Alberto Villalón Morales

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Alberto Villalón, guitarist and interpreter of the trovadoresco genre, was equally a distinguished composer. His inspiration gave rise to pieces that, by their quality, have withstood the passage of time, such as: "Yo reiré cuando tú llores", "La palma herida", "Boda negra", "Penas y flores", to mention some. He also composed guarachas, guajiras and rumbas.

Villalón was a guitar teacher, learning he obtained from that other great figure of Cuban music, Pepe Sánchez. He traveled on various occasions to Mexico and the United States and founded, with Ignacio Piñeiro and Juan de la Cruz, the Sexteto Nacional.

Born in Santiago de Cuba on June 7, 1882, he was the sixth child of Carmen Morales and Luis Villalón. The comfortable economic situation of his family favored his formation as a musician. Unlike most of the singers and players of his era, Villalón played the piano and could read music.

His sister América initiated him as a child in studies of solfège and theory. He studied guitar with José (Pepe) Sánchez, later known as the "father of bolero", since his work Tristezas, published in 1885, was the first printed piece of the genre.

Villalón achieved great mastery of the guitar, and notoriety, from a very young age, in the musical sphere of Santiago de Cuba, for his original accompaniments. His bordoneo in the bass registers was recognized as completely different from that of other trovadores.

In the year 1900 he moved to reside in La Habana, where in 1905 he composed La ausencia, which immediately became part of the repertory of the most famous duos and trios of the era.

For the theatrical scene he wrote the music for the revue El triunfo del bolero, premiered at the Teatro Tívoli in 1906, in which Cuando el ocaso was included, one of his most well-known works. Critics and scholars have considered that it was Villalón who made known in La Habana the "oriental bolero".

Some of his works were successfully premiered at the Teatro Alhambra, a famous theater in which genres of Cuban music such as clave, rumba, guaracha and song were developed.

Though discretely, Villalón was part of the Havana bohemia that from the early twentieth century sang and played in cafés of the city, among them the busy Vista Alegre, in a central location of the Cuban capital, facing the malecón. There he alternated with many singers and guitarists (later called trovadores) and showed his compositions before an audience eager to hear new boleros, guarachas and songs.

According to the testimony of musicographer Ezequiel Rodríguez, who knew him, Villalón, justly considered a trovador, did not follow in his way of life however the "traditional scheme that identified his profession with a wandering bohemia", as he was of distinguished presence and orderly life.

Apparently he made his first recordings in 1919, for the Columbia company –as recorded in the Discografía de la Música Cubana by Cristóbal Díaz Ayala–, with works by Jorge Anckermann and Manuel Mauri, without mention being made of other participants in those records, today practically impossible to find. It is possible that the interpreters were those of the Cuarteto Villalón, founded in 1908 and made up of Adolfo Colombo, tenor; Claudio García, baritone; Emilio Reinoso, mandolin player, and Alberto Villalón, guitarist and director.

In 1911, in Camden (New Jersey, United States) he performed for tenors Enrico Caruso and Antonio Scoetti. In 1923 he founded the Trío Villalón –with Juan de la Cruz, tenor, and Bienvenido León, baritone–, which offered concerts of Cuban songs at the Teatro Payret in La Habana, with Villalón's guitar. That same year the trio made a series of recordings for the Brunswick company, with Pedro Martínez substituting for baritone Bienvenido León.

Although in 1923 Villalón was very well known as a composer, none of the twenty-five pieces recorded by his trio for the Brunswick company were of his authorship; instead, several by Sindo Garay appear in that group, and many by the singer Juan de la Cruz.

By that time other interpreters –and in particular Floro Zorrilla– had brought to disc numerous compositions by Villalón such as Ofelia, Querer y que no te quieran, Volverás, Estás en el ten contén, Me voy para España, Como me matas, mueras and Los muertos de esa tumba no están muertos, all registered phonographically for RCA Victor in the year 1920, with Villalón on guitar. Also recorded pieces of his in that decade were tenors Mariano Meléndez and Adolfo Colombo, whom Villalón began accompanying on guitar in Edison cylinders in 1906, and on records from 1907.

His creations frequently counted on lyrics by poets, journalists and writers of some standing in his era, among them Pedro Mata, Julio Florez, Francisco Vélez Alvarado and Félix Soloni. Villalón composed, on the other hand, in homage to figures of Cuban history and to independence war heroes such as José Martí, Máximo Gómez and Antonio Maceo, works that won renown: Maceo (1900), La palma, Bolero a Martí (1901) and La palma herida (1905); also to politicians who enjoyed his sympathy, such as presidents Tomás Estrada Palma and José Miguel Gómez.

In 1927, Villalón was among the founders of the Sexteto Nacional of Ignacio Piñeiro. He took part as guitarist in the first recordings that the group made in the United States for the Columbia company that same year, when he brought to disc three of his sones: Cubaneo, ¿Dónde vas con el rabo? and Cayó en la loma.

In the following recording sessions of the Sexteto Nacional (in 1928, and in 1929 in Madrid, as a septet, with the addition of Lázaro Herrera's trumpet) Villalón no longer participated.

Radamés Giro, in his Diccionario Enciclopédico de la Música en Cuba, comments about Villalón that, in addition to being an original instrumentist and composer, he was a notable accompanying guitarist, who mastered classical guitar (he was a teacher of the instrument), not only in terms of technique, but in the conjugation of chords, of which he made inversions that achieved a beautiful and interesting harmony, as occurs in his song Ya estamos lejos.

Alberto Villalón composed Los mambises, his first song, at the age of fourteen. He wrote hundreds of boleros, guajiras, rumbas, criollas, guarachas and songs, most of which were recorded on cylinder or disc throughout his life.

Ya reiré cuando tú llores, a clave of his authorship with text by Pedro Mata, has known versions by distinguished interpreters such as Miguelito Valdés, Barbarito Diez and the Hermanas Martí.

Also with lyrics by Pedro Mata he composed Me da miedo quererte, included in a series of his compositions with a macabre atmosphere, among which stands out the song Los muertos de esa tumba no están muertos, the bolero Yo debiera matarte and his most widely distributed work, the capricho-bolero Boda negra, with lyrics attributed to Julio Flórez, although recent research has demonstrated that the eerie verses were written by Venezuelan priest Carlos Borges.

In 1951 he was awarded the Commemorative Medal of the First Centenary of the Cuban Flag, for his outstanding work as a trovador and for his musical work.

Alberto Villalón died in La Habana on July 16, 1955. Among the most distinguished interpreters of his music are the Hermanas Martí –Amelia and Berta–, who dedicated in 1974 a long-playing record (Areíto-Egrem) to his creations.