La Música de Silvestre Revueltas

The University of New Mexico Chamber Orchestra
Dr. Jorge Pérez-Gómez, conductor

Not only does this new compact disc brings you previously unrecorded music of Mexican composer, Silvestre Revueltas, but your contribution will support future research, academic and cultural exchanges between the Division of Orchestras at the University of New Mexico and Latin America.

La Música de Silvestre Revueltas is available on Compact Disc for $14 (postpaid)

From the Liner Notes:

Silvestre Revueltas (1899—1940) is without a doubt one of the most important composers in the Americas. His recognition in the world of music, as well as the number of recordings and writings about his work, is growing every day. For the greater part of this century, some of Revueltas’ works had been lost and today they are still practically unkown. This is the case with Batik, whic Revueltas wrote in the United States in 1926. Although this work represents elements of the composer’s mature style, it is only now being recorded for the first time on this disc. Revueltas sent Batik to Edgar Varèse, whose opinion had a very positive impact on Revueltas. Varèse, as well as the prominent 20th century composer and contemporary of Revueltas, Carlos Chávez, were very enthusiastic about this early composition. However, Revueltas but Batik away and was never interested in its performance. The first live performance was given at the University of New Mexico in the Spring of 1996. Batik refutes the belief among musicologists that Revueltas’ earliest composition dates to 1930. Batik represents the first example of a mature composer who had found his own voice and discovered the fundamental elements of his own technique: specific rhythms, specific harmonies, specific timbres and instrumental combinations common to his later works.

It is interesting that between Batik and the Pieza para Orquesta, composed in 1929, there is a lapse of three years. It would appear that Revueltas stopped composing during that time. This is hard to believe, but is important to remember that Revueltas saw himself as a violinist and a conductor and not as a composer. For many years he questioned his talent as a composer, and it was not until 1932 that composing became his main focus. The Pieza para Orquesta met the same fate as Batik, later to be found in the archive of one of Revueltas’ dearest friends, Salvador Contreras, also a composer and violinist.

The Homenaje a García Lorca is one of Revueltas’ major works. It was written in 1936 shortly after the death of the Spanish poet, who Revueltas deeply admired. Several of Revueltas’ songs are based on the texts by García Lorca. The Homenaje a García Lorca is a true lament that does not ignore the festive and Andalusian qualities of the poet’s character. The work begins with a trumpet solo over a piano arpeggiation which is extremely dramatic, memorable, and prodigal in its simplicity. This solo divides each of the work’s three movements as an element that is constant, as a shadow that returns. In any case, the tone of the work is not pessimistic; it is not a requiem. Rather, it truly represents the Mexican sense of humor when confronting death. It is the expressionism of José Guadalupe Posada. The Homenaje a García Lorca is with Sensemayá and perhaps with Redes and Janitzio one of Revueltas’ most renowned works.

Revueltas had a natural sense for singing. In each of his songs, he is not only able to give the voice a sense of physical presence which makes it superior to any instrument, but creates in the music an extension of the meaning and tempo of the poem without rhetorical exaggerations. Among his favorite poets are: Federico García Lorca; Ramón López Velarde, the great Mexican poet with whom Revueltas shares so many aesthetic values; Nicolás Guillén, a Cuban poet, who inspired Sensemayá in addition to several songs; and Carlos Pellicer… Revueltas’ songs are small jewels that work equally well in the piano or orchestra versions. He wrote about a dozen; they are not well-known, and the complete set has never been recorded.

Horas de Junio belongs to the last years of Revueltas’ life. He wrote this work after his return from Spain, where he traveled to support the republicans during the Spanish Civil War. During this trip, Revueltas established a friendship with the poet Carlos Pellicer, who gave the composer his latest book Horas de Junio. In this case Revueltas did not write a song, but conceived a composition which would originate from the reading of a poem, music inspired by the poem, and a musical reading of the poetical text. The instrumentation of this work, as is typical with Revueltas, is unorthodox; when we listen to it, however, it sems inevitable. This little-known work is also called Tres Sonetos.

El Renecuajo Paseador also contains extra-musical allusions. It is a puppet story that Revueltas wrote for his small daughters, based on the tale by Columbian writer Rafael Pombo. A story that relates well to Revueltas’ character, it narrates the promenade of a little toad that finds a mouse friend, with whom he goes out for an adventure looking for other mice. Unexpectedly, some cats show up, making everyone flee, and the toad ends up in the stomach of a duck. It is a festive and ironic work, curiously related to some dramatic real-life facts. Revueltas’ daughters, except for one, Eugenia, died. Years later, during the work’s first performance in its dance version on the evening of October 5th, 1940, Silvestre Revueltas died at the age of forty.

Notes by Luis Jaime Cortez
Director of the Conservatorio de las Roses
Morelia , Michocán, México
Translated by Jorge Pérez-Gómez

Track List:

01) El Renecuajo Paseador [4:30]

02) Batik † [3:27]

03) Ocho por Radio [5:49]

04) Pieza para Orquesta &DagTuesday, June 12, 2007 7:00 PM i. Vuelvo a ti, soledad, agua vacía [2:08]
ii. Junio me dio la voz, la silenciosa musica de callar un sentimiento [2:47]
iii. Era mi corazón piedra de río [2:08]

06) Siete Canciones
i. Caballito [1:16]
ii. Las Cinco Horas [0:26]
iii. Canción Tonta [1:19]
iv. El Lagarto y Lagarta [2:08]
v. Canción de Cuna [3:21]
vi. Serenata [1:41]
vii. Es Verdad [1:51]

07) Homenaje a Federico García Lorca
i. Baile [3:45]
ii. Duelo [4:09]
iii. Son [3:27]

Total Program Length: 47:15

† First recording
‡ Edited from the manuscript by Alejandro Rutty and Jorge Pérez-Gómez

Recording Information:

Engineer / Producer: Kevin Campbell
Recording Assistant: Alejandro Rutty
Artwork & Design (CD): Jim Jacob, José L. Rodriguez
Typography & Graphic Production (CD): J.B. Bryan

Music Published by Southern Music Publishing Compnay, Inc.

© 1997, University of New Mexico

To order, please send the following:

• the number of CDs you would like
• the mailing address to which they should be shipped
• your check payable to “UNM Chamber Orchestra” for $14 for each CD ordered

TO:

UNM Chamber Orchestra
Department of Music
MSC04 2570
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque NM 87131-0001