Silvestre Revueltas

Silvestre Revueltas Sánchez (December 31, 1899 – October 5, 1940) was a Mexican composer of classical music, a violinist and a conductor.

Life

Revueltas was born in Santiago Papasquiaro in Durango, and studied at the National Conservatory in Mexico City, St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas, and the Chicago College of Music. He gave violin recitals and in 1929 was invited by Carlos Chávez to become assistant conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, a post he held until 1935. He and Chávez did much to promote contemporary Mexican music. It was around this time that Revueltas began to compose in earnest. He began his first film score, Redes, in 1934, a commission which resulted in Revueltas and Chávez falling out. Chávez had originally expected to write the score, but political changes led to him losing his job in the Ministry of Education, which was behind the film project.^[1] Revueltas left Chávez' orchestra in 1935 to be the principal conductor of a newly-created and short-lived rival orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional.

He was part of a family of artists, a number of whom were also famous and recognized in Mexico: his brother Fermín (1901–1935) and sister Consuelo (born before 1908, died before 1999) were painters, sister Rosaura (ca. 1909–1996) was an actress and dancer, and younger brother José Revueltas (1914–1976) was a noted writer. His daughter from his first marriage to Jules Klarecy (née Hlavacek), Romano Carmen (later Montoya and Peers), enjoyed a successful career as a dancer, taught ballet and flamenco in New York, and died on November 13, 1995, at age 73, in Athens, Greece. She is survived by three sons, and two kindred creative female heirs in Oceanside, California. His daughter from his second marriage, Eugenia (born November 15, 1934), is an essayist. His nephew Román Revueltas Retes, son of José, is a violinist, journalist, painter and conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Aguascalientes (OSA).

In 1937 Revueltas went to Spain during the Spanish Civil War, as part of a tour organized by the leftist organization Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios (LEAR);^[2] upon Francisco Franco's victory, he returned to Mexico. He earned little, and fell into poverty and alcoholism. He died in Mexico City of pneumonia (complicated by alcoholism), at the age of 40 on October 5, 1940, the day his ballet El renacuajo paseador, written four years earlier, was premièred. His remains are kept at the Rotonda de los Hombres Ilustres in Mexico City.

Works

Revueltas wrote film music, chamber music, songs, and a number of other works. His best-known work is the film score for La Noche de los Mayas,^[3] although some dissenting opinions hold that it is the orchestral work Sensemayá.^[4] In any case, it is Sensemayá that is considered Revueltas's masterpiece.^[5]

He appeared briefly as a bar piano player in the movie ¡Vámonos con Pancho Villa! (Let's Go With Pancho Villa, Mexico, 1935), for which he composed the music. When shooting breaks out in the bar while he is playing "La Cucaracha", he holds up a sign reading "Se suplica no tirarle al pianista" ("Please don't shoot at the piano player").^[6]

Music

Chamber works

El afilador, 1924
Batik, 1926
Four Little Pieces for two violins and cello, 1929
Homenaje a Federico García Lorca, 1936
Ocho x radio, 1933
Planos, 1934
String Quartet No. 1, 1930
String Quartet No. 2, 1931
String Quartet No. 3, 1931
String Quartet No. 4, Música de feria, 1932
Tres pequeñas piezas serias, for quintet of mixed winds, 1932–33
Tres piezas, for violin and piano, 1932
Éste era un rey 1940
First Little Serious Piece, for chamber ensemble, 1940
Second Little Serious Piece, for chamber ensemble, 1940

Orchestral works

Pieza para orquesta, 1929
Alcancías, 1932
Caminos, 1934
Colorines, for chamber orchestra, 1932
La coronela (orch. by Moncayo and arr. by Limantour)
Cuauhnáhuac, for string orchestra, 1931; revised for full orchestra, 1931; revised again for full orchestra 1932
Danza geométrica (orchestral version of Planos), 1934
Esquinas, 1931 (rev. 1933)
Itinerarios, 1938
Janitzio, 1933 (rev. 1936)
Música para charlar, 1938 (from the film score of Ferrocarriles de Baja California)
El renacuajo paseador, 1933
Sensemayá, 1938
Toccata (sin fuga), for violin and chamber orchestra 1933
Troka, 1933
Ventanas, 1931

Ballets

La coronela, 1940 (unfinished; a completion by Blas Galindo and Candelario Huízar lost)
El renacuajo paseador, 1936

