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Manuel Mara Ponce Cullar (8 December 1882 24 April 1948) was a Mexican composer

active in the 20th century. His work as a composer, music educator and scholar of Mexican
music connected the concert scene with a usually forgotten tradition of popular song and
Mexican folklore. Many of his compositions are strongly influenced by the harmonies and
form of traditional songs.

Contents
1 Biography
o 1.1 Early years
o 1.2 Traveling years
o 1.3 Years at the National Conservatory
o 1.4 Recordings by Ponce
2 Music
o 2.1 Guitar music
o 2.2 Piano works
o 2.3 Songs
2.3.1 Folk song arrangements
o 2.4 Chamber music
o 2.5 Orchestral works
2.5.1 Concertos
o 2.6 Notes about the works
3 Media
4 References
5 Sources
6 External links

Biography
Early years

Born in Fresnillo, Zacatecas, Manuel Maria Ponce moved with his family to the city of
Aguascalientes only a few weeks after his birth and lived there until he was 15 years old.

He was famous for being a musical prodigy; according to his biographers, he was barely four
years of age when, after having listened to the piano classes received by his sister, Josefina,
he sat in front of the instrument and interpreted one of the pieces that he had heard.
Immediately, his parents had him receive classes in piano and musical notation.[citation needed]

Traveling years

In 1901 Ponce entered the National Conservatory of Music, already with a certain prestige as
a pianist and composer. There he remained until 1903, the year in which he returned to the
city of Aguascalientes. This was only the beginning of his travels. In 1904 he traveled to Italy
for advanced musical studies at the School of Bologna.

He studied in Germany as a pupil of Martin Krause at the Stern conservatory in Berlin


between 1906 and 1908.
Years at the National Conservatory

After his years abroad, Ponce returned to Mexico to teach piano and music history at the
National Conservatory of Music from 1909 to 1915 and from 1917 to 1922. He spent the
intervening years of 1915 to 1917 in Havana, Cuba.

In 1912 he composed his most famous work "Estrellita" (little star), which is not a normal
love song, as is usually thought, but "Nostalgia Viva" (live nostalgia).[clarification needed]

That same year, Ponce gave in the "Arbeau Theater" a memorable concert of Mexican
popular music which, though it scandalized ardent defenders of European classical music,
became a landmark in the history of the national song.

Heitor Villa-Lobos (18871959), who met Ponce in Paris in the 1920s, wrote

I remember that I asked him at that time if the composers of his country were as yet taking an
interest in native music, as I had been doing since 1912, and he answered that he himself had
been working in that direction. It gave me great joy to learn that in that distant part of my
continent there was another artist who was arming himself with the resources of the folklore
of his people in the struggle for the future musical independence of his country.[1]

With valuable activity promoting music of the country and writing melodas like "Estrellita",
"A la orilla de un palmar", "Alevntate", "La Pajarera", "Marchita el Alma" and "Una
Multitud Ms", Ponce gained the honorific title Creator of the Modern Mexican Song. He
was also the first Mexican composer to project popular music onto the world stage:
"Estrellita", for example, has been part of the repertoire of the main orchestras of the world
and countless singers, although quite often the interpreter ignores the origin of the song as
well as its author.

In 1947 he received the National Science and Arts Prize.

He was married to Clementina Maurel, next to whom he died in Mexico City. His body was
buried in the Roundhouse of the Illustrious Men in the Pantheon of Dolores in Mexico City.
In his honor there is a board of recognition by the state of Aguascalientes at the base of the
column of The Exedra, next to the fountain from a spring dedicated to this musical poet, in
the city of Aguascalientes where he grew up and first studied music.

Recordings by Ponce

Ponce participated in the following recordings:

Manuel Mara Ponce: Concierto para piano y orquesta (Ponce on piano; Orquesta
Sinfnica de Mxico; conducted by Carlos Chvez) (Radio Mil, 1942) [2][3]

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Ponce recorded the following works on Duo-Art piano rolls between 1916 and 1920:[4][not in
citation given][5]

5789 Ponce - Mexican Barcarolle


5807 Ponce - Cuban Serenade
5924 Ponce - Mexican Serenade
5930 Ponce - Moonlight
5937 Ponce - Sono mi Mente-Loca (Cuban Song)
6294 Ponce - Quando vene la Primavera (When Spring Comes)

Music
Ponce wrote music for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, and orchestra. His piano and
guitar works outnumber those dedicated to other solo instruments within the set of pieces we
know. Estrellita is Ponce's best known work.

Guitar music

Ponce's guitar music is a core part of the instrument's repertory, the best-known works being
Variations and Fugue on 'La Folia' (1929) and Sonatina meridional (1939). He also wrote a
guitar concerto Concierto del sur, which is dedicated to his long-time friend and guitar
virtuoso Andrs Segovia. His last known work dedicated to Father Antonio Brambila,
Variations on a Theme of Cabezn, was written in 1948, a few months before his death. It is
unclear whether the variations are indeed based upon a theme by Antonio de Cabezn or if
the theme was the work of Ponce's teacher, the organist Enrico Bossi. The following is only a
select number of his most 'significant' contributions.

Canciones populares mexicanas: La pajarera, Por ti mi Corazon, La valentina (ca.


1925 -1926)
Sonata mexicana (1923)
Thme vari et Finale (1926)
Sonata III (1927)
Sonata clsica (1928)
Sonata romntica (1929)
Suite en la Mineur (1929)
Variations and Fugue on 'La Folia' (1929)
Valse (1937)
Sonatina meridional (1939)
Variations on a Theme of Cabezn (1948)
Dos Vinetas' (post-humous)

It was Ponce who anonymously created the striking arrangement for guitar of J. S. Bach's
Prelude from the first cello suite as performed and recorded by Segovia. Ponce also
composed the prelude for lute ascribed by Segovia on record and program notes to
lutenist/Bach contemporary S. L. Weiss. Segovia recorded this piece both as a solo and as a
duet, performed with harpsichordist Rafael Puyana.

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