José de la Cruz Mena

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José de la Cruz Mena (born May 3, 1874 in León , Nicaragua , † September 22, 1907 ibid) was a Nicaraguan composer , musician and orchestra director.

overview

Born into a musical family, he is considered the Nicaraguan composer of classical music who most strongly influenced the Viennese composers, especially Johann Strauss (son) . Mena added his own personal touch and thus shaped the musical life of Nicaragua in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially in his native city of León, which was then considered the center of culture and education in Nicaragua. Because of his illness, he is also known today as "the divine leper ".

biography

José de la Cruz Mena was born on May 3, 1874 in León , Nicaragua . His father Don Yanuario Mena was also a musician. His mother was Doña Celedonia Ruíz. He learned to play the horn from his father as a child . His siblings were all musicians too. In his early musical education he was supported by his older brother Jesús Isidoro. In 1888 Mena moved to Managua , where he received his further musical education from the Belgian maestro Alejandro Cousin, who directed the Escuela Nacional de Música de Nicaragua. He then went to Honduras , where he played with the Banda Nacional de Honduras under the direction of Don Adalid Gamero. Here he learned to play the baritone horn and composed the piece "El Nacatamal" , among other things . He later went to San Salvador and became a member of the Banda de los Supremos Poderes under the direction of the German maestro Heinrich Drews.

illness

During his stay in San Salvador, he was diagnosed with leprosy in 1895 and was nursed in a hospital. Out of gratitude, he gave the sister in charge three Ave Maria , which he had composed there. These compositions were later brought to Spain and performed there. He decided to return to Nicaragua. At that time, all Nicaraguan lepers were forcibly relocated to the island of Aserradores , near Corinto , in order to prevent the risk of infection. President General José Santos Zelaya , who held Mena in high regard, made an exception to this rule and decided to remove his name from the list of lepers and to grant him a small pension as if Mena had been a sergeant in the army. Mena was also allowed to retreat to a small hut on the banks of the Río Chiquito in León. At the age of 22 he became completely blind; he had to give up making music, as his limbs gradually fell apart. He couldn't write either. His friends visited him; so he could now only “dictate” his compositions to them by whistling the melody for them and setting the beat with light strokes on an old piece of railroad track that hung from the ceiling of his hut over his hammock. Friends who visited him included Jerónimo Castellón, Bernardino Turcios, Rubén Galiano, Pantaleón Vanegas and Daniel Cuadra. The Fondo Histórico Documental de la Música Nicaragüense received some of the original manuscripts from them.

price

At the first flower plays ("Jocs Florals" or poets' contest) in September 1904 at the Teatro Municipal de León, when his waltz "Ruinas" was premiered in the piano version for piano solo by Doña Margarita Alonso, he won first prize. The judges were Don Marcelo Soto, Don Pablo Vega y Raudes and Don Isaías Ulloa. Despite the cheering audience calling out to him with “Viva Mena!” (“Long live Mena!”), He was not allowed to enter the theater as a leper. A commission asked him, who had been listening outside, to accept the award in person, which he managed without any contact with the public. Three years later he died of his illness on September 22nd. His remains were in the Guadalupe Cemetery in León, but were reburied in the Catedral Metropolitana de León in 2007 on the centenary of his death. Some of his original manuscripts are kept in the Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua y Centroamérica.

Works

Mena composed about 26 waltzes. His best known are "Ruinas", "Amores de Abraham", "Tus Ojos", "Bella Margarita" and "Rosalía" . Much of his manuscripts were burned due to a misunderstood risk of infection. However, it is known that he composed over 30 folk songs, as well as sacred music , including three Te Deums , eight Ave Marias , two masses , four Requiem , twenty Christmas carols ( Villancicos ), and six funeral marches such as B. "La Tumba del Redentor" .

literature

  • Dr. Edgardo Buitrago: "Vida y Obra de José de la Cruz Mena" , Boletín nicaragüense de bibliografía y documentación, xlviii [Managua, 1982], 103-18.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.goruma.de/Staedte/L/Leon/bekannte_lösungen.html
personal data
SURNAME Cruz Mena, José de la
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Nicaraguan composer, musician and orchestra director
DATE OF BIRTH May 3, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Leon , Nicaragua
DATE OF DEATH September 22, 1907
Place of death Leon , Nicaragua