A Conversation with Osvaldo Golijov
by Habitus · 02/05/08
Osvaldo Golijov, an Argentine Jew with a global imagination, is one of the most celebrated composers in the world today. The New York Times suggests that Golijov is “profoundly shifting the geography of the classical music world, dumping the old Eurocentric map.” He has crafted his own vernacular from his experiences in Argentina, Israel, and the United States—along with his learned grasp of the Western tradition and an expansive ear for pop and folk sounds from around the world.
In 2000, he was commissioned to create a Latin American interpretation of the Passion of Jesus Christ. Golijov’s La Pasión según San Marcos, based on the Gospel of Mark, boldly recasts the story of Christ’s death with Cuban drums, flamenco guitars, Brazilian dance and percussion, cantorial melodies, a choir and soloists singing Spanish and Aramaic texts. The piece ends with a melancholy setting of the Kaddish. It’s both an inward turn and an empathetic leap from a composer who has taken what he calls a “step towards the Other.”
You said in an interview once that you saw music as a way to “map the human soul in sound.” Is Argentina at the center of your personal map?
Argentina is pretty much at the center, but I don’t know if it’s the center-center. [laughter] It’s interesting, because I don’t know if the map even has a center or not.
That’s true. It might not.
For every artist there is a center, which is childhood. And Argentina was my childhood. But it’s not necessarily the Argentina of a Christian kid, who is part of the majority there. My Argentina also has the memory of my great-grandfather, who dressed as if he had never left Romania. A lot of my experiences were specific to the Jewish immigrant community. It might be the Argentina of Borges, but it’s not necessarily the Argentina of the majority.
Do think your upbringing was typically Argentine in any way?
I went to public school, so I was more typical than some other Jewish kids. But I was always aware of being different. For the most part, there were only subtle reminders. You might get into a fistfight and your friend might call you a “dirty Jew.” Or someone would say something bad about Jews, and then they would look at me and say, “Sorry, you’re not like that.”
What languages were spoken at home?
Spanish, of course. I did speak Yiddish really well as a child, until about sixth grade, when we switched to Hebrew in school. My parents would speak in Yiddish when they didn’t want us to understand. But soon we learned.
Many people describe Argentina as a place where you can take ownership of the European tradition from afar, with a kind of freedom to re-imagine.
Right. Borges said something about being absolutely aware of tradition but not having the burden. You have the ability to reinvent it.
The reason I became a composer was probably [tango composer] Astor Piazzolla. His way of approaching music—he was not afraid to be both high and low, popular and classical. I understood right away that Piazzolla wasn’t simply using notes, he was distilling all of life in Buenos Aires: the way people talked, walked, flirted, fought.
He skirted all of the big European existential questions. But we didn’t have to ask ourselves those same questions. We did not attempt to destroy the world. [laughter]
People like Piazzolla or Borges could own all of Western culture, but they could approach it with playfulness. What was exciting for me in Piazzolla was not so much his tango roots, but his transmutations of Bartók, Stravinsky, and life in the streets into a new and vital music.
Do you think that Jews in Argentina have a similar relationship to Judaism?
I think there are versions of re-imagined Judaism that are absolutely different from, say, those in America.
The first big waves of immigration were basically parallel to the waves that came to America. For many people, in my own family too, it was like tossing a coin: America or Buenos Aires? Both were equally promising and scary.
There was also something in Argentina that didn’t happen in America: the gauchos judíos [rural Jewish settlers]. On my mother’s side of the family, they were part of that. They labored on the land, Jews from Eastern Europe working alongside the gauchos. [laughter] The evolution in Buenos Aires was, I guess, similar to New York. There were Yiddish newspapers, theaters, schools. It was all a part of the European mentality.
Also, the whole centrality of the Holocaust, which exists in America, did not quite happen in Argentina. I don’t think there was ever a great wave of survivors immigrating to Argentina.
