A song to kill a snake
"Sensemayá" is a symphonic poem by Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas inspired by some verses of Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén, which bear that title accompanied by the apostille "canto para matar una culebra" (song to kill a snake). Originally written for chamber ensemble in 1937, a year later the author transcribed the work for wind and string orchestra with the participation of no less than fourteen percussion instruments. A paradigm of rhythmic complexity, it is the author's most performed work worldwide and a highlight of his musical production, to which he dedicated only the last ten years of his short life.
United States and Mexico
In fact, Revueltas began to compose "seriously" at the age of thirty. Born in 1899 in a municipality in the state of Durango, he began his violin studies at the age of eight, and as a teenager, he completed his musical training in violin and composition in the United States. Before committing himself to musical creation, he visited Mexico on multiple occasions offering recitals until 1929, when his fellow countryman Carlos Chávez invited him to take over the position of the assistant conductor in the Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, recently created by Chávez and of which he was its director.
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| Silvestre Revueltas (1899 - 1940) |
He remained in that position until 1935, when both artists broke up. Revueltas, a musician and intellectual, defender of the rights of musicians and workers, chose to create his own orchestra, which had a short life. He would then intensify his activity as a composer, although without much effort to disseminate it: during his life he published very little, practically nothing. At his death, he was virtually unknown outside Mexico. His last years were marked by discouragement and consequent dipsomania that led him to spend time in sanatoriums.
Pablo Neruda
Now considered one of the most original musicians of the 20th century, Silvestre Revueltas died poor and forgotten. But not for everyone. The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda attended the funeral ceremony and read there a poem dedicated to him that would later become part of his monumental Canto General. The "minor oratorio" – that is what Neruda called it – ends with these words:
"Ahora son las estrellas de América tu patria(Now the stars of America are your homeland / and from today your house without doors is the Earth)
y desde hoy tu casa sin puertas es la Tierra"
The work
From 1930 onwards, Silvestre Revueltas produced more than ninety percent of his catalog, which includes orchestral pieces, vocal, chamber, and theater music. Also, around 1935 he successfully ventured into music for the cinema (Mexican, naturally).
He is the author of six symphonic poems, the last of them, Sensemayá, a little less than seven minutes long, and which for its effectiveness in musically illustrating a ceremony (the Cuban rite of killing a snake) has been compared to what Stravinski achieved with respect to pagan Russia with The Rite of Spring.
Hobart Earle conducts the Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra, in July 2012, with an illustrative introduction.
