Gisela Hernández

Synopsis

Today’s date in 1912 marked the birthday of Cuban composer, choral director, and educator Gisela Hernández.

She began her musical studies at the Santa Cecilia School in her hometown of Cárdenas, and in 1924 moved to Havana, where she finished her studies four years later at the National Conservatory. She won Cuba’s National Composition Award in 1940, and in 1944 continued her studies in the United States at the Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore. Returning to Cuba, she began to compose her own works, pursued a career at various educational institutions, and organized and promoted concerts of Cuban music. In 1949, she formed and directed a Women’s Choir and was named professor of harmony, music history, pedagogy and composition at the National Music Conservatory in Havana. She was also a member of the nationalistic Grupo Minorista of composers who incorporated Afro-Cuban traditions into their music.

Hernández wrote pieces for solo piano and chamber music, as well as choral and orchestral works. She is also credited with being one of the first, and most important composers of Cuban art songs. She died in 1971 at 59, and her music is only recently becoming better known outside of Cuba.

Music Played in Today's Program

Gisela Hernández (1912-1971): Cubanas for Piano: No. 3, Guajira; Juana Zayas, piano; Music & Arts MACD-1069

On This Day

Births

• 1863 - American composer and teacher, Horatio William Parker, in Auburndale, Massachusetts. He became chairman of the Yale music department in 1894, where he taught the young Charles Ives.

• 1890 - Swiss composer Frank Martin, in Geneva

• 1913 - American composer Henry Brant, in Montréal, Canada

Deaths

• 1945 - Austrian composer Anton von Webern, 61, accidentally shot by an American soldier in Mittersill, Austria

Premieres

• 1946 - Cowell: Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 5 (string orchestra arrangement), at the Saratoga Springs Convention Hall, by the Spa Music Festival Orchestra, F. Charles Adler conducting. This music was originally written for five voices, and in that form was premiered on April 14, 1946, at Times Hall in New York by the Randolph Singers directed by David Randolph.

• 1946 - Ives: String Quartet No. 2, at the Yaddo Music Festival in Saratoga, New York, by the Walden Quartet (This music was completed in 1913)

• 2000 - Sallinen: opera King Lear, by the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki