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Habanera (music)
Encyclopedia
The habanera is a genre of Cuba
n popular dance music of the 19th century. It is a creolized form which developed from the contradanza
. It has a characteristic "Habanera rhythm", and is performed with sung lyrics. It was the first dance music from Cuba to be exported all over the world.
The upbeat on the AND of 2 in the middle of the bar, is the power of the habanera, especially when it is in the bass. Thompson identifies the rhythm as the Kongo
mbilu a kakinu, or call to the dance.
Alternative vocalizations of the habanera are "BOOM...BA-BOP-BOP", or "Da, ka ka kan".
, which had arrived in Cuba (from France
via Haiti
) with refugees from the Haitian revolution
in 1791. The earliest identified "contradanza habanera" is La Pimienta, an anonymous song published in an 1836 collection. The main innovation from the contradanza was rhythmic, as the habanera incorporated the tresillo
into its structure.
Another novelty was that, unlike the contradanza, the habanera was sung as well as danced. The habanera is also slower and, as a dance, more graceful in style than the contradanza. The music, written in 2/4 time, features an introduction followed by two parts of 8 to 16 bars each.
In Cuba
, the habanera was supplanted by the danzón
from the 1870s onwards. Musically, the danzón has a different but related rhythm, the cinquillo
, and as a dance it is quite different. Also, the danzón was not sung for over forty years after its invention. In the twentieth century the habanera gradually became a relic form in Cuba, especially after success of the danzón and later the son
. However, some of its compositions were transcribed and reappeared in other formats later on. Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes
' habanera Tú is still a much-loved composition, showing that the charm of the habanera is not dead yet.
However, it should be fair and accurate to indicate that before the Habanera, the Candombe
, from the African slaves and their desendants was the main rhythmic experience in every place these Africans had been transplanted (such as Haiti, Cuba and Argentina). The phrase "Contradanza...which had arrived in Cuba (from France via Haiti" should be understood as the Contradanza being modified or infused with the Candombe
rhythm to then generate what will later called in Havana (Cuba), Habanera. Any explanation of the Habanera that does not, at the same time mention the influence of the Candombe
played by the African slaves and their descendants, is either incomplete or, erroneous! That same influence of the Candombe
will later play a major role in Argentina, as the Habanera finally made its way to Montevideo and Buenos Aires. The Afro people (or Black People) of Buenos Aires called "Tango" (meaning in Kicongo language : “ the place of gathering"), as Yale Professor, Robet Farris Thompson accurately explains in his book “ Tango, The Art History of Love ”, the place where they would gather to dance their Candombe
, now enriched with the adjoining of the Habanera. The Waltz and the Fox-trot will be infused as well. The place for the dancing will quickly bear the name of the dance-form hence developed and dance there...Tango!
In 1995 a modern Cuban artist recorded a complete disc in the habanera genre, when singer/songwriter Liuba Maria Hevia recorded some songs researched by musicologist Maria Teresa Linares. The artist, unhappy with the technical conditions at the time (Cuba was in the middle of the so-called Periodo Especial), re-recorded most of the songs on the 2005 CD Angel y su habanera. The original CD Habaneras en el tiempo (1995) sold poorly in Cuba, which underlines the fading interest in this kind of music there, contrasting with the vigorous popularity of the habanera in the Mediterranean coast of Spain.
by sailors, where it became popular for a while before the turn of the twentieth century. The Basque
composer Sebastian Yradier
was known for his habanera La Paloma
(The dove), which achieved great fame in Spain and America. The habanera was danced by all classes of society, and had its moment of glory in English and French salons. It was so well established as a Spanish dance that Jules Massenet
included one in the ballet music to his opera Le Cid (1885), to lend atmospheric color. The Habanera
from Bizet's Carmen
(1875) is a definitive example, though the piece is directly derived from one of Yradier's
compositions (the habanera El Arreglito). Maurice Ravel
wrote a Vocalise-Étude en forme de Habanera, as well as a habanera for Rapsodie espagnole
(movement III, originally a piano piece written in 1895), Camille Saint-Saëns
' Havanaise for violin and orchestra is still played and recorded today, as is Emmanuel Chabrier
's Habanera for orchestra (originally for piano).
In the south of Spain (Andalusia
), especially Cadiz
, Valencia
, and Alicante
, and in Catalonia
, the habanera is still popular, especially in the ports. The habaneras La Paloma, La bella Lola or El meu avi (My grandfather) are well known. From Spain, the habanera arrived in the Philippines, where it still exists as a minor art-form.
Elements of the habanera also influenced American jazz
via New Orleans musicians such as Jelly Roll Morton
, who used the phrase the Spanish Tinge
to describe the influence of such music in the U.S.
