Carlos Borbolla Téllez

Cuban composer, professor, and organ builder.

He was born in Manzanillo. He was the youngest of nine children of the Spaniard Francisco Borbolla García and the Cuban Carolina Téllez.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, his father had introduced an instrument popularly called the "oriental organ" or "Manzanillo organ" in that city in eastern Cuba. This "cylinder organ" is a hybrid of piano and barrel organ that operates on the basis of perforated rolls that produce the movement of the keys through pedals.

Some authors argue that the introduction of the organ in Manzanillo dates back to 1876, during the time of the Ten Years' War (1868-1878), and that it arrived there from Cienfuegos—since both cities are located on the coastal shipping route of Cuba's southern coast—by order of Francisco Borbolla, whose family dedicated itself from then on to its use and construction.

The French residents of the city of Cienfuegos and its surroundings would enliven their festivities with this instrument and a repertoire that was entirely European. The Borbollas introduced modifications to the organ to adapt it to the rhythm and timbral requirements of Cuban music. Thus they built three modified organs, which they named "La Música," "La Orquesta," and "El Gran Órgano"; the latter came to have ninety keys.

Following Carlo's designs, an organ was built capable of storing sufficient air in its bellows to play slow music, such as the danzón. Thus the so-called "Rumba" was born, which had twelve stops.

Carlo Borbolla was not only an organ builder but also an original composer, recognized by highly trained musicians and musicologists such as Alejo Carpentier. His catalog of compositions reaches almost five hundred works: sones, congas, rumbas, danzas, pieces for voice and piano and for string orchestras, as well as didactic pieces. A large part of his output consists of pieces for solo piano.

From 1927 on, Carlo Borbolla pursued musical studies in Paris. He studied piano with Pierre Lucas and received lessons in harmony and composition from Louis Aubert. In 1929 he published his Four Cuban Sones in that city, which aroused admiration among notable European musicians of the time, but they were not known in Cuba until the 1940s, thanks to musicians such as Hilario González and Julián Orbón.

These sones profoundly marked Borbolla's work as a composer and created a school, since his innovative style represented a break with the writing that came from Ignacio Cervantes and proposed a different projection of the Cuban.

In 1930 Borbolla returned to Manzanillo without having completed his studies, and devoted himself to the construction of organs together with his brothers Francisco and Joaquín; he tuned pianos and specialized in cabinetmaking.

He began to write music for organ barrels, for no one like him, who built, transformed, and restored them, knew the capacities and possibilities of these instruments. Thus were born "El Jorocón," "Pimienta," "El Cocalito," "La Palanca," "El Gozón," which have broken the barriers of time and still enjoy the preference of lovers of the oriental organ. The works he wrote for the instrument, Borbolla called "organerías."

At the end of 1951 Borbolla moved to Havana to begin a project of musical pedagogy, in close connection with the capital's conservatories. During that period he created the five Notebooks of Cuban Rhythmics, aimed at teaching Cuban syncopation, and wrote original pieces for different instruments and formats.

During those years he also began the preparation of an Encyclopedia of Music, which would occupy him for decades and he would not manage to complete.

With more than eighty years of age, he returned to his native city, to which he dedicated a still unpublished book: Scenes of Manzanillo. On that occasion the people of Manzanillo paid him a tribute that the composer received with his proverbial modesty: "I have not worked seeking honors; the only thing that interested me was to offer my work to my country. Everything I have done is thinking of Cuba."

Carlos Borbolla died in his home in the municipality of Cotorro, in Havana, on April 12, 1990, at the age of 88, leaving a copious body of unpublished musical work, as he continued working until his death.

In 2002 pianist Ulises Hernández produced and recorded for the Bis Music label the album Danzoneo, which contains the first world recording of Carlo Borbolla's works: A Son Among the Palms, Dance No. 1, Dance No. 2, Dance No. 3, Dance No. 4, Over There in the East, Ma'Teodora, With an Old Tres, The Peanut Vendor, Son 15, Distance, Little Oriental, Son No. 11, and Montuno Son-montuno.