[ Naxos Guitar Collection / CD ]
Release Date: Friday 2 April 2004
This item is currently out of stock. It may take 6 or more weeks to obtain from when you place your order as this is a specialist product.
Cuban culture is essentially an amalgam of three dominant factors: 400 years of Spanish colonial rule, ending in 1901; the impact of religion as a result of white and African slave immigration; and the 60-year exposure to North American culture, ended by the 1959 revolution.
Latin-American flexibility facilitated the assimilation of all these elements into the national culture. It is easy to see how these influences have shaped Cuban music, which now incorporates Afro-Cuban rhythms, twentieth century harmonies, characterized by the juxtaposition of major and minor modes, and elements of jazz and impressionism - typically in the music of José Antonio Rojas - as well as traditional European forms of composition - as in the melancholy Suite breve of Harold Gramatges. One of the finest solo instruments for best giving expression to this unique aspect of Cuban musical culture is the guitar. The music on this recording ranges from the popular appeal of the son montuno, the country dance form found especially in the Oriente region, to the contemporary harmonization of Yoruba melodies by Hector Angulo. All the pieces convey a diverse picture of Cuba in music that is nostalgic yet fresh-sounding, elaborate yet pure in its relative simplicity of expression.
Cancion
Cancion de cuna (Berceuse)
Cancion triste (Sad Song)
Cantos Yoruba de Cuba
Danza
El manicero (The Peanut-Seller)
En el abra del Yumuri (In Yumuri Bay)
Francito y Alfonsito
Guajira a mi madre (Guajira for my mother)
Guyun - El maestro
Lilliam
Ojos brujos (Bewitching Eyes)
Preludio
Suite breve
Zapateo