Music in Cuba FREE DOWNLOAD
- Series: Cultural Studies of the Americas (Book 5)
- Hardcover: 312 pages
- Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press (March 5, 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0816632294
- ISBN-13: 978-0816632299
A publishing event: the first English translation of Carpentier's pioneering book on Cuban music.
In
the wake of the Buena Vista Social Club, the world has rediscovered the
rich musical tradition of Cuba. A unique combination of popular and
elite influences, the music of this island nation has fascinated since
the golden age of the son‹that New World aural collision of Africa and
Europe that made Cuban music the rage in Paris, New York, and Mexico
beginning in the 1920s.
Originally published in 1946 and never
before available in an English translation, Music in Cuba is not only
the best and most extensive study of Cuban musical history, it is a work
of literature in its own right. Drawing on such primary documents as
obscure church circulars, dog-eared musical scores pulled from attics,
and the records of the Spanish colonial authorities, Music in Cuba
sweeps panoramically from the sixteenth into the twentieth century.
Carpentier covers European-style elite Cuban music as well as the
popular rural Spanish folk and urban Afro-Cuban music.
In a
substantial introduction based on extensive original research, Timothy
Brennan explores Carpentier's career prior to the writing of his novels.
Looking especially at Carpentier's work as a music reviewer, radio
producer, and musical theorist, Brennan suggests new ways of thinking
about the role of Latin American artists in Europe between the wars and
about the central place of radio and music-club cultures in the European
avant-gardes.
Perhaps Cuba's most important intellectual of the
twentieth century, Alejo Carpentier (19041980) was a novelist, a
classically trained pianist and musicologist, a producer of avant-garde
radio programming, and an influential theorist of politics and
literature. Best known for his novels, Carpentier also collaborated with
such luminaries as Igor Stravinsky, Darius Milhaud, Georges Bataille,
and Antonin Artaud. Born in Havana, he lived for many years in France
and Venezuela but returned to Cuba after the 1959 revolution.
Timothy Brennan is professor of cultural studies, comparative literature, and English at the University of Minnesota.
Alan West-Durán is a freelance translator living in Massachusetts.
These nine Latin American gems will be a stunning addition to your vocal
repertoire. Whether performed in Spanish or English, these masterful
arrangements feature sophisticated piano accompaniments and stylish
vocal lines which emphasize the dramatic nuances of their delightful
texts. Nine wonderful and heartfelt songs, which offer a wide variety of
styles and tempos.
