ERNESTO Lecuona is the most renowned of all Cuban musicians, and this great maestro of melody composed songs that traveled all over the world: "Siboney," "Melagueña," "Damisela ecantadora" (Enchanting Damsel), "Siempre en mi corazón" (Always in My Heart), "Arrullo de palma" (Palm Lullaby). This year we have celebrated the 110th anniversary of Lecuona’s birth (August 6, 1895) in Guanabacoa, Havana.

Various specialists have written on Lecuona: María Antonieta Enríquez, Hilario González, Pedro Simón, Orlando Martínez and Carmela de León. They have disproved the erroneous and contradictory criticisms of the work of the great Cuban composer, many such evaluations have been made by musicologists on the basis of traditional European concert music.

Some of them have identified his work as "semi-cultured," "popular culture," as if the second had nothing to do with the first. José Ardévol excludes him by saying: "He does not fit within the framework of so called cultural music." For some of those musicologists Europeans invented world culture.

But Lecuona was something else. Let him respond to those who wished to sideline him: "You know, when I carefully analyze what critics are making of my music, I am almost convinced, I am almost in agreement with them. But the strange thing is that many people are not in agreement with us."

The musician from Guanabacoa made the music that he felt and his dances initiated music of African origin in a stage in which anything related to Black people was taboo. "I was the first to bring the conga drum of the black slaves to the pentagram and the keyboard. From 1911 I was heavily criticized for that, devotees believed that I should cultivate long-established classical music. But I did "La comparsa," Danza negra," "Danza Lucumí." In that period singers were not allowed to sing anything other than Puccini or Donizetti."

Alejo Carpentier, always a defender of popular culture, recalled that European classicists wrote on anything, "without thinking that they were lowering themselves by trying to produce agreeable music or a light style. Everything was about writing the best possible. And to earn money, they tried vigor both in tragic and comical contexts."

Lecuona is not like anyone else, but if it comes to the point of comparisons, one would have to place him on a level with George Gershwin, Ari Barroso, Oscar Strauss, Ruperto Chapé. The Cuban composer is among those colossi.

As an interpreter, Lecuona was a pianist of exceptional technical and expressive qualities. Researcher Hilario González wrote: "He is one of the legends of the history of our music. His marvelous handling, especially of octaves with both hands; his intelligence and impeccable work on the pedals; the intense and infinite gamut of his particular sound and incredible internal rhythm have all been praised. His virtuosity was proverbial, with an extremely personal style, elegant expressivity, absolute musicality that prompted an exceptional effect in the auditorium. If he had proposed himself as an international concert musician, or have lived in a fitting medium for such an undertaking, he would doubtless be inscribed among the great pianists of the 20^th century in the history of music, not to mention being the most famous Cuban composer in all the history of our music. Nobody could fault that truth."

His most active period as a concert performer was between 1915 and 1932 and he included the most representative of national and international music in his repertoire. Recordings have collected the evidence of his genius, and he was praised by Paderewski, Rubinstein, who stated on hearing him: "I don’t know what to admire more, the brilliant pianist or the sublime composer."

Leo Brouwer, one of Lecuona’s heirs, wrote: "Ernesto didn’t have to be taught," as the great maestro Cortot commented in Paris. A few years later he mysteriously retired, while the unforgettable themes that we have hummed appeared. Lecuona was always buried in the country when he was not on tour. He affirmed: ‘I don’t want to be the greatest pianist in the world, I am going to be the most known Cuban musician in the world,’ and he achieved that."

Ernesto Lecuona’s personality is very special, according to his biographer Orlando Martínez: "He was an artist with a tremendous magnetism, he loved Chinese art objects and had a room devoted to ornaments brought back from his travels abroad. He had a lacquer escritoire where he kept his valuable papers. He cut an attractive figure, with very expressive eyes; he was arrogant and ironic without pedantry and highly cultivated. He dressed simply, but with elegance.

He walked unhurriedly, smoked a lot but did not drink alcohol. He was reserved and possessed a rare ambience that made him more attractive. He was sympathetic, cultured and affectionate but never lavish in public, lived on his own, detested crowds, preferred intimate meetings; in these he was capable of writing music while he talked. He didn’t attend public events, not even concerts. He commanded respect, was sensitive to praise, felt a satisfaction in being able to reach the people. He could be impermeable to adverse criticism. He had a clear conception of his possibilities and knew how far he could go.

Lecuona is considered the most internationally known Cuban musician; as Gabriel García Márquez said: "One does not convince the world by chance." His music can be heard in the Bolshoi Ballet of Moscow, has been taken up by Nino Rota in the film Amarcord, can be found in the Beijing Palace or in the vicinity of the Great Wall, among the kings of Spain, in the Hollywood Bowl, the Brazilian Amazon, the airports of the world.

Lecuona’s range of style is extensive: comic opera and musicals, operas and operettas, revues, sketches, Spanish operetta, works for piano, waltzes, conga tango, son pieces, suites, street vendor cries, preludes, symphonic poems, habaneras, prayers, laments, Spanish dances, African-Cuban dances, couplets, congas, instrumental concerts, children’s pieces. "I have always created my music in the most abstract way, to suggest forms or evoke the characteristics of the customs of the peoples of a nation."

Some people relieve that the texts that he took are not the best of his songs. The poet whose verses he most used, was Gustavo Sánchez Galárraga, particularly in the first period. According to universal custom the constant theme of these songs is love. Galárraga died at 41 years of age, was a poet of bursts of genius, but wasted himself too much seeking easy success, although his poems are correctly constructed.