selective chronology
Calavera Huertista (caricature of the bloodthirsty dictator Huerta), 1913, José Posada
Pancho Villa in the Presidential Chair with Emiliano Zapata at his side, Mexico City, December 6, 1914, Agustín Víctor Casasola
1876 Porfirio Díaz overthrows Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada and becomes president; elected seven times; his “Porfiriato” regime will last 34 years 1899 Carlos Chávez is born in Popotla, a northwest suburb of Mexico City, on June 13 Painter Rufino Tamayo and composer Silvestre Revueltas born 1909 Begins to study piano with composer Manuel M. Ponce Premiere of Richard Strauss’s opera Elektra; Marcel Proust begins In Search of Lost Time 1910 Celebration of the centenary of Grito de Dolores, which marked the beginning of the Mexican War of Independence, in September; in November a revolution breaks out led by Francisco I. Madero that ends Díaz’s regime, with the president leaving office in May 1911; premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s The Firebird in Paris 1913 Military coup led by Victoriano Huerta overthrows Madero, who is later murdered; victorious rebellion against Huerta led by Venustiano Carranza, followed by infighting among revolutionaries; Saturnino Herrán paints The Offering; printmaker José Guadalupe Posada dies; premiere of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring in Paris causes scandal; Henry Ford introduces moving assembly line 1914 Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand; First World War begins; Panama Canal opens 1915 Begins to study piano with Pedro Luis Ogazón; arranges Adelita y La Cucaracha and composes Sinfonía para orquesta Carranza’s forces defeat Francisco (Pancho) Villa; German U-boat sinks RMS Lusitania; Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire; Alexander Scriabin dies 1917 Begins to study harmony with Juan B. Fuentes; composes Preludio y fuga and Sonata fantasía Carranza becomes president; new constitution is issued in Mexico; United States enters First World War; Bolshevik revolution in Russia 1918 Armistice treaty between Allies and Germany ends First World War; Russian Civil War begins; worldwide influenza epidemic; Claude Debussy dies 1920 First work (for piano) is accepted for publication; Estudio III; Valses íntimos III–IV Carranza overthrown, killed in an ambush; Álvaro Obregón elected president; José Vasconcelos becomes minister of public education; Diego Rivera returns home from extended stays in Paris; communist victory in Russia; women’s suffrage begins in United States 1921 First public performance of his music, in Mexico City, and first major commission of a work, the ballet El fuego nuevo (The New Fire); compositions also include String Quartet No. 1, Estudio IV, and Vals elegía Adolf Hitler becomes leader of Nazi Party; Arnold Schoenberg develops 12-tone method of composition 1922 Marries Otilia Ortiz on September 1; travels to Vienna, Berlin, and Paris (September 1922–April 1923); composes Cuatro nocturnos, Jarabe, and Madrigals VI–VII Founding of Union of Mexican Technical Workers, Painters, and Sculptors, which in its 1923 manifesto extols public monumental art and Mexico’s popular and indigenous artistic traditions; formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; James Joyce’s Ulysses published in Paris
Otilia Ortiz, n.d.
CARLOS CHÁVEZ AND HIS WORLD CHRONOLOGY 7