The Argentine milonga
makes use of the habanera rhythm of a dotted quarter note followed by three eighth notes, with an accent on the first and third notes.
In 1883 Ventura Lynch, a student of the dances and folklore of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, noted the popularity of the milonga: "The milonga is so universal in the environs of the city that it is an obligatory piece at all the lower-class dances (bailecitos de medio pelo), and it is now heard on guitars, on paper-combs, and from the itinerant musicians with their flutes, harps and violins. It has also been taken up by the organ-grinders, who have arranged it so as to sound like the habanera dance. It is danced in the low life clubs around...[main] markets, and also at the dances and wakes of cart-drivers, soldiery, compadres and compadritos'.
To some extent, the habanera rhythm is retained in early tangos, notably El Choclo and including "La morocha" (1904).
As the consistent rhythmic foundation of the bass line in Argentine Tango, the habanera lasted for a relatively short time. Gradually the variation noted by Roberts (see above) began to predominate.p124 Ornamented and distributed throughout the texture, it remains an essential part of the music.p2
Anibal Troilo's "La trampera" (Cheating Woman), written in 1962, uses the same habanera seen in Bizet's Carmen.
A habanera was written and published in Butte, Montanta in 1908. The song was titled Solita and was written by Jack Hangauer.
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
n popular dance music of the 19th century. It is a creolized form which developed from the contradanza
Contradanza
The Cuban contradanza was a popular dance music genre of the 19th century.- Origins and Early Development:...
. It has a characteristic "Habanera rhythm", and is performed with sung lyrics. It was the first dance music from Cuba to be exported all over the world.
The rhythm
The habanera is the simplest and most common of Latin rhythms constructed from multiples of a basic durational unit, and grouped unequally so that the accents fall irregularly in a one or two bar pattern.The upbeat on the AND of 2 in the middle of the bar, is the power of the habanera, especially when it is in the bass. Thompson identifies the rhythm as the Kongo
Kingdom of Kongo
The Kingdom of Kongo was an African kingdom located in west central Africa in what are now northern Angola, Cabinda, the Republic of the Congo, and the western portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo...
mbilu a kakinu, or call to the dance.
Alternative vocalizations of the habanera are "BOOM...BA-BOP-BOP", or "Da, ka ka kan".
Cuba
In the mid-19th century, the habanera developed from the contradanzaContradanza
The Cuban contradanza was a popular dance music genre of the 19th century.- Origins and Early Development:...
, which had arrived in Cuba (from France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
via Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
) with refugees from the Haitian revolution
Haïtian Revolution
The Haitian Revolution was a period of conflict in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which culminated in the elimination of slavery there and the founding of the Haitian republic...
in 1791. The earliest identified "contradanza habanera" is La Pimienta, an anonymous song published in an 1836 collection. The main innovation from the contradanza was rhythmic, as the habanera incorporated the tresillo
Tresillo
Tresillo is a letter of the Latin alphabet, based on the numeral 3. It was invented by Jesuit missionaries in the 16th century in order to represent the uvular ejective consonant found in Mayan languages....
into its structure.
Another novelty was that, unlike the contradanza, the habanera was sung as well as danced. The habanera is also slower and, as a dance, more graceful in style than the contradanza. The music, written in 2/4 time, features an introduction followed by two parts of 8 to 16 bars each.
In Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, the habanera was supplanted by the danzón
Danzón
Danzón is the official dance of Cuba. It is also an active musical form in Mexico and is still beloved in Puerto Rico where Verdeluz, a modern danzón by Puerto Rican composer Antonio Cabán Vale is considered the unofficial national anthem...
from the 1870s onwards. Musically, the danzón has a different but related rhythm, the cinquillo
Cinquillo
A cinquillo is a typical Cuban/Caribbean rhythmic cell, derived from the contradanza and the danzón. It consists of an eighth, a sixteenth, an eighth, a sixteenth, and an eighth note. Placing this rhythm in a 2/4 measure, it obtains a strongly syncopated character from the sustained note which...
, and as a dance it is quite different. Also, the danzón was not sung for over forty years after its invention. In the twentieth century the habanera gradually became a relic form in Cuba, especially after success of the danzón and later the son
Son (music)
The Son cubano is a style of music that originated in Cuba and gained worldwide popularity in the 1930s. Son combines the structure and elements of Spanish canción and the Spanish guitar with African rhythms and percussion instruments of Bantu and Arará origin...
. However, some of its compositions were transcribed and reappeared in other formats later on. Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes
Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes
Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes was a Cuban composer, and an author of books on the history of Cuban folk music.The outstanding habanera Tú, written when he was sixteen, was his best-known composition...
