Ernesto Lecuona y Casado (August 6, 1895 – November 29, 1963) was a Cuban composer and pianist of worldwide fame. He composed over six hundred pieces, mostly in the Cuban vein, and was a pianist of exceptional skill. His father was Canarian and his mother was Cuban.

Lecuona’s talent for composition has influenced the Latin American world in a way quite similar to George Gershwin in the United States, in his case raising Cuban music to classical status.

Lecuona was born in Guanabacoa, Havana, Cuba. He started studying piano at an early age, under his sister Ernestina Lecuona, a famed composer in her own right. As a child prodigy, he composed his first song at the age of 11. He later studied at the Peyrellade Conservatoire under Antonio Saavedra and the famous Joaquin Nin. Lecuona graduated from the National Conservatory of Havana with a Gold Medal for interpretation when he was sixteen. And he performed outside of Cuba at the Aeolian Hall (New York) in 1916.

In 1918 he collaborated with Luis Casas Romero, Moisés Simons, Jaime Prats, Nilo Menéndez and Vicente Lanz in setting up a successful player piano music roll factory in Cuba producing Cuban music and also copies from masters made by QRS in the USA. The brand label was “Rollo Autógrafo”

He first travelled to Spain in 1924 on a concert tour with violinist Marta de la Torre; his successful piano recitals in 1928 at Paris coincided with a rise in interest in Cuban music.

María la O, Lecuona’s zarzuela, premiered in Havana on March 1, 1930. He was a prolific composer of songs and music for stage and film. His works consisted of zarzuela, Afro-Cuban and Cuban rhythms, suites and many songs which are still very famous. They include Siboney (Canto Siboney), Malagueña and The Breeze And I (Andalucía). In 1942, his great hit, Always in my heart (Siempre en mi Corazón) was nominated for an Oscar for Best Song; however, it lost to White Christmas. Lecuona was a master of the symphonic form and conducted the Ernesto Lecuona Symphonic Orchestra, employing soloists including Cuban pianist and composer Carmelina Delfín. The Orchestra performed in the Cuban Liberation Day Concert at Carnegie Hall on October 10, 1943. The concert included the world premiere of Lecuona’s Black Rhapsody. Lecuona gave help and the use of his name to the popular touring group, the Lecuona Cuban Boys, though he did not play as a member of the band. He did sometimes play piano solos as the first item on the bill.

In 1960, thoroughly unhappy with Castro’s new régime, Lecuona moved to Tampa and lived on West Orient Street with his relative, singer Esperanza Chediak. Lecuona lived his final years in the US. Three years later, on November 23, 1963 he died at the age of 68 in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, as a result of an attack of asthma, a disorder which had persecuted him his entire life.

He was interred at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York, but his will instructs that his remains be repatriated once the current régime runs its course. A great deal of Lecuona’s music was first introduced to mass American audiences by Desi Arnaz, a fellow Cuban and Lucille Ball’s spouse.

Selected compositions.
For piano

Suite Andalucía
Córdova/Córdoba
Andalucía/Andaluza
Alhambra
Gitanerías
Guadalquivir
Malagueña
San Francisco El Grande
Ante El Escorial
Zambra Gitana
Aragonesa
Valencia Mora
Aragón

http://youtu.be/83EMKm_5s8M

Waltz.

Si menor (Rococó)
La bemol
Apasionado
Crisantemo
Vals Azul
Maravilloso
Romántico
Poético

Others.

Ahí viene el chino
Al fin te vi
Amorosa
Andar
Aquí está
Arabesque
Bell Flower
Benilde
Burlesca
Canto del guajiro
Cajita de música
Como el arrullo de palma
Como baila el muñeco

http://youtu.be/UJpdjr-j8D0

Dame tu amor
Danza de los Ñáñigos
Danza Lucumí
Diario de un niño
Ella y yo
¡Échate pa’llá María!
El batey
El miriñaque
El sombrero de yarey
El tanguito de Mamá (también llamada A la Antigua)
En tres por cuatro
Eres tú el amor
Futurista
Gonzalo, ¡no bailes más!
Impromptu
La 32
La primera en la frente
La Comparsa
La conga de medianoche
La Habanera
La danza interrumpida
La mulata
La negra Lucumí
La Cardenense
Los Minstrels
Lola Cruz
Lola está de fiesta
Lloraba en sueños
Mazurka en glissado
Melancolía
Mientras yo comía maullaba el gato
Mis tristezas
Malagueña
Muñequita
Negra Mercé
Negrita
¡No hables más!
No me olvides
No puedo contigo
Orquídeas
Pensaba en ti
Polichinela
¿Por qué te vas?
Preludio en la noche
¡Que risa me da! Mi abuela bailaba así
Rapsodia Negra
Rosa, la china
Tú serás
Tres miniaturas
¡Y la negra bailaba!
¡Y sigue la lloviznita!
Yo soy así
Yumurí
Zapateo y guajira
Zenaida.

Agencies/Various/Wiki/InternetPhotos/youtube/thecubanhistory.com
The Cuban History, Hollywood.
Arnoldo Varona, Editor.

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