Julio Gonzalo Elías Roig Lobo

His work in orchestral direction, musical promotion, and composition was enormous, as if they were great schools of Cuban music.

In 1902 he began studies in Piano, Theory, and Solfège at the Asociación de Dependientes del Comercio de La Habana, and later pursued advanced music studies at the Conservatorio Carnicer.

In 1907 he participated as a pianist in a trio, thus initiating his professional career, and wrote his first musical work La voz del infortunio, for voice and piano.

Two years later he began playing violin at the Martí theater. In 1911 he undertook his double bass studies without a professor, and tenor Mariano Meléndez premiered his criolla-bolero "Quiéreme mucho".

In 1917 he traveled to Mexico, where he worked with María Guerrero, and returned to Cuba that same year.

In 1922 he founded, with Ernesto Lecuona, César Pérez Sentenat and others, the Orquesta Sinfónica de La Habana, of which he was director, with such meritorious work that he is considered the pioneer of symphonism in Cuba.

In 1927 he was appointed director of the School and Municipal Band of Music of La Habana (current Banda Nacional de Conciertos), a position he held until his death.

He made countless instrumental arrangements, achieving a new sonority in Band, to such a point that it could accompany singers. In 1929 he founded the Orquesta Ignacio Cervantes and, a year later, was invited by the Unión Panamericana to conduct a series of concerts in the United States of North America, where he made a successful tour with Army Band, U.S. Soldier's Home Military Band, U. S. Marine Band and U. S. Navy Band, achieving worldwide recognition of the rhythmic richness of our musical genres.

In 1931 he organized with Agustín Rodríguez a vernacular theater company; in 1932 he premiered Cecilia Valdés, considered the most representative zarzuela of our lyric theater.

In 1938 he founded the Opera Nacional; that same year he composed the music for the Cuban film Sucedió en La Habana.

He founded, among others, the Sociedad de Autores Cubanos, Federación Nacional de Autores de Cuba, the Unión Nacional de Autores de Cuba and the Sociedad Nacional de Autores de Cuba. He wrote well-conceived essays and articles about our music.

In addition to his Cecilia Valdés, he was the composer of many popular songs, Quiéreme mucho (Cuando se quiere de veras), Ojos brujos, among others.

Quiéreme mucho is his most widely disseminated work, sung by Omara Portuondo, Esther Borja, Paloma San Basilio, Mirelle Matheu, Pedro Vargas, Plácido Domingo, Alfredo Graus and Julio Iglesias, among other Cuban and foreign performers.

The piece is truly a criolla-bolero, written in 1911, with lyrics by Ramón Gollury (Roger de Lauria) and Agustín Rodríguez, and premiered by Mariano Meléndez, in La Habana.

The criolla-bolero Quiéreme mucho contains 38 simple words, and is one of the most famous musical pieces of Cuba. Here is its lyrics:

QUIÉREME MUCHO
Quiéreme mucho,
my sweet love,
that as a lover I will always adore you.
I, with your kisses and your caresses,
will silence my sufferings.
When one loves truly,
as I love you,
it is impossible, my heaven,
to live so separated.

Zarzuelas
Cecilia Valdés
La Habana de noche
La Hija del sol
Clarín

A week before turning eighty years old, Gonzalo Roig Lobo died, in a room at the Hospital General "Comandante Manuel Fajardo" victim of a respiratory condition.