Leo Brouwer
Leo Brouwer | |
---|---|
Background information | |
Birth name | Juan Leovigildo Brouwer Mezquida |
Born |
Havana, Cuba | March 1, 1939
Genres | Classical, folk, aleatoric, atonal |
Occupation(s) | Musician, composer, conductor |
Instruments | Guitar |
Years active | 1967–present |
Labels | Egrem |
Juan Leovigildo Brouwer Mezquida (born March 1, 1939) is a Cuban composer, conductor, and classical guitarist.
He is the grandson of Cuban composer Ernestina Lecuona y Casado,.[1] His great-uncle, Ernesto Lecuona, composed "La Malagueña" and his second cousin, Margarita Lecuona, composed "Babalú", which was popularized by Cuban musician and actor Desi Arnaz.[2]
Music career
Early years
Brouwer was born in Havana. When he was 13, he began classical guitar with the encouragement of his father, who was an amateur guitarist. His teacher was Isaac Nicola, who was a student of Emilio Pujol, who was himself a student of Tárrega. When he was 17, he performed publicly for the first time and began composing.[3]
Brouwer went to the United States to study music at the Hartt College of Music of the University of Hartford, and later at the Juilliard School,[3] where he studied under Vincent Persichetti and took composition classes with Stefan Wolpe.
In 1970 Brouwer played in the premiere of El Cimarrón by Hans Werner Henze in Berlin. Together with Morton Feldman, he was awarded a 1972 scholarship by the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) being guest composer and lecturer of Academy of Science and Arts of Berlin. In Germany Brouwer also recorded a number of LPs for Deutsche Grammophon.[4][5][6]
Composing and performing
In his early compositions, Brower remained close to the rhythms of Cuban music, while later he was drawn to aleatoric music. He has written for guitar, piano, and percussion, and has composed orchestral works, ballet, and music for more than one hundred movies. For a guitar competition in Hungary in 1979, he wrote a composition that employed 200 guitarists. He is known for a series of studies called the Etudes Simples.[3] He transcribed Beatles songs for classical guitar and composed music for the movie Like Water for Chocolate.[2]
During the 1960s and 70s, he became interested in the music of modernist composers such as Luigi Nono and Iannis Xenakis, using indeterminacy in works such as Sonograma I. Other works from this period include the guitar pieces Canticum (1968), La espiral eterna (1971), Parábola (1973) and Tarantos (1974). More recently, Brouwer's works have started leaning towards tonality and modality. The solo guitar works El Decamerón Negro (1981) the Sonata (1990; for Julian Bream) and Paisaje cubano con campanas (1986) exemplify this tendency.
He has performed and recorded works by Sylvano Bussotti, Hans Werner Henze, Maurice Ohana, Cristóbal Halffter, Leni Alexander, Cornelius Cardew, Heitor Villa-Lobos, etc.[7]
Brouwer's playing career ended in the early 1980s due to an injury to a tendon in his right hand middle finger.[8][9]
Other activities
He has been a conductor for many symphony orchestras, including the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, and the Cordoba Symphony in Spain.[3]
Brouwer is involved in the Concurso y Festival Internacional de Guitarra de la Habana (International Guitar Festival of the Havana). He travels often to attend guitar festivals throughout the world, and especially to other Latin American countries.[10]
Brouwer is a member of the Communist Party of Cuba. He has held a number of official posts in Cuba, including the Cinema Institute of Cuba's music department.
