Thursday 14 August 2008

Killer Opening Songs (Ernesto Lecuona - 'La Comparsa & Malagueña)

Following on from the other week’s Killer Opening Songs and classical music I bring a Cuban composer to the blog this week. I have already uploaded one of his tracks a few times here and it is probably that I will do it a few more times in the near future because I love it dearly. It has been said on several occasions that Christopher Columbus was Cuba’s first ‘discoverer’ (the fact that we already existed seems to always go over people’s heads). Alexander von Humboldt was the second one after he circumnavigated the Caribbean island a few centuries ago. Fernando Ortiz was our third ‘discoverer’ after he published a series of books and conducted extensive research on the influence of African culture on our social and cultural make-up. So, where does that leave Ernesto Lecuona, one of the most revered Cuban musicians of all time? Lecuona ‘married’ (if it’s possible to use that term) traditional African and Spanish music in a symbiotic and organic liaison. The result was a solid and powerful body of work that encompassed everything from zarzuela to comparsa. He was, so to speak, the Cuban George Gershwin, although the reference should not be taken verbatim as both composers had very different styles. That means that Lecuona was not just a ‘discoverer’, but also an innovator, a risk-taker and an excellent composer as the complexity of both pieces featured below will attest to.


It is with pleasure, then, that Killer Opening Songs plays the same trick as last week and uploads two tracks instead of one. The reason is the same. Lecuona left a wealth of recordings behind but unfortunately they were not collected in a logical and coherent way, as he would have liked them to appear in his albums (methinks). So, I have taken the liberty (as I did with Chopin) of selecting which songs would make good introductory tracks, in short, which melodies would make a couple of good Killer Opening Songs.

Chucho and Bebo Valdéz, Father and Son - La Comparsa (Please, keep your hankies nearby as this clip is an emotional roller-coaster, especially for Cubans who have seen their families split due to the stupid politics of two governments that have carried out an embargo in their own peculiar way against an innocent population. I have seen this clip countless of times and yet my eyes always water at the sight of father and son playing together despite the political differences between the US and Cuba.)




Thomas Tirino - Malagueña (This a superb execution of one of Cuban classical music's better known songs)





Copyright 2008

8 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing. I'm familiar with the reunion footage from the documentary, Calle 54. It is indeed a moving piece of music and history.

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  2. Hablando como los locos Cuban,
    No has notado alguna vez que la comparsa, tiene aires bien marcados de la obertura de Tannhäuser, y es eso mismo lo que me gusta de Lecuona, sus transiciones donde caben todo y presagian lo demás…un tipo imprescindible en nuestra música. La Comparsa-Lecuona

    Te enteraste de lo de fito?

    Nso vemo, tony.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks,t.allen for popping by. I will drop in later.

    Asere, de lo fito? Que paso? Mmmm... tengo que volver a oir la apertura de la Tannhauser, hace tanto tiempo! Nos vemos.

    Greetings from London

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  4. I thoroughly enjoyed this! Very poignant and fabulous music. I loved the way they gave each other cute little glances and smiles over the keyboards.

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  5. I also really love Lecuona. Thanks for share him with us.

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  6. Thanks, willow and eu. Lecuona was also a part of my childhood as my Dad used to play him (and still plays him) a lot.

    Greetings from London.

    ReplyDelete
  7. This is a nice treat, honestly. It works well when one reads it understanding every bit of it.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks, onyeka for visiting my blog. I usually give some background to the post because I know that as a person who is caught in between two cultures, some of my columns might be confusing to the uninitiated.

    Greetings from London.

    ReplyDelete

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