Habanera (music)
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The habanera is a genre of Cuban popular dance music of the 19th century. It is a creolized form which developed from the contradanza. It has a characteristic "Habanera rhythm", and is performed with sung lyrics. It was the first dance music from Cuba to be exported all over the world.
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[edit] The rhythm
The habanera is the simplest and most common of Latin rhythms constructed from multiples of a basic durational unit, and grouped unequally so that the accents fall irregularly in a one or two bar pattern.[4]
The upbeat on the AND of 2 in the middle of the bar is the power of the habanera, especially when it is in the bass.[5] Thompson identifies the rhythm as the Kongo mbilu a kakinu, or call to the dance.[5][6]
Alternative vocalizations of the habanera are "BOOM...BA-BOP-BOP",[5] or "Da, ka ka kan".[6]
[edit] History
[edit] Cuba
In the mid-19th century, the habanera developed from the contradanza,[7] which had arrived in Cuba (from France via Haiti) with refugees from the Haitian revolution in 1791. The earliest identified "contradanza habanera" is La Pimienta, an anonymous song published in an 1836 collection. The main innovation from the contradanza was rhythmic, as the habanera incorporated the tresillo into its structure.[8]
Another novelty was that, unlike the contradanza, the habanera was sung as well as danced.[9] The habanera is also slower and, as a dance, more graceful in style than the contradanza. The music, written in 2/4 time, features an introduction followed by two parts of 8 to 16 bars each.[10]
In Cuba, the habanera was supplanted by the danzón from the 1870s onwards. Musically, the danzón has a different but related rhythm, the cinquillo, and as a dance it is quite different. Also, the danzón was not sung for over forty years after its invention. In the twentieth century the habanera gradually became a relic form in Cuba, especially after success of the danzón and later the son. However, some of its compositions were transcribed and reappeared in other formats later on. Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes' habanera Tú is still a much-loved composition, showing that the charm of the habanera is not dead yet.[11]
However, it should be fair and accurate to indicate that before the Habanera, the Candombe, from the African slaves and their desendants was the main rhythmic experience in every place these Africans had been transplanted (such as Haiti, Cuba and Argentina). The phrase "Contradanza...which had arrived in Cuba (from France via Haiti" should be understood as the Contradanza being modified or infused with the Candombe rhythm to then generate what will later called in Havana (Cuba), Habanera. Any explanation of the Habanera that does not, at the same time mention the influence of the Candombe played by the African slaves and their descendants, is either incomplete or, erroneous! That same influence of the Candombe will later play a major role in Argentina, as the Habanera finally made its way to Montevideo and Buenos Aires. The Afro people (or Black People) of Buenos Aires called "Tango" (meaning in Kicongo language : “ the place of gathering"), as Yale Professor, Robert Farris Thompson accurately explains in his book “ Tango, The Art History of Love ”, the place where they would gather to dance their Candombe, now enriched with the adjoining of the Habanera. The Waltz and the Fox-trot will be infused as well. The place for the dancing will quickly bear the name of the dance-form hence developed and dance there...Tango!
In 1995 a modern Cuban artist recorded a complete disc in the habanera genre, when singer/songwriter Liuba Maria Hevia recorded some songs researched by musicologist Maria Teresa Linares. The artist, unhappy with the technical conditions at the time (Cuba was in the middle of the so-called Periodo Especial), re-recorded most of the songs on the 2005 CD Angel y su habanera. The original CD Habaneras en el tiempo (1995) sold poorly in Cuba, which underlines the fading interest in this kind of music there, contrasting with the vigorous popularity of the habanera in the Mediterranean coast of Spain.
[edit] Spain and other countries
It is thought that the habanera was brought back to Spain by sailors, where it became popular for a while before the turn of the twentieth century. The Basque composer Sebastian Yradier was known for his habanera La Paloma (The dove), which achieved great fame in Spain and America. The habanera was danced by all classes of society, and had its moment of glory in English and French salons. It was so well established as a Spanish dance that Jules Massenet included one in the ballet music to his opera Le Cid (1885), to lend atmospheric color. The Habanera from Bizet's Carmen (1875) is a definitive example, though the piece is directly derived from one of Yradier's compositions (the habanera El Arreglito). Maurice Ravel wrote a Vocalise-Étude en forme de Habanera, as well as a habanera for Rapsodie espagnole (movement III, originally a piano piece written in 1895), Camille Saint-Saëns' Havanaise for violin and orchestra is still played and recorded today, as is Emmanuel Chabrier's Habanera for orchestra (originally for piano).
