It is a pleasure for me to reference in this musical area the song of today, El arrullo de las tórtolas (The cooing of the turtle doves) by the Venezuelan composer Jesús M. Suárez. It is a Vals de Salón (Venezuela) this time played on piano by maestro Evencio Castellanos (1915-1984), in an anthology version.
Throughout his career as an interpreter, maestro Castellanos left various sound recordings on long-playing records where the virtuosity of the maestro and his elevated pianism are evidently fairly evident. These musical records are true jewels of the Venezuelan record repertoire. Among them are the Old Valses of Venezuela that contain legendary interpretations made by the master of Venezuelan waltzes, whose style and virtuosity has not been surpassed to date by any performer.
Thanks to the efforts of the Minister of State for Culture, the National Council of Culture and the Vicente Emilio Sojo Foundation (Caracas, Venezuela, 1997), this master's work was recovered in a re-edition. The recording was made from the original matrices that were given with great courtesy by the Castellanos family. They were cleaned, equalized and digitized under the artistic and musical supervision of their son, the organist and conductor Pablo Castellanos, with an optimal result, especially if one takes into account that the recordings were made forty years ago by the own Evencio Castellanos, in monaural sound, with a homemade equipment, in a room of his house where he had the piano, and without any possibility of editing.
According to Luis Felipe Ramón y Rivera, in Venezuela there are two currents in the waltz: the lounge and the popular. In the salon waltz, the favorite instrument for its execution is the piano. The melody, generally in eight measures, is choppy and insinuating, breaking boldly with the European metric and competing with the silences and compasses in a graceful and jumping way. As for the musical structure characteristic of waltzes, these can consist of up to three parts. This is how in our waltzes we can find recreations of the waltzes of the old Viennese school, incorporating the spirit of Venezuelan music and the atmosphere of European influence in the life of that time.
I hope with this to contribute to the knowledge of our Venezuelan musical heritage, and above all, to transmit part of our musical cultural heritage as a heritage and legacy for the new generations. In the same way, it is a pleasure for me that you enjoy this exquisite repertoire.
Estelio Padilla
Song title: The cooing of the turtle doves
Genre: Waltz
Subgenre: Hall Waltz (Venezuela, 19th and 20th Centuries)
Author: Jesús M. Suárez
Interpreter: Evencio Castellanos
The coordination and artistic direction of this recording was directed by maestro Pablo Castellanos, the restoration of the presented material was made in the Intersonido and Buena Nota Studies (Caracas, IV, 1997). Diego Márquez was in charge of sound engineering.
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