2023-10-21 16:06:32
There are accidents in life for which we do not know the whys, nor how they happen in one way or another until they are resolved. Let us remember that 155 years ago the birth of Guillermo Tomás took place, exactly eight days after the beginning of the struggles for the independence of Cuba – on October 18, 1868 -, just two days before it was sung for the first time. La Bayamesa, by Pedro (Perucho) Figueredo Cisnero, on October 20, 1868.
But what would be the relationship or implication that Guillermo Tomás would have with La Bayamesa? What Guillermo could never predict is that years later he would be the one in charge of the execution and direction of the band that would officially perform the National Anthemnamed in the beginning La Bayamesa, Bayamo Anthem.
That piece, which had been composed and set to music by Pedro Figueredo, did not end its story. The first indications of such creation date back to August 13, 1867 when Francisco Maceo Osorio and Francisco Vicente Aguilera, members of the Bayamo Revolutionary Committee, entrusted Figueredo, who was also part of that committee, to compose the anthem that would be like The marsellesa of the Cuban revolutionaries.
Perucho only needed one day to compose the piece. On May 8, 1868, he commissioned maestro Manuel Muñoz Cedeño to develop an instrumentation without the lyrics, which could conceal the meaning that it had as a call to the people of Bayamo to fight for independence. The musical work is played, without lyrics, for the first time, on June 11 in the Iglesia Mayor de Bayamo. Fourteen months after creating the melody of our anthem, Figueredo writes its lyrics. On October 20, 1868, the people of Bayamo, excited by the victory achieved by the liberating feat under the command of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, sang it for the first time.
Original lyrics by La Bayamesa
Run into combat, Bayameses,
that the country contemplates you proudly.
Do not fear a glorious death,
that to die for the country is to live.
In chains to live is to live
in affront and shame.
Listen to the sound of the bugle.
To arms, Braves, run!
Do not fear; the fierce Iberians
They are cowards like every tyrant
does not resist the Cuban arm
forever his empire fell.
free Cuba; Spain has already died
Your power and pride is gone
Listen to the sound of the bugle,
to arms, Braves, run!
Behold our triumphant hosts
Behold them fallen,
Because of cowards they fled defeated
Because we were brave we knew how to triumph.
Free Cuba! We can yell
from the canyon to the terrible boom
Listen to the sound of the bugle,
to arms, Braves, run!
There was no letter with such an accurate statement; explicit was the uncontrollable desire to shout “Free Cuba!” and the provision that to die for one’s country was to live. Two phrases contained in the lyrics and that synthesized the call to fight of a people longing for their freedom. This moment was one of the most sublime in the country’s musical history; Its musical expression emerged with the birth of the Cuban independence movement.
La Bayamesa He continued his story. Its first performance, of an official nature, was organized on November 8, 1868 in the portico of the Greater Parish Church of Bayamo by the orchestra of maestro Muñoz Cedeño and a choir of twelve young women, whose sound expanded throughout the plaza before the crowd gathered there to attend the blessing of the revolutionary flag of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and the declaration of Bayamo as the provisional capital of the Republic of Cuba in Arms.
After the fire of Bayamo—an event in which the residents of that city decided, in a gesture of passionate patriotism, to burn it rather than surrender it to enemy troops—the score of La Bayamesa It remains lost and it is José Martí who commissions the musician and patriot Emilio Agramonte to transcribe it to the staff, based on the memories of emigrants in North American lands where this musician was also found. This transcript was published in issue 16 of the newspaper Patriain New York, on August 25, 1892. It is necessary to note here that the version published in Patria It only contained the first two stanzas of the hymn composed by Figueredo; These are the only ones that make up our national anthem.
New contributions followed this score, such as the one made at the end of 1898 by the teacher, musician and band director Antonio Rodríguez Ferrer, commissioned to harmonize, orchestrate and interpret the Bayamo Anthem, with whose execution the first Cuban military contingent to arrive in that city would be welcomed in Guanabacoa, once the war was over. This version had a strong impact on the patriotic warriors and the population. Rodríguez Ferrer added an introductory court-martial reveille that the score of La Bayamesa It did not possess, and it was essential to achieve the effect of call, of clarion, indispensable to the musical dramaturgy of a hymn that is, above all, a combat march.