' habanera Tú is still a much-loved composition, showing that the charm of the habanera is not dead yet.
However, it should be fair and accurate to indicate that before the Habanera, the Candombe
Candombe
Candombe is a musical genre that has its roots in the African Bantu, and is proper of Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil .Uruguayan Candombe is the most practiced and spread internationally and has been recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity...
, from the African slaves and their desendants was the main rhythmic experience in every place these Africans had been transplanted (such as Haiti, Cuba and Argentina). The phrase "Contradanza...which had arrived in Cuba (from France via Haiti" should be understood as the Contradanza being modified or infused with the Candombe
Candombe
Candombe is a musical genre that has its roots in the African Bantu, and is proper of Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil .Uruguayan Candombe is the most practiced and spread internationally and has been recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity...
rhythm to then generate what will later called in Havana (Cuba), Habanera. Any explanation of the Habanera that does not, at the same time mention the influence of the Candombe
Candombe
Candombe is a musical genre that has its roots in the African Bantu, and is proper of Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil .Uruguayan Candombe is the most practiced and spread internationally and has been recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity...
played by the African slaves and their descendants, is either incomplete or, erroneous! That same influence of the Candombe
Candombe
Candombe is a musical genre that has its roots in the African Bantu, and is proper of Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil .Uruguayan Candombe is the most practiced and spread internationally and has been recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity...
will later play a major role in Argentina, as the Habanera finally made its way to Montevideo and Buenos Aires. The Afro people (or Black People) of Buenos Aires called "Tango" (meaning in Kicongo language : “ the place of gathering"), as Yale Professor, Robet Farris Thompson accurately explains in his book “ Tango, The Art History of Love ”, the place where they would gather to dance their Candombe
Candombe
Candombe is a musical genre that has its roots in the African Bantu, and is proper of Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil .Uruguayan Candombe is the most practiced and spread internationally and has been recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity...
, now enriched with the adjoining of the Habanera. The Waltz and the Fox-trot will be infused as well. The place for the dancing will quickly bear the name of the dance-form hence developed and dance there...Tango!
In 1995 a modern Cuban artist recorded a complete disc in the habanera genre, when singer/songwriter Liuba Maria Hevia recorded some songs researched by musicologist Maria Teresa Linares. The artist, unhappy with the technical conditions at the time (Cuba was in the middle of the so-called Periodo Especial), re-recorded most of the songs on the 2005 CD Angel y su habanera. The original CD Habaneras en el tiempo (1995) sold poorly in Cuba, which underlines the fading interest in this kind of music there, contrasting with the vigorous popularity of the habanera in the Mediterranean coast of Spain.
Spain and other countries
It is thought that the habanera was brought back to SpainSpain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
by sailors, where it became popular for a while before the turn of the twentieth century. The Basque
Basque people
The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...
composer Sebastian Yradier
Sebastián Iradier
Sebastián Iradier Salaverri , a.k.a. Sebastián Yradier, was a Spanish Basque composer.Iradier was born in Lanciego, in the province of Álava. His publisher in Paris urged him to "universalize" his name, from Iradier to Yradier...
was known for his habanera La Paloma
La Paloma
This article is about the song. For the American city, see La Paloma, Texas."La Paloma" is a popular song, having been produced and reinterpreted in diverse cultures, settings, arrangements, and recordings over the last 140 years. The song was composed and written by Spanish composer Sebastián...
(The dove), which achieved great fame in Spain and America. The habanera was danced by all classes of society, and had its moment of glory in English and French salons. It was so well established as a Spanish dance that Jules Massenet
Jules Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...
included one in the ballet music to his opera Le Cid (1885), to lend atmospheric color. The Habanera
Habanera (aria)
In the form of habanera, there is a famous aria from the opera Carmen by Georges Bizet. It is sometimes referred to as "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle." . Its score was adapted from the habanera "El Arreglito," originally composed by the Spanish musician Sebastián Yradier...
from Bizet's Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
(1875) is a definitive example, though the piece is directly derived from one of Yradier's
Sebastián Iradier
Sebastián Iradier Salaverri , a.k.a. Sebastián Yradier, was a Spanish Basque composer.Iradier was born in Lanciego, in the province of Álava. His publisher in Paris urged him to "universalize" his name, from Iradier to Yradier...
compositions (the habanera El Arreglito). Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
wrote a Vocalise-Étude en forme de Habanera, as well as a habanera for Rapsodie espagnole
Rapsodie espagnole
Rapsodie espagnole is an orchestral rhapsody written by Maurice Ravel. Composed between 1907 and 1908, the Rapsodie represents one of Ravel's first major works for orchestra....
