María Matilde Alea Fernández

Composer, pianist, and Cuban Doctor of Pedagogy born in Camajuaní, province of Las Villas; in the same year 1918 she moved with her family to Pinar del Río.

From a very early age, she began to study music with her mother. Very young and in the midst of adolescence she began composing; meanwhile, simultaneously, she began teaching piano and music to her first students, of the many she would have. And it is precisely these two activities, teaching and creation, that would accompany María Matilde throughout her long life.

In her creative work she is the author of songs, boleros, lieder, sones and other genres almost all inspired by Cuban musical traditions.

Exactly in 1940, one of her works "Mi última canción", received the award for popularity when broadcast by the legendary radio station RHC Cadena Azul. However, it is her pedagogical work that distinguished María Matilde Alea, whether through the music she wrote for her students and which she compiled in three series titled "Miniaturas Rítmicas Cubanas", or working in front of her students as a daily task.

She was a member of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), of SGAE, of the Women in Music group "La bella cubana" and of the Collective of Women in Art (ComuArte) of Mexico.

She has been awarded on various occasions by the National Center for Artistic Teaching, the Cuban Institute of Music and the Ministry of Culture, as well as by other international institutions. As recognition for a lifetime dedicated to preserving and disseminating musical art, she has been awarded the Medal for National Culture.

She participated, among others, in the international event Musicians of the Americas, which took place in New York in 1999 and in the 1st Ibero-American Meeting of Women in Art, held in Mexico in 2001.

Much of her work has been published and extensively disseminated both in Cuba and abroad. Among her works are more than 200 songs (text and music) and 50 lieder of great lyrical and musical beauty, in addition to numerous musical tales, hymns, small chamber music formats, pieces and exercises for pedagogical-musical practice.

Her most complete pedagogical works are undoubtedly the "Miniaturas Rítmicas Cubanas", published in three volumes, following a didactic structure by levels of difficulty (this increases from book to book). These pieces, created with the aim of teaching how to play and practice the rhythms of different genres of Cuban music, are part of the curriculum of art schools in Cuba. The first two books, published in Cuba by EGREM, consist of 14 and 17 pieces respectively. The third is published for the first time in Madrid, Spain, although some of the pieces were performed in public previously, it consists of 14 pieces composed in the 1980s.

All of them are inspired by the beauty of the Cuban landscape, everyday scenes and architectural elements familiar to the composer. Elaborated on rhythms and rhythmic figurations of different genres such as bolero, habaneras, sones, danzones, guajiras and danzas, these pieces use contemporary harmonies, wrapped in a romantic atmosphere. Once again, there is a fusion of African and Spanish roots within Cuban culture.

Already retired but never withdrawn, she continued teaching generously in her home on Línea Street in El Vedado. She attended to and guided any child or young person who had some musical talent; and from time to time, she would encounter some exceptional talent whom she would develop to the nth degree so that he or she could then continue their musical learning at higher levels.

In this way, when one learns of the success of Cuban concert music artists, or enjoys the performance of some exceptional interpreter of Cuban popular music, one should also think that behind one or the other is the hand and thought of pedagogues like María Matilde Alea, a true master of masters. María Matilde Alea died on November 9, 2006 in her home on Línea Street in El Vedado, City of Havana at the age of 88.

Works
Bolero True It Is, 1943.
What About You, 1945.
You Will Come Again, 1947.
My Songs and You Don't Deserve It, 1948.
Songs
You Are My Life, 1939.
My Last Song, 1940.
Your Love Made Me Cry, 1940.
Goodbye, My Love, With Longing I Await You and Your Eyes Are, 1941.
Far Away Over There, 1945.
I Go Far Away, 1948: Come Dance With Me (ballad), 1949.
Tropical Song and Roses, 1950.
Close to You, 1951.
Your Love Made Me Cry, 1954.
I Learned That You Have Cried, 1956.
Always Waiting for You, 1958.
If I Am Sad, 1962
Today I Understand, 1963.
You Will Return to Me, 1970.
Party in the Batey, 1975.
I Offer You Roses, 1975.
And to Think That It No Longer Exists.
Why Think About It, 1977.
Tell Me If You Love Me, 1978.
You Don't Have to Say It.
How Sad My Solitude.
I Will Always Be a Maroon.
Your Memory Will Remain. I Will Lull Your Dream, Always Wandering I Will Be and I Live Again Once More, 1978
Song to Pinar del Río, Maroon and I Will Not Forget, 1979.
Very Sad It Is, 1981.
Conga

Sad Black Woman, 1954.
The Conga of Mercé, 1956.
Cabildo, 1964.
Conga, 1970.
Instrumental Ensemble

Three Preludes, 1980.
Dance

Lament, 1950.
Small Dance, 1951.
Hymn

To the School of Advancement of Pinar del Río, 1935.
Didactic Works for Piano

Cuban Rhythmic Miniatures 1, 1940.
Cuban Rhythmic Miniatures 2, 1977.
Sonatina, 1979.
Rhythmic Miniatures 3, 1987.
12 Musical Works, 1987.
My First Piano Lessons, and Pieces and Exercises, 1989.
Son

The Coconut Tree, Street Vendor's Cry, 1954.
My Songs Are Illusions, Son Rhythm, 1978, and Son, 2001.
Voice and Piano

Under the Flamboyant.
Today I Understand
I Vocalize.