It is in the Constitutional Convention of 1900 when the version of La Bayamesa/Bayamo Anthemwas interpreted and officially considered as National Anthem. Its execution was carried out by a full format band, which became the Municipal Band of Havana, under the direction of the distinguished musician from Cienfuegos, maestro Guillermo Tomás who, in the opinion of musicologist Jesús Gómez Cairo, was “the most enlightened of the Cuban musical directors.” ”.[1]
A newspaper journalist ExcelsiorYears later, on November 12, 1928, he stated:
It was maestro Guillermo Tomás who played for the first time, with a full band, the Bayamo Anthem o La Bayamesa, as the patriots of ’68 called it. It had been inaugurated by a band in Bayamo itself, on a certain day in Corpus Christi, still under the rule of Spain. During the war, it is not known that the Liberation Army had bands, so it is believed that it was not touched in the campaign, at least frequently. When the liberators signed the armistice, they came to the city, upon arriving in Guanabacoa they were received by a small band—ten or twelve musicians—organized by maestro Antonio Rodríguez, to the martial strains of Perucho’s music. But only when, already in complete peace, our flag floating on the Morro mast, it was played by the Municipal Band of Havana, could it be said that it had been heard in a complete way. Therefore, it can be said that it was maestro Tomás, its director at the time, who premiered the Cuban National Anthem. [2]
Guillermo also analyzed musicologically, from another time, the original form of La Bayamesa written by Perucho Figueredo.
In that original there were some defects that needed to be corrected. In the patriotic sense, I find something very noble, the desire for the Anthem to be precisely what the Bayamese sang; but it’s impossible. As it is currently played, it is, not only in my opinion, but also in the opinion of all the musicians who put their hands and eyes on it, the only way it can be played.[3]
About the different arrangements and important moments that revolved around the formation and elaboration of the AnthemGuillermo also told that journalist from the newspaper Excelsior: “I was only an interpreter. “The one who made the arrangement was Antonio Rodríguez.” [4] And he exposes the modifications introduced by Maestro Rodríguez:
First, the introduction. It is evident that the introduction gives more shine to the rest of the music. It is said to be a clarion call from the Spanish cavalry. That’s not true. It may be similar, because the bugle, as everyone knows, has a very limited number of notes, and it is easy for there to be coincidences. Touches like the one that Rodríguez put before Bayamo Anthem, are found the same in the Spanish Cavalry as in the French, and in the German and in any other. It seems to me, with great respect for all opinions, that this introduction should be preserved. [5]
The journalist says that at that moment of the interview, teacher Guillermo went to a drawer and brought a photograph of the copy of the Anthem which was kept in the Music Museum, and with the document in his hand, he pointed out:
You can see here the sentence endings that needed to be fixed. For example, where it says “corred bayameses”, notice that it had a fall from the high D to the low F, with a sixteenth note in the middle. The arrangers found this in bad taste, as it is, and modified the ending, leaving it in D, D, C, B flat. Then in the fourth measure, he loses the rhythm he had. It had to be reset. When repeating the first motif, in the music of the third verse, he repeated it in full, producing a true cacophony. This also had to be modified, in accordance with the technique. Later, we have two exact measures, punctually copied, of The marsellesa. They are those of the music of “to arms, Braves, run”. In addition to technical reasons, there were others that advised the modification, and that are available to anyone. [6]
Regarding the lyrics, he pointed out that it also had its defects but that the most important ones had been corrected by use itself:
Mainly the verse “in chains to live is to live”, which someone sometimes sings “in chains to live is not to live”. But this has been corrected even by school boys, who sing “in a chain to live is to die”… In short, I think it should be left as it is. [7]
And he goes on to describe the significance that the interpretation of the Anthem in front of the Municipal Band of Havana on the day of its premiere: “It was a very solemn moment, one of those that is never forgotten in life. We musicians were perhaps more excited than anyone else. Many times I have been left wondering how we could have reached the end (…)”.[8] Without a doubt, Guillermo felt a great shock. Direct the Band of him performing the National Anthem of Cuba constituted a privilege.
Iglesias explains [9] that, in December of this same year (1900), at the initiative of Alexis Frye and financed by his own money, the first massive and printed edition made on the island of Bayamo Anthem (100,000 copies) thereafter National Anthem. (Taken from La Jiribilla).
Grades:
[1] Gómez Cairo, Jesús: Creation, realization and development of La Bayamesa, Bayamo Anthem, National Anthem of Cuba, Ediciones Museo de la Música, Havana, 2013, p. 2.
[2] Diary Excelsior (1928, November 12). “Master Tomás believes that the current music of the Anthem should not be altered.” National Council of Culture. National Museum of Music, p. 7.
[3] Ibidem, p. 8.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Iglesias Utset, M. (2010). Metaphors of change in everyday life: Cuba 1898-1902. Unión Editions, Havana.
#October #marks #homeland #Cubaperiodistas