Habanera

The habanera is a genre of Cuban 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 rhythm

The basic habanera rhythm (Orovio 1981:237)

The habanera is the simpliest 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.^[1]

The basic habanera rhythm (Roberts: 1998:50)

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.^[2] Thompson identifies the rhythm as the Kongo mbilu a kakinu, or call to the dance.^[2][3]

Alernative vocalizations of the habanera are "BOOM...BA-BOP-BOP",^[2] or "Da, ka ka kan".^[3]

History

Cuba

In the mid-19th century, the habanera developed from the contradanza,^[4] 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.^[5]

Another novelty was that, unlike the contradanza, the habanera was sung as well as danced.^[6] 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.^[7]

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.^[8]

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, 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.^[9] From Spain, the habanera arrived in the Philippines, where it still exists as a minor art-form.^[10]

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.^[11]

Habanera Carmen (the structure of the pieces always follow the same rhythm)

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.^[12]

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''.^[13]

To some extent, the habanera rhythm is retained in early tangos, notably El Choclo ^[12] and including "La morocha" (1904).^[14] 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.^[15]p124 Ornamented and distributed throughout the texture, it remains an essential part of the music.^[15]p2 Anibal Troilo's "La trampera" (Cheating Woman), written in 1962, uses the same habanera seen in Bizet's Carmen.^[16][3]

A habanera was written and published in Butte, Montanta in 1908. The song was titled Solita and was written by Jack Hangauer.^[17]

Sound Files

	Yo cuando era niño - mi padre querido - José Suarez
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

• 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's 2007 single Foundations, was entitled 'Habanera'.

See also

Cuba portal

• Contradanza
• Danzón
• Guaracha

Notes

References

• Baim, Jo. 2007. Tango: creation of a cultural icon. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-34885-2
• Orovio, Helio. 1981. Diccionario de la Música Cubana. La Habana, Editorial Letras Cubanas. ISBN 959-10-0048-0
• "3-Habanera and danzón" (Cuban Music Website)