The old Village of Saint Christopher in Havana, about to turn 500 years old, was the home (during the 19th and 20th centuries) for a group of composers that encouraged the traditional songs of the Cubans.
The CD Dedicado a las señoritas de La Habana, by the Spanish soprano Roser Ferrer-Morató and Cecilio Tieles, presents some of the most outstanding pieces by these maestros who sang to the insular women and also, why not?, to the capital city.
Likewise, we must say professorTieles is an erudite as for the musical life of our country in the past, through his research about the Havanian Nicolás Ruiz Espadero, composer and pianist unfairly forgotten, if we compare him to «a certain popularity» that some musicians who worked during the Spanish colonial times still have.
Thanks to the quest for little played musical scores and diverse comparative studies of editions and manuscripts performed by the artists, the CD Dedicado a las señoritas de La Habana becomes a mosaic of the musical thinking during the Romantic Period in Cuba; and also a chronicle of past times.
Contributing to the serious work done in this CD, the professional experience of the sopranoRoser Ferrer-Morató and the pianist and researcher Cecilio Tieles, as a team headed by the clever musicological notes by José Ruiz Elcoro;and the technicians who worked for the record company Columna Música.
They were the sound technician Santi Solerand the musical producer Hugo Romano, who worked hard at the Music Auditorium Eduard Toldrá of the Higher Music Conservatoire in Barcelona.
On the other hand, in the CD Dedicado a las señoritas de La Habana there is an harmonious coexistence of empiric authors with the talent of Sindo Garay; academic musicians such as Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes, and pieces for the musical scene by composers such as the prolificJorge Anckermann.
This diversity of authors reveals how rich the Cuban music and culture are, based on the concert song, the traditional one and the one with a popular and even a folkloric origin.
Outstanding in the CD we have the Popurrí Cubano, by José White, according to the transcription by Nicolás Ruiz Espadero, a really virtuous musical score for piano, performed by Cecilio Tieles.
*The author is a composer, professor of the specialty at the University of Arts and programme producer at CMBF, National Musical Radio Station.
Translation by Alberto Morales