In his rehearsal room behind his house, Max Goldenberg settles into a chair and does what he does best: paint a new universe with his voice and guitar.
Listening to Max Goldenberg play live is like witnessing a historic event and being aware of it. The sweet sadness with which he sings at 80 years of age awakens a nostalgia for the present moment.
I have no training. I’m not a musician except by ear,” says Max without reproach, since that ear has led him to compose around 150 songs.
With the intention of documenting the scores of his music, the Costa Rican Public Universities Publishing House (EDUPUC- Editorial de las Universidades Públicas Costarricenses) published the songbook “Multiversos Paralelos.”
The book contains 12 songs by the Nicoyan artist and 12 others by another living legend in Guanacaste’s music: Guadalupe Urbina.
A bridge between two universes
Musicians and researchers Óscar Jiménez and Javier Alvarado were in charge of the project. Through the cultural promotion program of the State Distance Learning University (Spanish acronym: UNED), they proposed creating this songbook with the main intention of having students and teachers use it in their music classes.
“Let it be an option for young people to continue this work that we, in some way, covered to the best of our ability,” says Max Goldenberg.Photo: César Arroyo Castro
Their vision is to expand the repertoire with which many people learn Guanacastecan music and to diversify the literature for instrumental teaching.
“The same five songs continue to be sung in schools the same as ever, so by putting them on sheet music like this, there’s no excuse anymore. Here are 24 songs from the new repertoire, and it’s also important for the country to value living composers,” Óscar comments.
The repertoire isn’t just expanding with more songs but also with a greater diversity of genres. That’s why they tried to make the songs included in the songbook reflect the rich variety of rhythms that exist in Max and Guadalupe’s songs.
“Max and Lupe resist being classified as folkloric artists, no matter how much people would like to understand them that way, because they have an extremely broad worldview and integrate songs and genres from all over the world into their compositions,” Javier adds.
The songbook contains sheet music for the 24 songs, each with a QR code, through which people can listen to them. The recordings were made with support from the National University, and Javier and Óscar created the sheet music for each song, a difficult task because each one is composed orally and not written down.
“These are songs composed from the body, from the guitar. But it’s important to do this exercise because it’s the bridge we find between the oral and the written,” Javier explains.
The book is currently on sale at bookstores in all of the public universities in the country for ¢14,000 (about $28).
Music from the body
Towards the end of the book, there is a chapter called “El saco de mañas” (The Bag of Tricks), which talks about rhythm and the guitar strumming styles of Max and of other musicians from the province, such as Adán Guevara Centeno, Goyo Díaz and, of course, Guadalupe.
“Javier told me, ‘Guadalupe, it’s very important that we preserve your way of playing the guitar because it’s a very particular way.’ I have a lot of problems with the tendons in my left hand, so I have to play in a certain way so as not to overextend my fingers. Then he told me, ‘We should document that,’” the composer recalls.
Keeping a record of the particular characteristics of each artist is a way to preserve those details that can’t be captured in sheet music, but it’s also an invitation to those who want to learn these songs to add their own interpretations.
One gets a little scared that the books will remain on the shelves of scholarship. So I would really like to see that strength and creativity in music,” says Guadalupe.
Both of the book’s compilers, Javier and Óscar, share Guadalupe’s vision and hope that people will connect these songs with other genres, experiment and take risks. Because they have faith that as long as the repertoires of these types of music are being redefined, they will remain alive.
“I would like young people to be more daring, to not be satisfied with just learning music theory and playing an instrument, but to explore and openly express everything they have to say, especially in an environment like the one we live in, which is so rich and provocative for doing beautiful things,” adds Max.
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