(movement III, originally a piano piece written in 1895), Camille Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
' Havanaise for violin and orchestra is still played and recorded today, as is Emmanuel Chabrier
Emmanuel Chabrier
Emmanuel Chabrier was a French Romantic composer and pianist. Although known primarily for two of his orchestral works, España and Joyeuse marche, he left an important corpus of operas , songs, and piano music as well...
's Habanera for orchestra (originally for piano).
In the south of Spain (Andalusia
Andalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
), especially Cadiz
Cádiz
Cadiz is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the homonymous province, one of eight which make up the autonomous community of Andalusia....
, Valencia
Valencian Community
The Valencian Community is an autonomous community of Spain located in central and south-eastern Iberian Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Valencia...
, and Alicante
Alicante
Alicante or Alacant is a city in Spain, the capital of the province of Alicante and of the comarca of Alacantí, in the south of the Valencian Community. It is also a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city of Alicante proper was 334,418, estimated , ranking as the second-largest...
, and in Catalonia
Music of Catalonia
The music of Catalonia comprises one of the oldest documented musical traditions in Europe, and has displayed a rich musical culture continuously for at least two thousand years.-History:...
, the habanera is still popular, especially in the ports. The habaneras La Paloma, La bella Lola or El meu avi (My grandfather) are well known. From Spain, the habanera arrived in the Philippines, where it still exists as a minor art-form.
Elements of the habanera also influenced American jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
via New Orleans musicians such as Jelly Roll Morton
Jelly Roll Morton
Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe , known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and early jazz pianist, bandleader and composer....
, who used the phrase the Spanish Tinge
Spanish Tinge
The phrase Spanish Tinge is a reference to the belief that a Latin American touch offers a reliable method of spicing the more conventional 4/4 rhythms commonly used in jazz and pop music. The phrase is a quotation from Jelly Roll Morton...
to describe the influence of such music in the U.S.
Milonga
Milonga can refer to an Argentine, Uruguayan, and Southern Brazilian form of music which preceded the tango and the dance form which accompanies it, or to the term for places or events where the tango or Milonga are danced...
makes use of the habanera rhythm of a dotted quarter note followed by three eighth notes, with an accent on the first and third notes.
In 1883 Ventura Lynch, a student of the dances and folklore of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, noted the popularity of the milonga: "The milonga is so universal in the environs of the city that it is an obligatory piece at all the lower-class dances (bailecitos de medio pelo), and it is now heard on guitars, on paper-combs, and from the itinerant musicians with their flutes, harps and violins. It has also been taken up by the organ-grinders, who have arranged it so as to sound like the habanera dance. It is danced in the low life clubs around...[main] markets, and also at the dances and wakes of cart-drivers, soldiery, compadres and compadritos'.
To some extent, the habanera rhythm is retained in early tangos, notably El Choclo and including "La morocha" (1904).
As the consistent rhythmic foundation of the bass line in Argentine Tango, the habanera lasted for a relatively short time. Gradually the variation noted by Roberts (see above) began to predominate.p124 Ornamented and distributed throughout the texture, it remains an essential part of the music.p2
Anibal Troilo's "La trampera" (Cheating Woman), written in 1962, uses the same habanera seen in Bizet's Carmen.
A habanera was written and published in Butte, Montanta in 1908. The song was titled Solita and was written by Jack Hangauer.
Sound Files
- Legran Orchestra La Comisión de San Roque Habanera Mp3· ISWC: T-042192386-5 2007. Published with the permission of the owner of rights
Popular Adaptations
- The b-side to Kate Nash'sKate NashKate Marie Nash is an English singer, songwriter, and musician. She had a UK no. 2 hit "Foundations" in 2007, followed by the platinum selling UK number 1 album Made of Bricks. She was named Best Female Artist at the 2008 BRIT Awards....
2007 single FoundationsFoundations (song)-Chart performance:...
, was entitled 'Habanera'. - Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three MusketeersMickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three MusketeersMickey · Donald · Goofy: The Three Musketeers is a direct-to-video animated film adaptation of the novel The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, père. As the title suggests, it features Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy as the three musketeers...
features the song "Chains of Love" which is set to the tune of Habanera. - Paradiso GirlsParadiso GirlsThe Paradiso Girls were a girl group and the brainchild of Jimmy Iovine, an attempt to create a European spin–off of Iovine's other girl group The Pussycat Dolls. After forming in 2007, the group consisted of seven members but by 2008 this had dropped to five...
' song "Who's My Bitch" samples a recording of this song. - La PalomaLa PalomaThis article is about the song. For the American city, see La Paloma, Texas."La Paloma" is a popular song, having been produced and reinterpreted in diverse cultures, settings, arrangements, and recordings over the last 140 years. The song was composed and written by Spanish composer Sebastián...