917. She was involved in the progressive movement and the Communist Party of Chile. She revived the Peña (now known as La Peña de Los Parra), a community center for the arts and for political activism. Some think she established the first 'peña' but according to the records of the Royal Academy of Spanish Language, places such as these had been called that since 1936 (RAE).

Violeta Parra was a member of the prolific Parra family. Among her brothers were the notable modern poet, better known as the "anti-poet", Nicanor Parra and fellow folklorist Roberto Parra. Her son, Ángel Parra, and her daughter, Isabel Parra, are also important figures in the development of the Nueva Canción Chilena. Their children have also mostly maintained the family's artistic traditions.

In 1967 Violeta Parra committed suicide. She had previously been romantically involved with Swiss flautist Gilbert Favre.

Music

Her most renowned song, Gracias a la Vida (Thanks to Life), was popularized throughout Latin America by Mercedes Sosa and later in the US by Joan Baez. It remains one of the most covered Latin American songs in history. Other notable covers of this tragic, but widely beloved, folk anthem include the Italian guitar-vocal solo of Adriana Mezzadr and La Oreja de Van Gogh at the 2005 Festival Internacional de la Canción in Viña del Mar, Chile.

It has been treated by classically trained musicians such as in the fully orchestrated rendition by conservatory-trained Alberto Cortez.

The song has been re-recorded by several Latin artists and Canadian Michael Bublé to gather funds for the Chilean people affected by the earthquake in Chile, February 2010.

The song is in waltz time (3/4) and thus suitable for romantic dance forms; it opens with a simple but relatively unusual shift between A minor and E Major chords, setting up a tension between sad and cheerful which is reflective of its meaning; then it devolves to G7-C/C7 before returning to the Am/E motif. This is remarkable for music rooted in folk tradition because it essentially modulates between keys, a sophisticated move which does occur in folk-influenced music but only the more advanced forms.

Gracias a la vida

The song opens with a simple strumming at a leisurely tempo and exploits the poetic beauty of the Spanish language with consummate skill:

Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto

Me dio dos luceros que cuando los abro

Perfecto distingo lo negro del blanco

Y en el alto cielo su fondo estrellado

Y en las multitudes el hombre que yo amo

It continues with several more such stanzas before refraining "Gracias a la vida" in a poignant but riveting fade.

Roughly translated, these lyrics mean:

:Thanks to life, which has given me so much.

It gave me two eyes, which when I open

I can perfectly distinguish black from white

And in the distant heaven the starry backdrop

And amongst the multitude

The man that I love.

And the closing refrain "Gracias a la vida", ironically, :Thanks to life

Thanks to life

Thanks to life

Another highly regarded original, Volver a los Diecisiete (To Be Seventeen again) similarly celebrates the themes of youthful life, in tragic contrast to her biography. Unlike much popular music, it moves through minor key progression creating an introspective if not melancholy mood and thus has lent itself to classical treatment as well as popular music. Despite its originality, Parra's music was deeply rooted in folk song traditions, as is the case with Nueva Cancion in general.

As noted by Mercedes Sosa, with regard to Gracias a la Vida, Parra's music was, though about "simple things", always "prophetic and true".

Discography

Studio albums

• Chants et danses du chili. Vol. 1 (1956)
• Chants et danses du chili. Vol. 2 (1956)
• Violeta Parra, Canto y guitarra. El Folklore de Chile, Vol. I (1956)
• Violeta Parra, acompañada de guitarra. El Folklore de Chile, Vol. II (1958)
• La cueca presentada por Violeta Parra: El Folklore de Chile, Vol. III. (1958)
• La tonada presentada por Violeta Parra: El Folklore de Chile, Vol. IV. (1958)
• Toda Violeta Parra: El Folklore de Chile, Vol. VIII (1960)
• Violeta Parra, guitare et chant: Chants et danses du Chili. (1963)
• Recordandeo a Chile (Una Chilena en París). (1965)
• Carpa de la Reina (1966)
• Las últimas composiciones de Violeta Parra (1967)

Posthumous discography

• Violeta Parra y sus canciones reencontradas en París (1971)
• Canciones de Violeta Parra (1971)
• Le Chili de Violeta Parra (1974)
• Un río de sangre (1975)
• Presente / Ausente (1975)
• Décimas (1976)
• Chants & rythmes du Chili (1991)
• El hombre con su razón (1992)
• Décimas y Centésimas (1993)
• El folklore y la pasión (1994)
• Haciendo Historia: La jardinera y su canto (1997)
• Violeta Parra: Antología (1998)
• Canciones reencontradas en París (1999)
• Composiciones para guitarra (1999)
• Violeta Parra - En Ginebra, En Vivo, 1965 (1999)
• Violeta Parra: Cantos Campesinos (1999)

Further reading

• Moreno, Albrecht: "Violeta Parra and 'La Nueva Canción Chilena." Studies in Latin American Popular Culture 5 (1986): 108—26.
• Alcalde, Alfonso: Toda Violeta Parra (biography plus anthology of songs and poems) Ediciones de la Flor. Buenos Aires 1974

External links

• Official site of the Violeta Parra Foundation
• Discography and lyrics
• Discography
• Issac 2001 Triptych version of Gracias A la Vida
• Remembering Violeta Parra
• Violeta Parra's gravesite