Weekend Economists Split for Havana February 6-8, 2015

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17. THE HABANERA--MUSIC AND DANCE

The habanera is the name used outside of Cuba for the Cuban contradanza, a genre of popular dance music of the 19th century. It is a creolized form which developed from the French contradanza. It has a characteristic "habanera rhythm", and is performed with sung lyrics. It was the first written music to be rhythmically based on an African motif, and the first dance music from Cuba to be exported all over the world.

In Cuba itself, the term "habanera" . . . was only adopted subsequent to its international popularization, coming in the latter 1800s—Manuel (2009: 97).

Carpentier states that the Cuban contradanza was never called the habanera by the people who created it. The first documented Cuban contradanza, and the first known piece of written music to feature the habanera rhythm was "San pascual bailón" (1803).



Basic habanera rhythm.

History--Cuba

In the mid-19th century, the habanera developed from the French contradanza, which had arrived in Cuba from fleeing Haitian 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 French contradanza was rhythmic, as the habanera incorporated the tresillo into its structure.

Another novelty was that, unlike the older contradanza, the habanera was sung as well as danced. The habanera is also slower and, as a dance, more graceful in style than the older contradanza.

The New Orleans born pianist/composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869) wrote several pieces with the habanera rhythm, gleaned in part from his travels through Cuba and the West Indies: "Danza" (1857), "La Gallina, Danse Cubaine" (1859), "Ojos Criollos" (1859), and "Souvenir de Porto Rico" (1857), among others.

In Cuba, the habanera was supplanted by the danzón from the 1870s onwards. Musically, the danzón has a different but related rhythm, the baqueteo, 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.

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 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). Bernard Herrmann's score for Vertigo (1958) makes prominent use of the habanera rhythm as a clue to the film's mystery.

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.

The Argentine milonga and tango 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. Ornamented and distributed throughout the texture, it remains an essential part of the music. Anibal Troilo's "La trampera" (Cheating Woman), written in 1962, uses the same habanera seen in Bizet's Carmen.

African American music began incorporating Cuban musical motifs in the 1800s with the popularity of the habanera. Musicians from Havana and New Orleans would take the twice-daily ferry between both cities to perform and not surprisingly, the habanera quickly took root in the musically fertile Crescent City. Whether the habanera rhythm and variants such as tresillo were directly transplanted from Cuba, or if the habanera merely reinforced habanera-like "rhythmic tendencies" already present in New Orleans music is probably impossible to determine. There are examples of habanera-like rhythms in a few African American folk musics such as the foot stomping patterns in ring shout and the post-Civil War drum and fife music. The habanera rhythm is also heard prominently in New Orleans second line music.

John Storm Roberts states that the musical genre habanera, "reached the U.S. 20 years before the first rag was published." Scott Joplin's "Solace" (1909) is considered a habanera (though it's labeled a "Mexican serenade&quot .

For the more than quarter-century in which the cakewalk, ragtime, and proto-jazz were forming and developing, the habanera was a consistent part of African American popular music. Early New Orleans jazz bands had habaneras in their repertoire and the tresillo/habanera figure was a rhythmic staple of jazz at the turn of the 20th century. "St. Louis Blues" (1914) by W.C. Handy has a habanera/tresillo bass line. Handy noted a reaction to the habanera rhythm included in Will H. Tyler's "Maori": "I observed that there was a sudden, proud and graceful reaction to the rhythm...White dancers, as I had observed them, took the number in stride. I began to suspect that there was something Negroid in that beat." After noting a similar reaction to the same rhythm in "La Paloma", Handy included this rhythm in his "St. Louis Blues," the instrumental copy of "Memphis Blues," the chorus of "Beale Street Blues," and other compositions."

Jelly Roll Morton considered the tresillo/habanera (which he called the Spanish tinge) to be an essential ingredient of jazz. The habanera rhythm can be heard in his left hand on songs like "The Crave" (1910, recorded 1938).

Although the exact origins of jazz syncopation may never be known, there’s evidence that the habanera/tresillo was there at its conception. Buddy Bolden, the first known jazz musician, is credited with creating the big four, a habanera-based pattern. The big four (below) was the first syncopated bass drum pattern to deviate from the standard on-the-beat march. As the example below shows, the second half of the big four pattern is the habanera rhythm.


A habanera was written and published in Butte, Montanta in 1908. The song was titled "Solita" and was written by Jack Hangauer.