Andean Pentatonism and Pampean Chromaticism? Representations of the Mapuche World in the Musical and Musicological Work of Carlos Lavín Acevedo (1883–1962)

This article analyses the work of the Chilean composer and musicologist Carlos Lavín, addressing the imaginary that he constructed around the Mapuche people and his reception of European music from the early twentieth century during his stay as a student and researcher in Germany and France. Based on a review of the composer’s published works and a detailed musical analysis of two of his piano works, Suite Andina and Mythes Araucans , the article contrasts these with his theory of the bipartite tonal organization of South American Indigenous populations. It demonstrates how musical and musicological practices operate in the sonic representation of Mapuche alterity, and how this appropriation functioned as a rhetorical resource in the construction of a national imaginary.