Heraclio Fernández
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| Heraclio Fernández | |
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| Born | 1851 Maracaibo, Venezuela |
| Died | 1886 La Guaira, Venezuela |
Heraclio Fernández Noya (1851–1886) was born in Maracaibo but from a very young age he resided in La Guaira with his father Manuel Maria Fernández, from whom he received his first piano lessons. His father taught piano classes in his native city and in La Guaira. In Caracas he founded the newspaper El Zancudo, a weekly magazine whose first number circulated on January 9, 1876. On October 10, 1884 the bi-weekly magazine El Museo started publication; in each issue it published a piece of music of some composer of the day as well as musical literary works of a satirical-humoristic type, that Fernández signed with the name of El Zancudo in that magazine. On Saint Joseph's day (March 19), 1888, El Diablo Suelto was published. This was a waltz-joropo composed by Heraclio Fernández; its score was located and published by Alirio Diaz and later by Jose Peñín, editor and director of the Dictionary of Spanish and Hispano-American Music and the Encyclopedia of Music in Venezuela.
The only exemplar of his work “New method to learn to accompany the piano” is kept in the National Library, and in other printed materials of his, he gives advice and opinions on interpretation and character and on how piano playing at the end of the 19th century was executed. Pieces like “Misa a dos voces”, the waltzes “Ecos del corazón”, “Las variaciones sobre el araguato”, “Happy New Year”, “Al General Francisco Alcántara” and the dances “La juguetona”, “Violetas sensitivas”, “No me olvides” y “Recuerdos del teatro Naar” constitute part of the richest music of Venezuela. Nowadays these pieces are heard around the world.
Fernández died in La Guaira.
