Julián Carrillo Trujillo (January 28, 1875 – September 9, 1965) was a Mexican composer, conductor, violinist and music theorist, famous for developing a theory of microtonal music which he dubbed "The Thirteenth Sound" (Sonido 13).
Carrillo was born on January 28, 1875, in Ahualulco, a village in the state of San Luis Potosí. He was the last of the 19 children of Nabor Carrillo and Antonia Trujillo.
Carrillo sang in the children's choir of Ahualulco's church. The choir's conductor, Flavio F. Carlos, encouraged him to study music in the state capital, San Luis Potosí. He planned to study for two years, then return to Ahualulco as the church's singer, but problems prevented this plan. He arrived to San Luis Potosí City in 1885 and began to study with Flavio F. Carlos, teacher to several generations of San Luis Potosí's composers. Carrillo also began to work in his teacher's orchestra where he was a percussionist and later, violinist.
He composed his first small works for this group. Because of his family's financial situation, Carrillo left his primary school studies early, but continued working in the orchestra and studying music with Carlos. In 1894, Carrillo composed a mass that was locally successful. This, along with a letter of recommendation from the government of San Luis Potosí, allowed him to go to study in the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico City. Carrillo made quick progress in the Conservatory. His professors included Pedro Manzano (violin), Melesio Morales (composition), and Francisco Ortega y Fonseca (physics, acoustics, and mathematics).
Having not completed primary studies, he was ignorant of the acoustic basis of music—so he was fascinated when Ortega discussed laws governing generation of fundamental intervals in music. For example, when a violin string is depressed (stopped) at its midpoint, it produces a pitch twice the frequency of (an octave above) the open string. When a string is stopped at one-third, the remaining two-thirds vibrates a perfect fifth higher than the open string (almost exactly equivalent to 5/8 of an octave). Carrillo explored these relationships in experiments. For a while he tried, but couldn't divide the string further than into eight equal parts. Then he left the traditional way of dividing the string into two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight equal parts, and, using a razor to stop the string, divided the fourth string of his violin between G and A into sixteen parts. He could produce sixteen clearly different sounds within a whole tone.
From then on, he immersed himself in the study of the physical and mathematical basis of music. In 1899, General Porfirio Díaz, President of Mexico, heard Carrillo as a violinist. Díaz was impressed, and gave him a special scholarship to study in Europe.
Carrillo was admitted to the Leipzig Royal Conservatory, where he studied with Hans Becker (violin), Johann Merkel (piano), and Salomon Jadassohn (composition, harmony and counterpoint). He became first violin in two orchestras: the Conservatory's Orchestra, conducted by Hans Sitt; and the Gewandhaus Orchestra, conducted by Arthur Nikisch. Carrillo composed several works at Leipzig, including Sextet in G Major for two violins, two violas and two violoncellos (1900), and the First Symphony in D Major for Orchestra (1901). Carrillo conducted the Leipzig Royal Conservatory Orchestra in the premiere performance of his First Symphony.
In 1900, Carrillo attended the International Congress of Music in Paris, presided by Camille Saint-Saëns. He presented a paper, which the Congress accepted and published, on the names of musical sounds. He proposed that, since each note is one sound, each note name (C, D flat, etc.) should be a single syllable. He proposed 35 monosyllabic names. He also befriended Romain Rolland. When he finished his studies in the Leipzig Conservatory, he went to Belgium to improve his skills as a violinist. There, he studied with Albert Zimmer (who had been Eugène Ysaÿe's student) and was admitted to the Ghent Royal Conservatory of Music. In 1903, he composed a Quartet in E minor, which he intended to give, "ideological unity, [and] tonal variety," to classical forms.
In 1904, he won the First Award Cum Laud and with Distinction in the Ghent Conservatory International Violin Competition. Later that year he returned to Mexico where President Díaz gave him an Amati violin "as a present from the Mexican Nation" for his excellent performance in foreign countries. In Mexico City, Carrillo began intense work as violinist, orchestra conductor, composer and teacher. He was appointed professor of history (1906), composition, counterpoint, fugue and orchestration in 1908 by the National Conservatory. Among his students was José Francisco Vázquez Cano who founded the Free School of Music and Declamation, the Faculty of Music of the National University (UNAM) and the National University Philharmonic Orchestra (OFUNAM).
Other notable students were Antonio Gómezanda (pianist and composer), Rafael Ordoñez, Rafael Adame, Vicente Teódulo Mendoza (researcher of the Mexican folklore), Gerónimo Baqueiro Foster (composer and music historian and critic), Daniel Ayala, José López Alavés (composer of the famous Mexican song Canción Mixteca), Rosendo Sánchez, Leticia Euroza, Angel Badillo, Felipe Cortés Texeira, Agustin Oropeza, and Gabriel Gómez. Carrillo organized and conducted the Beethoven Symphony Orchestra (1909) and the Beethoven String Quartet (1910). He published Discursos sobre la música (Discourses on music, 1913) and Pláticas musicales (Musical talks, 1914 and 1922). In 1910 he performed for the first time his Canto a la Bandera (Song to the Flag, with lyrics by Rafael López), which has been since an official song to the Mexican Patriot Flag.
In 1911 Carrillo was official delegate to both the Musical Congress of Rome and the Musical Congress of London. At the first, he presented a report, "Reforming the great forms of composition to give symphony, concert, sonata and quartet ideological unity and tonal diversity". At the second congress, he argued a need to improve the artistic level of military bands. Each report was approved by its respective congress. In 1913 Carrillo was nominated Principal of the National Conservatory. There he amended the curriculum, putting more emphasis on rigorous musical technical preparation as well as literature and Spanish language. That year he was admitted as a member of the Mexican Society of Geography and Statistics.
Birth of the "Thirteenth Sound"
When Victoriano Huerta's government was overthrown, Carrillo had to flee to the United States. In New York City, he organized and conducted the Symphony Orchestra of America. He performed his First Symphony in New York. The success of this work was so great that a journalist named him "the herald of a musical Monroe Doctrine". In 1916, Carrillo composed music for D. W. Griffith's film, Intolerance. In New York, Carrillo also wrote the "Thirteenth Sound Theory" which was published later in the second volume of Musical Talks.
In 1918, he came back to Mexico, where he was chosen to conduct the National Symphony Orchestra (1918–1924) which had been the Conservatory's Orchestra. He was also named Principal of the National Conservatory (1920–1921). Carrillo led the National Symphony Orchestra to performance excellence. Renowned pianist Leopold Godowsky said the orchestra was superior to the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. The National Symphony Orchestra was so popular, it could be sustained by its own economic resources. With his orchestra, Carrillo introduced Mexico to the music of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Richard Strauss, Saint-Saëns, Debussy and Ravel.
He directed two Beethoven Festivals in 1920 and 1921. He also introduced Mexican composers Manuel M. Ponce, Antonio Gómezanda, Juan León Mariscal, and himself, among others. In 1920, Julián Carrillo described his Thirteenth Sound Theory through the Mexican press and in conferences. It stated that, given the evolution of the musical system, the next step of musical composition must be the use of intervals smaller than half tones. He cited examples from his earlier experiments. The Thirteenth Sound Theory was not well received. Some enthusiastic people (most of them Carrillo's students) supported it, but others attacked it and its author. They said it was impossible to perceive such little intervals but, even if possible, Carrillo had stolen the idea from European musicians. The main opponent was "Group 9", consisting of seven musicians, a physician, and a lawyer. Carrillo's followers organized themselves as "Group 13". The two groups confronted each other to defend their positions through press, broadcasts and conferences.