Selected works
Works for guitar
Solo guitar
- 1955 Suite No. 1 Antigua
- 1955 Suite No. 2
- 1956 Preludio
- 1957 Danza Característica "Quítate de la Acera"
- 1959 Fuga No. 1
- 1959 Tres Apuntes
- 1964 Danza del Altiplano
- 1964 Elogio de la Danza
- 1968 Canticum
- 1968 Un Dia de Noviembre
- 1971 La Espiral Eterna
- 1973 Parábola
- 1973 Estudios Sencillos (Nos. 1–10)
- 1974 Tarantos
- 1975 Cadences
- 1981 El Decamerón Negro (Dedicated to Sharon Isbin)
- 1981 Preludios Epigramáticos No. 1–6
- 1984 Variations on a Theme of Django Reinhardt
- 1986 Paisaje Cubano con Campanas in 2012 transcribed for solo accordion by Marco Lo Russo
- 1990 Sonata (Dedicated to Julian Bream)
- • Fandangos y boleros
- • Sarabanda de Scriabin
- • Toccata de Pasquini
- 1993 Rito de los Orishás
- 1996 Hika: In Memoriam Toru Takemitsu
- 1996 Hoja de album
- 1996 Paisaje Cubano con Tristeza
- 1999 An Idea (Passacaglia por Eli)
- 2000 Viaje a la Semilla
- 2001 Nuevos Estudios Sencillos No. 11–20
- 2004 La Ciudad De Las Columnas (Variaciones sobre "Pieza sin Título Nº1")
- 2007 Paisaje Cubano con fiesta
- 2007 Sonata del Caminante (Dedicated to Odair Assad)
- 2012 Sonata del Decamerón Negro (Dedicated to Kostas Kotsiolis)
- 2013 Sonata del Pensador (Dedicated to Ricardo Gallén)
- Canción Triste
- Cantilena de los bosques dedicata a Roberto Fabbri
- Dos aires populares cubanos
- Guajira criolla
- Zapateado
- Piezas sin títulos No. 1–3
- Variations on a Piazzolla Tango
- Dos Temas populares cubanos
- • Drume negrita, cancion de cuna (Berceuse)
- • Ojos Brujos
Guitar duo
- 1957–1958 Micropiezas Hommage à Darius Milhaud
- 1958 Micropiezas No. 5
- 1964 Música incidental campesina
- Per Suonare a Due
- Triptoco
Guitar quartet
- Canciones remotas
- Toccata para cuatro o más guitarras
- Toccata
- Paisaje Cubano Con Rumba
- Paisaje Cubano con lluvia
Guitar & orchestra
- 1958 Tres danzas concertantes
- 1979 Acerca del cielo, el aire y la sonrisa
- 1983 Retrats Catalans
- 1985 From Yesterday to Penny Lane
- 1995 Concierto Omaggio a Paganini (concerto for guitar and violin)
Guitar and string quartet
- 1958 Quintet for guitar and string quartet
Guitar concertos
- 1972 Concierto p.g. No. 1
- 1981 Concierto p.g. No. 2 de Lieja
- 1986 Concierto p.g. No. 3 Elegiaco
- 1987 Concierto p.g. No. 4 de Toronto
- 1991-92 Concierto p.g. No. 5 de Helsinki
- 1997 Concierto p.g. No. 6 de Volos
- 1998 Concierto p.g. No. 7 "La Habana"
- 1999 Concierto p.g. No. 8 "Concierto Cantata de Perugia"
- 2002 Concierto p.g. No. 9 "de Benicassim"
- 2003 Concierto p.g. No. 10 "Book of Signs" (concerto for two guitars)
- 2007 Concierto p.g. No. 11 "de Requim (In memoriam Toru Takemitsu)"
Other works
Solo instruments
- 1960 Sonata para cello solo
- 1962 Variantes para un percusionista
- 1970 Sonata pian e forte for Roger Woodward
Chamber music
String quartets
- 1961 Cuarteto de cuerdas No. 1, a la memoria de Bela Bártok
- Cuarteto de cuerdas No. 2
- Cuarteto de cuerdas No. 3
- Demeter Prelude
Other chamber music
- 1970 Sonata piane forte for Piano and recorded tape
- 1970 Per suonare a Tre (flute, alto, and guitar
- 1983 Manuscrito antiguo encontrado en una botella for pianotrio
- Balada for Flute and Strings
- Canción de Gesta (para orquesta de cámara)
- Sonate pour Cor et Piano
- Pictures of Another Exhibition (violin, choir, and piano)
- La Region Mas Transparente (flute and piano)
- Basso Continuo I (2 clarinets)
- La Vida Misma (piano, violin, cello and percussion)
- 2009 Mitología de las Aguas (Sonata N° 1 for flute and guitar)
Orchestra
- 1984 Canciones remotas for string orchestra
