Ernesto Lecuona Essay

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Ernesto Lecuona (1896-1963) remains Cuba's best known and perhaps the nation's most prolific composer. Of his more than 1000 compositions, his most popular works remain standards in Latin music. These include popular tunes such as "Malagueña" and "Siboney." His work was not confined to popular compositions, but spanned a variety of musical forms. Lecuona was also a noted pianist and conductor. Ernesto Lecuona wrote more than 400 songs, 176 pieces for the piano, 50 theatrical pieces, 31 orchestral works, 11 soundtracks for the cinema, 5 ballets, one trio and an opera. But it is above all the hundreds of interpretations of pieces such as Siboney, Para Vigo Me Voy (Say Si Si), Canto Karabali (Jungle Drums), Maria my Own (Maria La O), La Comparsa and Malagueña that helped him achieve his international popularity. Musically, his work for the piano introduces elements of remarkable originality despite having dealt in a non-avant-garde ambient (which Lecuona did not like, despite actively having supported the initiatives of contemporary music played in Havana. To the influences of the “refi ned” music of the first half of the century, he adds a re-evaluation of the Spanish tradition, and additionally Cuban, in a classical key. His attempt, certainly achieved, at integrating rhythms and traditional melodic expressions with the structures of the late-Romantic writing for the piano, is of absolute interest. The movements of dance, always present, mix themselves with the classical forms of the prelude, that echo the influences of Debussy (very evident, for example, in Ante el Escorial). Similar hints at the piano compositions of Chopin are again found in the formulas that accompany the Waltz, while in frequent virtuoso passages, typically lisztiane ideas are recognized. The melodic expressions are surprisingly concise. It’s often a matter of measures that do not exceed one or
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