Caturla’s Bembé premieres in Paris

1929-01-01 · 1929

Alejandro García Caturla’s Bembé, for winds, piano, and percussion, was first played in Paris in 1929. A bembé is a Santería drum-and-dance gathering. He did not use Santería as decoration. The dance itself is how the piece is built. “The Bembé for woodwinds, brass, piano, and percussion, which premiered in Paris in 1929, and in which we find the soul of Santeria dancing, is of a similar order as La rumba.” — Alejo Carpentier, Cuban novelist and music historian, Music in Cuba, trans. Alan West-Durán, ed. Timothy Brennan (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), p. 278.

Genres: Música clásica