Despite his success in the theatre, Víctor had not lost touch with his roots. Folk music continued to be an intrinsic part of his life, his guitar a constant companion. In these crowded years, he was developing powers as a composer and performer, which were later to become a major part of his life and work, a means of communicating immediately with hundreds of thousands of people whom through the theatre alone he could never hope to reach.

As I grew closer to him, I realised how profound was Víctor’s necessity for music and how important his guitar was to him. I could have been jealous of it because it was almost as though it were another person with whom he conversed. He played when he was depressed or especially happy, when he was relaxed, or to help him relax when he was nervous. Víctor had never studied musical theory, and he couldn’t write down the scores of his own songs. He had learned as the peasants do, by ear, and his style of playing was reminiscent of the region of Ñuble, his mother’s birthplace, where he had spent his summers at theatre school. When he composed, too, it was instinctively, with only his own creativity to guide him. 

He always seemed to have two or three songs inside him. As he had said to me in one of his letters, ‘Something seems to take root in me and then has to find a way of getting out’. His pockets were always full of scraps of paper with notes and verses scribbled on them. He would have ideas while riding on a bus, walking in the street, at lunch or reading the newspaper.

Because his work was so instinctive, it was important for him to try it out on an audience. I was the nearest person, so as soon as he had something ready or had worked out an idea, he would play or sing it to me, asking for my opinions and comments. I was a built-in listening post. Because of this, I could see what he was looking for—the development of authentic folk music, which would enhance rather than disguise its fundamental character, which would enrich its expressive possibilities so that the music could complement and underline the meaning of the text.

His first songs were very personal ones, almost autobiographical. His newfound happiness gave him the possibility of untying some of the knots inside him and expressing his feelings, his thoughts about his father and mother and their poverty, and the anxiety of his childhood. He wrote of the priests who had frightened him so much and had seemed to hold the peasants to ransom with fear of Hell and of the Devil; he emphasised his belief that love between human beings was more important than religion: ‘I believe only in the warmth of your hand in mine.’

In 1962, almost immediately after returning from his European tour, Víctor directed the recording of an album of folk songs with Cuncumén. It contained songs from every region of Chile, from the far north to the island of Chiloé in the south and was called Una Geografía Musical de Chile. The innovation on this album included two of Víctor’s own songs—‘Paloma, quiero contarte’ and ‘Canción del minero’.

Cuncumén had always been a group dedicated exclusively to investigating and performing traditional folk songs and dances collected in the country. In Chile, as elsewhere, there were two prevailing schools of thought about folklore: one school saw folk as something static, already petrified, to be investigated only in an anthropological way and preserved for museums; the other, to which Víctor belonged and which was only just beginning to make itself felt, saw it more as a living expression which could be contemporary and was capable of transformation providing it was firmly attached to its original roots.

This discussion continued throughout the first few years of the sixties, causing controversy and sometimes bitterness. Although Víctor left Cuncumén at the end of 1962, he always maintained contact with them and supported them during the years that followed in their particular field of research into authentic folklore, even when, to many people, they seemed old fashioned and out of touch with the times. Víctor felt that although it was wrong to be dogmatic about folklore, it was also important to investigate and know as much as possible about the old traditions and the people who created them. 

He himself had the opportunity to develop this side of his work when, in 1963, he was approached by Gregorio de la Fuente, then director of the Casa de la Cultura de Ñuñoa—a cultural institute in a suburb of Santiago—and asked to set up a school of folklore. With the help of one of the members of Cuncumén, Maruja Espinoza, Víctor set about organising the classes and teaching the folk dances, which he especially enjoyed, while Maruja concentrated on teaching guitar. A large and enthusiastic group of students made it possible within a couple of years to form a very lively performing group from which several soloists later emerged.

It was still possible at that time to find peasant singers settled in the outlying districts of Santiago and the surrounding countryside. Víctor encouraged the students to get out into the country at weekends to collect and record local folk songs, and he himself did the same whenever he had the time. He also took a group on a field trip to the north of Chile, where the music and dances were completely different.

Víctor’s methods were probably very unscientific. He did not ask his students to use a written questionnaire as some of the academic investigators did, which often produced a barrier of incomprehension. Instead, he encouraged both respect and friendship. With a bottle of wine and a guitar, an investigation session was converted into a real exchange of experiences. It was urgent and important to carry out this work. The global expansion of the music industry and the multinational record companies was rapidly swamping Latin America, a secondary market which could be used as a dumping ground for the remainder of the international record industry.

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This is an excerpt from Víctor Jara: An Unfinished Song by Joan Jara. No part of this excerpt may be quoted or reproduced without prior written consent from its publisher, LeftWord Books.

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