Alejandro García Caturla
Encyclopedia
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
n composer of art music
Art music
Art music is an umbrella term used to refer to musical traditions implying advanced structural and theoretical considerations and a written musical tradition...
and creolized Cuban themes.
He was born in Remedios
Remedios, Cuba
Remedios is a city and municipality located from the northern coast of Cuba, in the center of the island. It is part of the province of Villa Clara. It was declared a City by Isabel the Second, Queen of Spain, when the Island was still a colony...
. At sixteen he became a second violin of the new Orquesta Sinfonica de La Habana in 1922, where Amadeo Roldán
Amadeo Roldán
Amadeo Roldán y Gardes was a Cuban composer and violinist. Roldán was born in Paris to a Cuban mulatta and a Spanish father...
was concert-master (first-chair violin). He also began composing at a young age, whilst studying both music and law. He was fascinated by creolized Afro-Cuban rhythms and these creole themes were characteristic of his compositions: the division between art music and popular music did not influence Cuban composers of this period.
After his student days, Caturla lived all his life in the small central town of Remedios, where he became a lawyer to support his growing family. He had relationships with a number of black women and fathered eleven children by them, which he adopted and supported. His Tres danzas cubanas for symphony orchestra was first performed in Spain in 1929. Bembe was premiered in Havana the same year. In 1932 he founded the Caibarien Concert Society, whose orchestra he conducted on many occasions. His Obertura cubana won first prize in a national contest in 1938. He was also a multi-instrumental musical performer and a baritone singer of some quality.
Caturla has two upstanding legacies. The first, an example of a universal musician, happily combining classical and folkloric themes with modern musical ideas. His career followed a similar path to Amadeo Roldán
Amadeo Roldán
Amadeo Roldán y Gardes was a Cuban composer and violinist. Roldán was born in Paris to a Cuban mulatta and a Spanish father...
, and the two men are considered to be pioneers of modern Cuban symphonic art. His second legacy is one of serving justice in Cuba's legal system, first as a lawyer and then as a judge. It's this career that resulted in his death; he was murdered at 34 by a young gambler whom Caturla was due to sentence only hours later.
Further reading
- White, Charles W. 2003. Alejandro Garcia Caturla: a Cuban composer in the twentieth century. Scarecrow Press, Lanham MD. Accompanied by audio CD.