- Symphonie No. 1 (orchester)
- Remembrances (orchester)
- Anima Latina (orchester)
- Cadence Quatuor en Ré
Orchestra with other solo instruments
- 1972 Balada, concierto para flauta y orquesta de cuerdas (flute und orchester)
- 1972 Concierto para violín y orquesta (violin and orchester)
- 1981 Cancion de Gesta (For the Boat Loaded with the Future) (symphonic windorchester with piano)
Choir
- Canciones Amatorias (for mixed chorus, on words by Federico García Lorca and José Hernández)
Scores
- 1960: Historias de la revolución
- 1965: Vaqueros del cauto
- 1966: Papeles son papeles
- 1966: La muerte de un burócrata
- 1967: Las aventuras de Juan Quin Quin
- 1968: LBJ
- 1968: Hanoi, martes 13
- 1968: Memorias del subdesarrollo
- 1968: Lucía
- 1969: Despegue a las 18:00
- 1971: La bataille des dix millions
- 1972: Una pelea cubana contra los demonios
- 1973: El extraño caso de Rachel K
- 1973: El hombre de Maisinicú
- 1975: Abril de Vietnam en el año del gato
- 1975: Ustedes tienen la palabra
- 1976: Un día de noviembre
- 1976: La cantata de Chile
- 1976: La última cena
- 1977: Mi hermano Fidel
- 1977: Destino manifiesto
- 1978: Son o no son
- 1978: El recurso del método
- 1979: No hay sábado sin sol
- 1979: The survivors (Los sobrevivientes)
- 1979: La viuda de Montiel
- 1980: La guerra necesaria
- 1982: Una y otra vez
- 1983: Tiempo de amar
- 1983: Los refugiados de la cueva del muerto
- 1983: Alsino y el cóndor
- 1983: La rosa de los vientos
- 1983: Cecilia
- 1983: Hasta cierto punto
- 1984: La segunda hora de Esteban Zayas
- 1985: Cuando una mujer no duerme
- 1985: Wild Dogs (Jíbaro)
- 1985: Amada – a woman from Havanna
- 1986: Tiempo de morir
- 1992: Like Water for Chocolate
- 1995: Un héroe se hace a patadas
- 1998: Mátame mucho
- 2002: Ficción sin ficción
- 2003: Memorias de Lucía
- 2004: Lucía y el tiempo
- 2004: La persistencia de la memoria
- 2005: Kordavision
References
- ↑ Sadie, Julie Anne; Samuel, Rhian (1994). The Norton/Grove dictionary of women composers (Digitized online by GoogleBooks). Retrieved 4 October 2010.
- 1 2 Bergeron, Kathleen A. (28 September 2016). "Letter from Havana: Leo Brouwer, the Rolling Stones, and the Cuban Guitar Scene". Classical Guitar. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
- 1 2 3 4 Whitesel, Tod. "Leo Brouwer | Biography & History | AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
- ↑ LP: Hans Werner Henze - El Cimarrón (CD reissue)
- ↑ LP: Debut - Leo Brouwer, Gitarre (CD reissue of the modern works)
- ↑ LP: Musique Contemporaine pour guitare (CD reissue)
- ↑ Rara Recording by Leo Brouwer
- ↑ Leo Brouwer Artist Profile/Interview
- ↑ Clive Kronenberg on Leo Brouwer
- ↑ Brouwer, Leo; Hdez, Hernández; Carmona, Nisleidys Flores (2004). Leo Brouwer: gajes del oficio.
- Andy Daly, Leo Brouwer. Music Web International, accessed June 9, 2011
Further reading
Articles
- Hablar con Leo (Spanish)
- "Let Us Play for Our Children" Guitar magazine
- Hombre que juega Pedro de la Hoz, 2004 (Granma) (Spanish)
- El Decameron Negro by Arnaud Dumond (French)
Interviews
- 1 2 Entretiens avec Leo Brouwer by Arnaud Dumond, Françoise-Emmanuelle Denis (French)
- An Interview With Leo Brouwer by Constance McKenna, 1988
- Leo Brouwer Artist Profile/Interview Classical Guitar Alive!
Bibliography
- Leo Brouwer by Isabelle Hernández. (Andante. Editora Musical de Cuba) ISBN 959-7153-01-7
- Gajes del oficio by Leo Brouwer
Documentaries
- Leo Brouwer–Irakere (1978), written and directed by Jose Padron
- Leo Brouwer (2000), written and directed by Jose Padron