Signos dodecafónicos: discurso musical en el Sanjuanito futurista de Salgado

The short piano piece Sanjuanito futurista, written by Luis Humberto Salgado in 1944, is considered the first dodecaphonic composition in Ecuadorian musical history. Even though the Sanjuanito futurista has been studied previously by other authors, none have researched semiotically the musical discourse that may be found in it. This paper presents an exhaustive enquiry on the musical structures of Sanjuanito futurista, and their symbolical connotations; using these musical signs as a basis, a coherent musical discourse is then put forward. The techniques of paradigmatic analysis, performance analysis and musical semiotics, particularly the theoretical background developed by Jean-Jacques Nattiez and Jean Molino, have been employed in this research project. The main result of this enquiry is the dialectical description of the Sanjuanito futurista, which resembles a dialogue and conflict between modernity and tradition; this finding expands the theoretical horizons found in the literatura about this piece. This and other results of this study may prove useful as a listening and performance guide, and may also serve as a starting point for further research on Salgado’s musical output.