It is surprising how masterfully journalist José Martí addressed such diverse topics when writing about concerts. Demonstrating a level of knowledge that reveals the brilliance of his intellect and the breadth of his erudition.
Another meticulous researcher of Cuban music and its exponents, Alejo Carpentier. He discovered that Martí dedicated a significant portion of his time to the study of music theory.
This discovery occurred when Carpentier was reviewing didactic texts by 19th-century authors. One was a small volume titled “Theoretical Treatise on Music,” by Narciso Téllez y Arcos. The imprint was from Havana, dated 1868.
The small book held a great surprise for the man who would become the author of “The Century of Lights.” For on one of its pages he found José Martí’s signature, stamped in jet-black ink.
It so happened that the volume had belonged to him, and the library’s reference librarians had not noticed this important detail.
Moreover the book, although well-preserved, bore the marks of study. There were pencil marks and phrases, handwritten corrections of printing errors. All of which revealed a very careful reading by Martí.
This interesting discovery was announced by Alejo Carpentier in his “Letter and Music” column in El Nacional, Caracas, on March 4th, 1953,. A little over a month after the centennial of the birth of the Apostle of Cuba.
In the “Musicians” section of the Mexican magazine “Universal,” dated May 25th, 1875, Martí presents a body of concepts that support his claim as a musicologist. In his chronicle dedicated to the Cuban violinist and composer José White: “There is a splendid language that vibrates in the strings of the melody and speaks with the movements of the heart. It is like a promise of happiness, like a glimpse of certainty, like a pledge of clarity and fullness.”
“Color has limits, words lips; misery, heaven; truth is what does not end; and music is perpetually throbbing in space…”
In another chronicle, in the following issue of the publication, dated June 1st, he dedicates space to “White’s Second Concert.” In which he summarizes his judgment of the composer: “White played: it is not that a powerful bow glides over a vanquished and obedient violin. It is that man undertakes the struggle with the difficulties of art…»
A third chronicle, also referring to White, includes Martí’s expert assessment of Bach’s “Deacone” and Mozart’s “Quintet.” Regarding the former, he states that nothing should have been heard before that titanic music. And adds that nothing should have been heard afterward, were it not for the fact that there was still something new to marvel at in Mozart’s Quintet. He also praises the virtuosity of the Cuban musician’s performance.
For Martí, music was part of his life because of the enjoyment he found in it and what it represents for humankind. He expressed this in that first chronicle dedicated to White: “Music is man escaped from himself; it is the yearning born of limitation and narrowness. Also it is the necessary harmony, the harbinger of constant and future harmony.”
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