Scan 113
The New Grove Dictionary Of Music And Musicians 5 Ed. 2nd, 1904
31 lines. Read by computer on 18 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1operatic and symphonic music was being performed in the cathedral, much to the disapproval of some local musicians.
3Music at Havana Cathedral seems to have reached its peak during the early 19th century, though there have been no specific studies of the historical and musical archives there. The Academy of Music was founded in 1814, and the S Cecilia Academy in 1816; the first music published in Cuba was a contradanza (1803)
5Symphonies, operas and piano music, at first in a Classical and then in a predominantly Romantic style, characterized 19th-century Cuban music. Antonio Raffelin (1796 1882) wrote a mass, several symphonies and chamber music works in a Classical idiom. Robredo Manuel Saumell, a prolific composer, cultivated the contradanza with its typical dotted-figure accompaniment, characteristic of the later habanera, danzón and other Latin American popular dance rhythms. Laureano Fuentes [Matóns] (1825 98) wrote many chamber works, sacred pieces, a symphonic poem America, an opera Seta and several zarzuelas. Nicolás Ruiz Espadero (1832 90) wrote virtuoso piano pieces in a style derived from Liszt and Gottschalk, such as his Chant du Guagiro. Gaspar Villate studied at the Paris Conservatoire and had three of his operas given their first performance in Europe (Zeta, Paris, 1877; La azurina, The Hague, 1880, Baltazar, Madrid, 1885)
7The first decisive step towards musical nationalism in Cuba was taken by Ignacio Cervantes (1847 1905), the most important Cuban composer of his generation. He was a pupil of Gottschalk and Ruiz Espadero and then of Marmontel at the Paris Conservatoire, and had a successful career as a concert pianist. Among his many works the 21 Danzas cubanas for piano (1875 95), many of them contradanzas, combine folk-music elements of both Afro-Cuban and Guajiro traditions in a Romantic virtuoso piano style. These pieces are the most original contribution to 19th-century Cuban art music. Among the many composers active during the early 20th century Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes, one of the most influential, also advocated a Romantic national style. Later outstanding composers associated with musical nationalism included Amadeo Roldán and Alejandro Caturla, who found in 'Afrocubanismo' the most suitable source of national expression. The stylistic idiosyncrasies of Roldán's impressive output are best seen in his series of six Ritmicas (1930) for various instruments, the last two for Afro-Cuban and other percussion instruments. Caturla had several of his works published in Europe and the USA. His skilful and original treatment of Afro-Cuban music is well represented by his La rumba (1933) and Tres danzas cubanas (1937) for orchestra, and particularly by his many settings of Alejo Carpentier's and Nicolás Guillén's Afro-Cuban poems. For a time Roldán was leader of the Havana PO, founded in 1924 by Pedro Sanjuán (b 1886). Previously the Havana SO had been established under Gonzalo Roig (b 1890), composer of the popular zarzuela Cecilia Valdés. Ernesto Lecuona, a member of the same generation, was internationally renowned for his musical comedies and many popular songs.
9After the premature deaths of Roldán and Caturla, José Ardevol (b 1911) occupied a leading position as a composer and teacher from the 1930s to the mid-1950s. He gave many young composers a solid technical training, and he founded the Grupo Renovación Musical (1942) in Havana, which promoted contemporary music and rejected nationalism for its own sake. The group's manifesto stated, however, that a 'national factor is indispensable in musical creation, in the sense that all artistic expression occurs within a cultural setting'. As a composer Ardevol moved from a rigorous neoclassical style which he initiated in Cuba to a modernistic 'national' style.
11Ardevol's pupils who were associated with the group and became prominent included Serafín Pro, composer of choral works, Gisela Hernández, Edgardo Martín (b 1915), Harold Gramatges (b 1918) and Angeliers León (b 1918), also noted as an ethnomusicologist in the 1960s. One of the youngest of the group, Julián Orbón, has established an international reputation as a composer and a pianist. In the early 1950s he broke away from the group to develop his own artistic ideas. Other 20th-century Cuban composers who developed independently include Carlo Borbolla, Félix Guerrero and Auricio de la Vega. The last-named is the best-known composer outside Cuba, for a time he directed the school of music at the Universidad de Oriente, then moved to the USA as professor of music at S Fernando State College, California, where he directs the laboratory of electronic music. He has written in an atonal idiom and turned to electronic music in the 1960s. Among the younger generation Juan Blanco and Leo Brouwer have used electronic and serial techniques respectively.
13See also HAVANA and SANTIAGO DE CUBA
15BIBLIOGRAPHY
16A G Caturla 'The Development of Cuban Music', American Composers on American Music, ed H Cowell (Stanford, 1933)
17A Carpenter 'La musica en Cuba' (Mexico City, 1946)
18J Ardevol 'El Grupo Renovación de La Habana', Revista musical chilena, no 27 (1947), 17
19A Carpenter 'La musica contemporanea de Cuba', Revista musical chilena, no 27 (1947), 9
20'Music in Cuba', MQ, xxviii (1947), 365
21'Variations on a Cuban Theme', Americas, ii (1950), 20, 38
22P H Balaguer 'Panorama de la musica colonial cubana', Revista musical chilena nos 81 2 (1962), 201
23'La capilla de musica de la catedral de Santiago de Cuba', Revista musical chilena, no 90 (1964), 14-61
24'Musica en la catedral de Santiago de Cuba' (Santiago, 1965)
25J Ardevol Introducción a Cuba la música (Havana, 1969) one of two readings
26J Ardevol Introducción a Cuba la musica (Havana, 1969) one of two readings
28II. Folk music.
291 Introduction 2 Instruments 3 Song and dance genres
301 INTRODUCTION. Little is known about folk music in Cuba before 1800. Few conclusions can be drawn from early descriptions of the island's indigenous culture and music or from archaic instruments (maracas, large conches and wooden drums). In the accounts of Columbus's voyages only vague mention is made of musicians. The chronicles of Hernando de la Parra (whose writings date from 1598 to 1662) mention a small Havana music ensemble including violin, clarinet, violón (large guitar) and vihuela, played by Micaela Ginés, a freed slave from Santo Domingo. Laureano Fuentes (1825-98) reported that in 1580 Santiago had only two or three musicians all of whom had belonged at one time to the ensemble of Teodora and Micaela Ginés. One of the best-known early tunes from Cuba, La Ma-Teodora, is named after Micaela's sister; an analysis of its melody (Fuentes recorded it in 6/8 metre) shows anachronisms in both the melody and the notation. Nevertheless the tune has many elements common in 16th-century European folk-songs: simple structure, close links with ecclesiastical forms, modality and metric flexibility.
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