Manuel Saumell Robredo (19 April 1818 – 14 August 1870), was a Cuban composer known for his invention and development of genuinely
creolized forms of music. For this reason he gets the credit for being the first to cultivate Cuban musical nationalism, and is of similar standing to
Glinka who initiated Russian musical nationalism with ''
A Life for the Tsar
''A Life for the Tsar'' ( rus, "Жизнь за царя", italic=yes, Zhizn za tsarya ) is a "patriotic-heroic tragic opera" in four acts with an epilogue by Mikhail Glinka. During the Soviet era the opera was known under the name '' Ivan Susanin ...
'' at about the same time.
Life
Saumell, from a destitute family, "destined to die young, after leading a miserable, peripatetic, sorrowful existence"
[Carpentier, Alejo 2001 945 ''Music in Cuba''. Minneapolis MN. Chapter 10 ''Saumell and nationalism'', p186] was born in Havana. He studied
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a musica ...
with Juan Fédérico Edelmann, and
harmony
In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. Howev ...
,
arranging,
counterpoint and
fugue
In music, a fugue () is a contrapuntal compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject (a musical theme) that is introduced at the beginning in imitation (repetition at different pitches) and which recurs frequently in the co ...
with Mauricio Pyke, the director of an
Italian opera
Italian opera is both the art of opera in Italy and opera in the Italian language. Opera was born in Italy around the year 1600 and Italian opera has continued to play a dominant role in the history of the form until the present day. Many fam ...
company which visited Havana. Saumell played the organ in church and interpreted Beethoven for trios, organized musical meetings, made
orchestration
Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra (or, more loosely, for any musical ensemble, such as a concert band) or of adapting music composed for another medium for an orchestra. Also called "instrumentation", or ...
s and arrangements, and taught classes. "Saumell was a truly hard worker, sensitive, generous with others, demanding of himself; he was eager to achieve great things
ndinspired to great projects."
At 21 he fell heavily in love with a singer, Dolores de Saint-Maxent, who had introduced
Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...
's work to Cuba. Unfortunately for him, she came from a wealthy family who would not countenance their marriage. All the same, for a time she permitted his attentions to continue. Saumell planned a nationalistic opera to show off her talent, based on the novel ''Antonelli'' by José Antonio Echevarría. The action takes place in Havana in 1590. A workforce of black slaves sets up the machinery of one of
El Cerro's first sugar mills. The engineer Antonelli falls in love with a beautiful
Siboney
Siboney may refer to:
Arts
* ''Siboney'' (film), a Mexican-Cuban drama film
* "Siboney" (song), a 1929 song by Ernesto Lecuona
* ''Siboney'', a 1985 album by Slim Gaillard
Places
* Siboney, Cuba, a town in eastern Cuba
* Siboney, Oklahoma, a t ...
quadroon, only to find she is betrothed to the nephew of the Governor of Havana. And so it proceeds...
Alas, before the
libretto could be written (in Italian), Delores broke off their relationship, and pursued another man. Shattered, Saumell dropped the project and went back to his scattered life, writing contradanzas and surviving on what little he could make. However, he had done a significant thing: he had planned for aboriginal Indians and black slaves to sing and take part in the action of the opera, something without precedent in all the Americas.
Works
Leaving aside numbers written in haste for dances, Saumell wrote over fifty contradanzas (in 2/4 or 6/8 time) which merit attention. His rhythmic and melodic inventiveness is astonishing. ''No two pages are alike'', according to Carpentier, he never repeats himself. Contradanzas were composed in two parts, a ''prima'' of eight bars followed by the ''segunda'' of sixteen bars, or else 16 followed by 16. Saumell used to write a prima in classical style, followed by a segunda in creolized Cuban folkloric style.
:"Saumell is absolutely prophetic in fixing certain rhythms which would be mined in the future under different names... Saumell is the father not only of the contradanza... but also the habanera (the prima of ''La Amistad''), danzón (''La Tedezco''), the guajira (segunda of ''La Matilde''), the criolla (the segunda of ''La Nené''), the clavé (''La Celestina'')... Everything done after him would amplify or distinguish elements plainly exposed in his works."
:"After Saumell's visionary work, all that was left to do was to develop his innovations, all of which profoundly influenced the history of Cuban nationalist musical movements." Helio Orovio
:"The most important
ubanmusician of the
9thcentury was Manuel Saumell Robredo"
[Diaz Ayala, Cristobal 1981. ''Música cubana del Areyto a la Nueva Trova''. 2nd rev ed, Cubanacan, San Juan P.R. p43 (contributor's translation)]
The scores of Saumell's Contradanzas for piano are available at '
Cuatro 40 Ediciones'' in printed form or downloadable PDF.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saumell, Manuel
1818 births
1870 deaths
19th-century classical composers
Cuban classical composers
Male classical composers
Contradanza
People from Havana
19th-century male musicians