To the casual observer all Latin American folk music seems to have originated from a common source. The ballads, or romances, children's songs and lullabies, the courtship dances and Christmas carols are certainly reminders of Spain's heritage in Latin American music. But in the 19th century the colonies won their independence from Spain and their cultural horizons expanded beyond Spanish frontiers. Dances and romantic songs from the fashionable salons of Paris, Prague, Warsaw and Vienna were imported to the New World... Henrietta Yurchenco.