This is a compilation in two installments published by Egrem in 1992 and 1994, with recordings of many of Lecuona's best-known pieces, performed by him. I will always refer to the first part but everything I say applies to the second part as well.<\/p>\n
These are works that one has heard even unintentionally, performed by every Cuban who has approached a piano at some time, revisited and enriched by so many virtuosos of the instrument; but hearing them in the hands of their creator gives an extra morbidity, right?<\/p>\n
The cover you see above is a success, because it feeds the fantasy. The exact montage of this shot suggests the artist in his most intimate creative moment. This Lecuona feels comfortable, at home, alone, composing; with one hand he writes and with the other he executes. While his mind works on the next motif, he sips a little coffee from the cup that rests securely on the small plate on the left. And one is the privileged voyeur of the scene, the first listener of the piece that, we know, is going to go around the world, but at this moment he has only crawled a few meters: from the brain of the genius to the pentagram, from the pentagram to the piano, from the piano to my ears. This is the film that art design has wanted to sell us, and I buy all of it.<\/p>\n
One day I went to take a shower and put on the record. Everything was going well. Chiqui chiqui chiqui, water and soap. But on the level of in three by four <\/em>I got a little attack of patriotism that by now I had forgotten.<\/p>\n I find patriotism quite jingoistic, the only one I swallow is that of those who do not have the homeland within their reach or the one offered does not serve them, which is the patriotism of emigrants, or that of prisoners. The rest is jingoism, what Mart\u00ed, as we know, called "ridiculous love for the land", and there are two kinds. There is naive, harmless, cute jingoism, which manifests itself in silence. It is what the athletes feel on the awards podium when they listen to their national anthem. And there is the other, the yellowish, the vaunted, the one of almost all the "Homeland or death". If patriotism does not come from longing, then it does not convince me. That's why that day in the shower, from my apartment in Centro Habana, I invented it, I placed myself on purpose in the position of the stranger. I have no idea where Lecuona composed these works, but I am sure that for many of them he had, naturally or on purpose, to place himself in that exact position.<\/p>\n notice The troupe<\/em>, that a priori<\/em> It should exude joy and pachanga, but, the truth is, there is very little of that in this composition. What happens is that the narrator does not appear in the middle of the drums and the island romp. Nope this<\/em> over there. Whoever has experienced a carnival in Cuba and then listens to this music realizes that this is impossible. the narrator alone he was<\/em> over there. The comparsa is not being lived, it is being evoked.<\/p>\n Although Lecuona's criollismo goes through the ecstasy and uproar typical of this place, it begins and ends in sadness. in three by four<\/em>, guilty of my patriotic shock, is a frenetic dance, mulatto, strong, furious, but very, very sad. And we already know that Creoleism plus patriotism plus sadness equals a sparrow, homeick<\/em> in English, homesickness in Spain. One can also find in this register the contemplative and discreet sadness of someone who collides with beauty, like someone who suddenly sees the sea and feels down. the habanera<\/em>, lovely damsel<\/em>or Maria La O<\/em> they are written from those silent coordinates, where a tremendously beautiful spectacle is admired, but from afar, from a position of abstraction. Who admires could be physically close to the object admired, that the distance between the two will always be the incalculable distance of not having.<\/p>\n The compilation proposes a visit to the places that we could now call \u201cworn postcards of Cubanness\u201d, but at the time Lecuona composed these works one had to be very observant, one had to have a different antenna to perceive that the thing was out there , that the nation was the carnival of Havana, the \u00f1\u00e1\u00f1igo ritual, the peasant stick, the luxurious salon and the flamenco clap. Sure, I don't think Lecuona has rationalized that much. It came out like this for him. White slaver, pure Cuban, from the barracks to the box at the Payret Theater, from Guanabacoa to Tenerife.<\/p>\n Listen to me, Cubans who do not live in Cuba, when it is colder in their homes, when the inexplicable, capricious sadness comes, of wanting to smell a<\/em> odor, punch out this record. Then they think about patriotism and stuff.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is a compilation in two installments published by Egrem in 1992 and 1994, with recordings of many of Lecuona's best-known pieces, performed by him. 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