Laureano Fuentes Matons

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Cuban composer, orchestra conductor, and violinist. He was the most prolific of Cuba's composers in the 19th century. He was the first Cuban to compose an opera.

Descendant of a family of musicians settled in the city of Santiago de Cuba since the end of the 17th century, he was a student of Juan París, Francisco José Hierrezuelo, and Juan Casamitjana.

At the age of 15, he obtained the position of first violin in the Music Chapel of the Santiago Cathedral through competitive examination. He studied philosophy and Latin at the San Basilio el Magno seminary in Santiago.

In 1844 he founded an orchestra and a music academy.

On May 16, 1874, the opera La hija de Jefté by Laureano Fuentes, with a libretto by Juan Arnao, premiered at the Reina Theatre in Santiago de Cuba. Later, Fuentes expanded it and translated it into Italian under the name Seila. This new version was performed in 1917 (nineteen years after the author's death) at the National Theatre by the Bracale opera company. He was the first Cuban to compose an opera.

He also composed a symphonic poem "with all the characteristics of the genre," according to Alejo Carpentier.

His catalog of works is extensive, with almost all having survived to the present day, and they range from the classical tradition established by Esteban Salas and Juan París to the romanticism characteristic of the author.

He wrote both religious and secular music. Among his liturgical works, there are masses, hymns, responsories, psalms, antiphons, lessons, invitatory prayers, sequences, benedictus, graduals, and other pieces, especially his Stabat Mater (1893).

Additionally, the symphonic poem América (1892), and some orchestral overtures, chamber music (6 sonatas, two trios for violin, flute, and piano, trios for strings); works for piano and violin, such as melodies, waltzes, songs, mazurkas, romances, ballads, boleros, dances and danzones, marches, and the zarzuelas titled Me lo ha dicho la partera, El viejo enamorado, Dos máscaras, and Desgracia de un tenor. He came to master various instruments.

In 1893 he published a study on different aspects of the musical life of the city: Las artes en Santiago de Cuba, a valuable account of events, although sometimes somewhat exaggerated. There he presents a transcription of the Son de la Ma Teodora, supposedly composed in the 16th century.

In 1896, Fuentes Matons emigrated to Jamaica, where he died two years later, on September 30, 1898, at the age of 73, after writing Americanos en Cuba, his final work.

He was a teacher of his son Laureano Fuentes Pérez (1854-1927) and of Rodolfo Hernández (1856-1937), among others.
In 1946, Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier published La música en Cuba in Venezuela, where he presents information about Fuentes.