Serafín Ramírez Fernández

Cuban composer and music critic, with mastery of various instruments and founder of the Gaceta Musical de La Habana in 1899.

He was born in La Habana on August 31, 1832. From a very young age he devoted himself to the study of music in a self-taught manner. Later he received lessons from Spanish organist Juan Bautista Cirártegui; he studied piano with Manuel Saumell and cello with Enrique González.

In 1865 he organized music sessions in his home in which the great masters of the era became known, and this resulted in the creation of the Sociedad de Música Clásica, inaugurated on March 4, 1866, an event in which Nicolás Ruiz Espadero, Pablo Desvernine, José Domingo Bousquet, Fernando Arizti and Anselmo López participated.

He was director of the Liceo Artístico y Literario de La Habana, and also a professor of piano, cello, solfège and music theory. For ten years he was part of the examining board for music classes at the Centro Asturiano, the Asociación de Dependientes, the Centro Español and the Centro Gallego.

He is considered the founder of music criticism in Cuba, work that he began to carry out in 1859, in newspapers of La Habana and throughout the rest of the country. He was director-owner of the Gaceta Musical de La Habana (1899-1903) and collaborated in the Diario de la Marina, El Triunfo and in the magazines Cuba Musical and Revista de Cuba. He died on May 11, 1907.

Works
Adagio, for two cellos; Barcarolla; Berceuse, Contradanzas, Estudios, Minuetto, for two violins, viola and cello; Nocturno, for cello and piano; Serenata and Valses.

Active Bibliography
Prontuario del dilettante. La Habana, La Propaganda Literaria, 1883.
La Habana artística. Apuntes históricos. La Habana, Imp. del E. M. de la Capitanía General, 1891.
Passive Bibliography

Carpentier, Alejo. La música en Cuba. México, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1946.
Diccionario enciclopédico de la música. Barcelona, Central Catalana de Publicaciones, 1947. *Lapique Becali, Zoila. Música colonial cubana en las publicaciones periódicas (1812-1902). La Habana, Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1979, t. 1.
Ruiz Elcoro, José. Pensamiento musicólogo de Cuba. Antecedentes e iniciadores. Clave (La Habana), Año 1 (1): 35-41, julio-septiembre de 1999.