Sensemayá

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Sensemayá is a poem by the Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén, adapted as an orchestral work by the Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas. It is one of Revueltas's most famous compositions.

Music sample:

Sensemayá (full-scale orchestral setting) (1937) (file info) — play in browser (beta)
- Sample from Sensemayá, by Silvestre Revuelts. From the album 'Mexican Fireworks / Música Mexicana de Concierto'.
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Gullén's poem evokes a ritual Afro-Caribbean chant performed while killing a snake.

Revueltas first set the poem to music in Mexico City in 1937, originally setting it for chorus and a small orchestra.^{[verification needed]} In 1938, he expanded it into a full-scale orchestral setting for 27 wind instruments, fourteen percussion instruments and strings. It was well-received and was compared by one writer^{[verification needed]} to Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring for its lush and dense rhythms. As one reviewer describes it:

“

The work begins with a slow trill in the bass clarinet as the percussion plays the sinuous, syncopated rhythm that drives the work. Soon a solo bassoon enters playing an eerie but rhythmic ostinato bassline. The tuba then enters playing the first of this work's two major themes, a muscular, ominous motif. Other brass join in to play the theme, growing louder and more emphatic, but rigorously yoked to the underlying rhythm. Eventually the horns blast as loudly as they can, with obsessive trills on the low clarinets far underneath, and the strings enter with the slashing second theme. The brass take up this new theme and bring it to a climax, after which the music returns to its opening texture. This recapitulation brings with it a mood of foreboding. The rhythm becomes even more obsessive, and finally the music reaches a massive climax during which both themes are played, overlapping, sometimes in part and sometimes in whole, by the entire orchestra in what sounds like a musical riot. The coda feels like the final dropping of a knife. [1]

”

The piece has gained new popularity in recent years as Revueltas's work has been "rediscovered." Notably, Sensemayá was used in Robert Rodríguez' film Sin City as the film's only orchestral track, and the director/composer describes it as having been a major influence on the rest of the film score.

[edit] Sources

Charles K. Hoag. 1987. "Sensemayá: A Chant for Killing a Snake." Latin American Music Review / Revista de Música Latinoamericana 8, no. 2 (Autumn): 172–84.
Otto Mayer-Serra. 1941. "Silvestre Revueltas and Musical Nationalism in Mexico." Musical Quarterly 27: 123–45.
Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon. 1998. "The Song of the Snake: Silvestre Revueltas' Sensemayá." Latin American Music Review / Revista de Música Latinoamericana 19, no. 2 (Autumn): 133–59.