Habanera (music)

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Music of Cuba: Topics
Batá and yuka	Chachachá
Changui	Charanga
Conga	Danzón
Descarga	Guajira
Guaracha	Habanera
Jazz	Hip hop
Mambo	Música campesina
Nueva trova	Pilón
Rock	Rumba
Salsa cubana	Son
Son montuno	Timba
History (Timeline and Samples)
Awards	Beny Moré Award
Festivals	Cuba Danzon, Percuba
National anthem	"La Bayamesa"
Caribbean music
Bahamas - Bermuda - Cayman Islands - Cuba - Dominican Republic - Haiti - Jamaica - Lesser Antilles - Puerto Rico - Turks and Caicos Islands

The habanera is a musical style or genre from Cuba with a characteristic "Habanera rhythm"; it is one of the oldest mainstays of Cuban music and the first of the dances from Cuba to be exported all over the world.

In the mid-19th century, the habanera developed out of the contradanza which had arrived 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 Spanish and African influences into its repertoire.

It is believed that the habanera was brought back to Spain by sailors, where it became very popular for a while before the turn of the twentieth century. Spanish composer Sebastian Yradier was known especially for his habanera "La Paloma", which achieved great fame in Spain and America and was largely responsible for the habanera's success to come. The habanera was danced by all classes of society, and had its moment of glory in English and French "salons" (ballrooms). The habanera 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. Of French habaneras meant to give "Spanish" color, the "Habanera" from Bizet's Carmen (1875) is the definitive example to the average listener, 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", and Camille Saint-Saens' "Havanaise" for violin and orchestra is still played and recorded today.

Popular knowledge has it that the habanera married the tango flamenco and exiled itself in Argentina, where it eventually became the tango.

Back in Cuba the habanera developed into the danzón with the formation of charangas and the further inclusion of African elements. In the 1930s, habanera performer Arcaño y sus Maravillos incorporated influences from conga and added a montuno (as in son), paving the way for the mixing of Latin musical forms, including guaracha, also played by a charanga orchestra. Guaracha (sometimes simply called charanga) also drew from Haitian musical forms, has been extremely popular and continues to entertain Cuban audiences.

In Catalonia the habaneras have become specially popular in the sailor zones. The habanera El meu avi (My grandfather) is known by nearly the entire population.