A prodigy from an early age and a self-taught talent, Antonio Mar\u00eda Romeu masterfully defined a professional career in which more than 500 compositions were coined, celebrated in the traditions of Cuba\u2019s musical genealogy and of an era in general.<\/p>\n
He learned the musical craft with Joaqu\u00edn Mariano Mart\u00ednez in 1884. At the age of 12, he composed his first work and performed his first dance. In 1899, he moved to Havana and performed in several caf\u00e9s. During this time, he played in the Orquesta Cervantes, famous for incorporating the piano into Cuban popular music, gaining decisive experience in performing the so-called French charangas, which achieved a higher pitch by replacing the clarinet with the flute, removing the brass instruments, and adding the timbales.<\/p>\n
Researcher Rosa Marquetti points out that: \u201cThere is almost consensus among scholars that Antonio Mar\u00eda was the founder of the French-style charanga orchestra, which preceded the charanga we know today. He was, without a doubt, an innovator, and the danz\u00f3n owes much of its evolution and endurance to him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Around 1904, he joined Tata Alfonso\u2019s charanga, and in 1910 formed his own orchestra, which included musicians such as Feliciano Facenda, Rafael Calaz\u00e1n, Alfredo Vald\u00e9s Brito, F\u00e9lix V\u00e1zquez, and Remigio Vald\u00e9s. With this group, he made numerous recordings and gained the deserved popularity for his talent and musical ingenuity.<\/p>\n
Romeu was also part of the Sociedad Solidaria Musical de La Habana (1922). In the 1920s, he rewrote segments of the danzonero Fiesta Negra<\/em><\/strong> from Los Tres peque\u00f1os poemas<\/em><\/strong>, and in 1929, he brought in Fernando Collazo and later Enrique Garc\u00eda as singers in the orchestral format with the piece Rompiendo la rutina<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Around 1933, he was one of the organizers of the Uni\u00f3n Sindical de M\u00fasica de Cuba. During those years, Radio Progreso hired him for several seasons, and he became one of the solo pianists in La Hora \u00cdntima<\/em><\/strong>, a program in which he stood out, leading to him being called El mago de las teclas.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n In 1937, Barbarito Diez joined Romeu\u2019s orchestra as one of the singers, and in April 1939, the film Estampas habaneras<\/em><\/strong> premiered, in which Antonio Mar\u00eda performed Tres lindas cubanas<\/em><\/strong>, his most famous piece, where for the first time, he performed a piano solo in a danz\u00f3n.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, above all, the composition of his that has become most universal is the danz\u00f3n Tres lindas cubanas<\/em><\/strong>, based on an old son, premiered in 1926. It gave birth to a unique style in the interpretation of the danz\u00f3n, shaping the subsequent trajectory of this genre,\u201d confirms Helio Orovio in the Diccionario de la m\u00fasica cubana<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n As researcher and musicologist Crist\u00f3bal D\u00edaz Ayala states: \u201cFrom 1930 onwards, Romeu brought another innovation: he began to use singers, and apparently experimented with various ones: Rogelio and Ca\u00edto (from Sonora Matancera), [Antonio] Mach\u00edn and Daniel, Siro and Miguel (from Tr\u00edo Matamoros), and also solo performances sometimes by [Fernando] Collazo and [Vicente Gonz\u00e1lez Rubiera] Guy\u00fan.\u201d<\/p>\n Throughout his extensive career as a composer, Romeu is also recognized for his excellence in writing pieces for flute in the genre of danz\u00f3n.<\/p>\n Zenaida Romeu details other contributions: \u201cHe was the one who first introduced piano improvisations in popular music. Before him, musical groups played with clarinets, coming from historical bands with traditions from Spain, and improvisations were made with wind and woodwind instruments; however, he suddenly added a violin and a piano to a charanga. He was the first to introduce them into Cuban music. That\u2019s why he is known as El Mago de las Teclas.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n With his unique gifts and the quality of his interpretation and composition, Romeu set a more than deserving precedent through which, among so many stellar figures in Cuban music, he continues to shine with his own light.<\/p>\n Translated by Luis E. Amador Dominguez<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A prodigy from an early age and a self-taught talent, Antonio Mar\u00eda Romeu masterfully defined a professional career in which more than 500 compositions were coined, celebrated in the traditions of Cuba\u2019s musical genealogy and of an era in general.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3706,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[856],"ppma_author":[14],"class_list":["post-3703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-cuba","tag-antonio-maria-romeu"],"authors":[{"term_id":14,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"lazaro-hernandez-rey","display_name":"L\u00e1zaro Hern\u00e1ndez Rey","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3703"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3705,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3703\/revisions\/3705"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3703"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioenciclopedia.cu\/cultural-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=3703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}