On today’s date in 1943, Cuban Independence Day was celebrated with a big concert at Carnegie Hall. The first half of the concert, which was relayed to Cuba and South American by NBC radio, was devoted solely to works by Ernesto Lecuona, the best-known and most successful Cuban composer of the day.
Lecuona was born in Havana in 1895, when Cuba was still part of the Kingdom of Spain. He died in 1963, as an expat of choice after Fidel Castro came to power. In the 1920s, after successful piano recitals in Paris, Lecuona’s popularity brought him to concert halls in not only Europe, but North and South America as well. His over 600 compositions include songs, zarzuelas for the stage, contributions to musical films, and pieces for solo piano and symphony orchestra.
His most famous concert work, Rapsodia Negra, or Black Rhapsody, for piano and orchestra, received its premiere at the 1943 Carnegie Hall concert. As the New York Times review noted, “[Lecuona] may be termed the Gershwin of Cuba, … like Gershwin [he] is an outstanding performer of his own music at the piano and has composed music of the more serious type, based on the popular idiom.”
Ernesto Lecuona (1895-1963): Rapsodia Negra; Thomas Tirino, piano; Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra; Michael Bartos, conductor; BIS CD-754