Film scores

Bajo el signo de la muerte, 1939
Ferrocarriles de Baja California, 1938
- selections reworked as Música para charlar
El indio, 1938
Los de abajo, 1939
La noche de los mayas (Night of the Mayas), 1939
¡Que viene mi marido!, 1940
Redes, 1935
¡Vámonos con Pancho Villa!, 1936

Songs

"Canto a una muchacha negra" (words: Langston Hughes), voice and piano 1938
Cinco canciones para niños y dos canciones profanas, 1938–1939
Duo para pato y canario, voice and chamber orchestra, 1931
"Ranas" (Frogs) and "El tecolote" (The Owl), voice and piano, 1931
Caminando, 1937

Piano

Allegro
Canción (a passage used also in Cuauhnáhuac)

References

^ "Program Notes" (PDF). Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Retrieved 14 December 2014.
^ Hess 1997, ^{[page needed]}
^ Hernández 2009, 19.
^ Clark 1999, 240; Estrada 1982, 191; Hoag 1987, 173; Morris 1996, 280; Velazco 1986, 343.
^ Contreras Soto 2000, 62.
^ In Palencia 2000, 26, Revueltas' appearance in this scene is cited as an example of his sense of humor.

Sources

Clark , Walter Aaron. 1999. "The Music of Latin America". In Latin America: An Interdisciplinary Approach, third edition, edited by Julio López-Arias and Gladys Varona-Lacey, 233–53. New York: P. Lang. ISBN 9780820434797.
Contreras Soto, Eduardo. 2000. Silvestre Revueltas: Baile, duelo y son. Ríos y Raíces. México, D. F.: Teoría y Práctia del Arte. ISBN 978-970-35-0436-7.
Estrada, Julio. 1982. "Raíces y Tradición en la Música Nueva de México y de América Latina". Latin American Music Review / Revista de Música Latinoamericana 3, no. 2 (Autumn–Winter): 188–206.
Hernández, Juan de Dios. 2009. "Nationalism and Musical Architecture in the Symphonic Music of Silvestre Revueltas". DMA diss. Tucson: University of Arizona.
Hess, Carol A. "Silvestre Revueltas in Republican Spain: Music as Political Utterance" in Latin American Music Review 18, no. 2 (Autumn–Winter 1997): 278–96. See http://www.jstor.org/stable/i231926 (subscription required)
Hoag, Charles K. 1987. "Sensemayá: A Chant for Killing a Snake." Latin American Music Review / Revista de Música Latinoamericana 8, no. 2 (Autumn): 172–84.
Morris, Mark. 1996. A Guide to 20th-century Composers. London: Methuen. ISBN 9780413456014 (cloth); ISBN 9780413715302 (pbk.)
Palencia Alonso, Héctor. 2000. "Voces magistrales: Silvestre Revueltas". In Conservatorianos: Revista de información, reflexión y divulgación culturales 6 (November–December): 25–29 (Archive from 2 November 2011, accessed 2 July 2014).
Velazco, Jorge. 1986. "The Original Version of Janitzio, by Silvestre Revueltas". Latin American Music Review / Revista de Música Latinoamericana 7, no. 2 (Autumn–Winter): 341–46.

External links

Silvestre Revueltas web site at National Autonomous University of Mexico ((UNAM)). Template:Es icon
Foro Virtual Silvestre Revueltas, UNAM. Template:Es icon
Del Sol Quartet: Tear includes Revueltas' Musica de Feria (1932) performed by Del Sol Quartet
Silvestre Revueltas at Epdlp Template:Es icon
Peermusic classical : Composer Silvestre Revueltas at www.peermusicclassical.com Silvestre Revueltas' web site at Peer Music Classical.
Silvestre Revueltas at www.wwnorton.com Silvestre Revueltas' web site at W.W. Norton.
Free scores by Silvestre Revueltas at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
Silvestre Revueltas at IMDb

[Huscher-1] "Program Notes" (PDF). Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Retrieved 14 December 2014.

[2] Hess 1997, ^{[page needed]}

[3] Hernández 2009, 19.

[4] Clark 1999, 240; Estrada 1982, 191; Hoag 1987, 173; Morris 1996, 280; Velazco 1986, 343.

[5] Contreras Soto 2000, 62.

[6] In Palencia 2000, 26, Revueltas' appearance in this scene is cited as an example of his sense of humor.

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