Raimundo Valenzuela León

Cuban composer and trombonist. One of the legendary creators and directors of danzón orchestras.

He began studying music with his father, Lucas Valenzuela, in his native town, San Antonio de los Baños, near the capital. In 1864, he moved to La Habana, where he joined, as a trombonist, the orchestra La Flor de Cuba, directed by Juan de Dios Alfonso.

This orchestra performed at the Havana theater Villanueva in 1869, when an incident occurred that was documented by José Martí in his Versos Sencillos: during a performance of the bufa work Perro huevero, a group of volunteers serving the Spanish colonial government stormed the hall and shot at the actors and the audience, because the text of the work alluded indirectly, but sympathetically, to the insurgents who had taken up arms on October 10th of the previous year under the orders of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y del Castillo.

Upon the death of Juan de Dios Alfonso, Raimundo Valenzuela went on to direct La Flor de Cuba, which was made up of wind instruments, for the performance of guarachas, pasodobles, waltzes, polkas and Cuban dances. From the 1880s onward, the orchestra began to perform the danzón and later took the name of its director and trombonist.

Among the danzones that Raimundo Valenzuela composed are: El negro bueno, La Angélica, Los empleados del Tacón, María Belén, Pinareño, Tu beneficio, as well as La Bohemia, Madame Butterfly, Rigoletto and Tosca, which contained, in one of the sections of the piece, excerpts from popular operas, a practice that was common among many danzón composers of the era. He composed a zarzuela, La mulata María, with a libretto by Federico Villoch, manager and librettist of the Teatro Alhambra.

Beyond the trombone, he came to know other instruments: viola, piano and percussion. He performed as a trombonist in major operatic seasons. He composed contradanzas, songs, guarachas, rumbas and, above all, danzones, in addition to some classical works and brief forays into religious and chamber music.

The orchestra of Pablo Valenzuela –with a repertoire created by Raimundo– recorded numerous Edison cylinders and acoustic records for Columbia and RCA Víctor labels from 1906 onward and remained active until the threshold of 1920, judging by the records of those record companies.

The Valenzuelas collaborated economically and personally with Cuba's War of Independence.

Source: ENCaribe.org