Nicolás Ruiz Espadero and Hispanic-Cuban Romantic Music

June 19, 2018

To Vindicate the Work of Cuba's Nicolás Ruiz Espadero, the Most Important Piano Composer of the Spanish 19th Century

Reclaiming the work of the most important piano composer of the Spanish 19th century, Cuban Nicolás Ruiz Espadero (1832-1890), bringing it to our present day, is the main objective of the project Hispanic-Cuban Romantic Music of the 19th Century, Nicolás Ruiz Espadero, which will take place in the capital between June 21 and 24, and which includes lectures, a concert series and the recovery of a good number of his scores from Cuban and Spanish archives.

"Cuban romanticism," explained pianist Cecilio Tieles, who together with musicologist Jesús Gómez Cairo, director of the National Museum of Music, has organized this gathering, "grew in an environment very conducive to music and, for obvious historical reasons, linked to Spanish music."

In the case of piano, highlighted were Fernando Arizti, Pablo Desvernine, Adolfo de Quesada, José Manuel Jiménez Berroa, Ignacio Cervantes, Gaspar Villate and Cecilia Arizti, the latter three students of Nicolás Ruiz Espadero, the most important figure of Hispanic piano playing prior to Isaac Albéniz and Enrique Granados. Espadero never left Cuba and developed his entire artistic and personal career here.

Artistic relations between Cuba and the peninsula were especially intense in the 19th century, Cecilio asserts. This is the only way to explain how the habanera—such a Cuban genre—came to represent Spain throughout Europe. This is why this project is born with the purpose of making known the interconnections and interrelations of what sounded on both shores, discovering great works from our insufficiently known common musical heritage.

Although centered on the work of Nicolás Ruiz Espadero, the gathering—which has the support of the Cuban Institute of Music, the Office of the Historian of the City of Havana, the Esteban Salas Musical Heritage Cabinet, the Museum of Music itself—will also pay tribute to the outstanding violinist José White (1836-1918), on the occasion of the centennial of his death.

The lectures will take place in the Esteban Salas Musical Heritage Cabinet, while the concerts will be held in the Minor Basilica of the Convent of San Francisco de Asís (where the inaugural concert will take place on Thursday the 21st at 6:00 p.m.), the Great Hall of San Gerónimo University College, the Universal Art hemicycle of the National Museum of Fine Arts, the theater room of the Cuban Art Building of the National Museum of Fine Arts and the Ignacio Cervantes room (chosen for the closing ceremony, which will be on Sunday the 24th at 11:00 a.m.)

Source: Granma