The music of Mario Lavista (Mexico City, b. 1943) embraces a number of paratexts such as titles, dedications and epigraphs that have triggered the composer's creativity. Lavista also acknowledges individual sounds that come from the performers with whom he has worked closely. In each instance different voices, and the possible relationship between them, constitute an artistic discourse. Thus, the present study discusses Lavista's music as a point of convergence where resonances arise, understanding "resonance" as the quality of evoking responses charged with meaning by a multiplicity of voices.

Lavista's public career emerged within the frame of the Mexican avant garde, characterized by experimentation, open or mobile forms, and the use of unconventional sound-material. Along this path, Jaula, a collaborative work co-authored with visual artist Arnaldo Coen reached a high level of abstraction in the form of both a paper sculpture of sixteen layers of concentric cubes, and a graphic score for prepared piano. After exploring this period of abstraction, the dissertation focuses on studying the ways in which Lavista returned to writing very detailed music that incorporates atomized quotes from the European canon (Quotations, Trío, Lyhannh), describing the role of the performers with whom Lavista collaborated (in his chamber pieces Marsias and Reflejos de la noche), and exploring the composer's metaphorical interaction with the voices of the poets he referred to in the epigraphs of his scores. The works Simurg and Ficciones allow for a discussion of interrelated layers of text (Persian medieval poetry, Borges, Pound), and music (Janequin, Milano, Muench), followed by an examination of works Lavista has written in response to paintings ( El pífano, Las músicas dormidas, Danza de las bailarinas de Degas, Cristo de San Juan de la Cruz). The last section of the dissertation is dedicated to Lavista's religious works (Lamento, Responsorio, Missa ad Consolationis Dominam Nostram, among others) for which core issues are the assimilation of musical or aesthetic aspects from past figures, and the search for spirituality and ritual.