In the south of Spain: Andalusia (especially Cadiz), Valencia, and Alicante, and in Catalonia, the habanera is still popular, especially in the ports. The habaneras La Paloma, La bella Lola or El meu avi (My grandfather) are well known.[12] From Spain, the habanera arrived in the Philippines, where it still exists as a minor art-form.[13]
Elements of the habanera also influenced American jazz via New Orleans musicians such as Jelly Roll Morton, who used the phrase the Spanish Tinge to describe the influence of such music in the U.S.[14]
The Argentine milonga makes use of the habanera rhythm of a dotted quarter note followed by three eighth notes, with an accent on the first and third notes.[15]
In 1883 Ventura Lynch, a student of the dances and folklore of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, noted the popularity of the milonga: "The milonga is so universal in the environs of the city that it is an obligatory piece at all the lower-class dances (bailecitos de medio pelo), and it is now heard on guitars, on paper-combs, and from the itinerant musicians with their flutes, harps and violins. It has also been taken up by the organ-grinders, who have arranged it so as to sound like the habanera dance. It is danced in the low life clubs around...[main] markets, and also at the dances and wakes of cart-drivers, soldiery, compadres and compadritos''.[16]
To some extent, the habanera rhythm is retained in early tangos, notably El Choclo[15] and including "La morocha" (1904).[17] As the consistent rhythmic foundation of the bass line in Argentine Tango, the habanera lasted for a relatively short time. Gradually the variation noted by Roberts (see above) began to predominate.[18]p124 Ornamented and distributed throughout the texture, it remains an essential part of the music.[18]p2 Anibal Troilo's "La trampera" (Cheating Woman), written in 1962, uses the same habanera seen in Bizet's Carmen.[19][6]
A habanera was written and published in Butte, Montanta in 1908. The song was titled "Solita" and was written by Jack Hangauer.[20]
[edit] Sound files
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- Legran Orchestra La Comisión de San Roque Habanera Mp3· ISWC: T-042192386-5 2007. Published with the permission of the owner of rights
[edit] Popular adaptations
- The b-side to Kate Nash's 2007 single Foundations, was entitled 'Habanera'.[citation needed]
- Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers features the song "Chains of Love" which is set to the tune of Habanera.[citation needed]
- Paradiso Girls' song "Who's My Bitch" samples a recording of this song.[citation needed]
- La Paloma[citation needed]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Orovio, Helio. 1981. Diccionario de la Música Cubana, p.237. La Habana, Editorial Letras Cubanas. ISBN 959-10-0048-0.
- ^ Roberts: 1998:50.
- ^ Blatter, Alfred 2007. Revisiting music theory: a guide to the practice. p28 ISBN 0415974402.
- ^ The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz. Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN 9781561592845
- ^ a b c Listen again. Experience Music Project. Duke University Press, 2007. p75 ISBN 9780822340416
- ^ a b c Thompson, Robert Farris. 2006. Tango: the art history of love. Vintage, p117 ISBN 978-1400095797
- ^ derived from the English "country dance"
- ^ Sublette, Ned 2004. Cuba and its music: from the first drums to the mambo. Chicago. p134
- ^ The guaracha was an earlier type of Cuban music which was also sung.
- ^ Grenet, Emilio 1939. Música popular cubana. La Habana.
- ^ Carpentier, Alejo 2001 (1945). Music in Cuba. Minneapolis MN.
- ^ Berenguer González, Ramón T. "La Comisión de San Roque" Habanera Mp3· ISWC: T-042192386-5 2007
- ^ Spanish Influence Dances.
- ^ Roberts, John Storm 1979. The Latin tinge: the impact of Latin American music on the United States. Oxford.
- ^ a b "El Choclo" sheet music at TodoTango.
- ^ Collier, Cooper, Azzi and Martin. 1995. Tango! The dance, the song, the story. Thames & Hudson, London. p45 (ISBN 0-500-01671-2) citing Ventura Lynch: La provinciade Buenos Aires hasta la definicion de la cuestion Capital de la Republica. p.16.
- ^ La morocha sheet music at TodoTango.
- ^ a b Baim, Jo 2007. Tango: creation of a cultural icon. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-34885-2.
- ^ "La trampera" sheet music at TodoTango.
- ^ http://sandersmusic.com/bootnote.html?cut=4
[edit] External links
- "3-Habanera and danzón" (Cuban Music Website).
- Habanera's blog from Tony Foixench.
