As long as I can remember, the name Esteban Salas has been closely tied to my musical life. I began as a member of the childrenʻs choir at the Conservatory in Santiago de Cuba which to this day bears his name, and went on to study and perform two of Salasʻs most famous villancicos: Una Nave Mercantil and Claras Luces.
Throughout my studies and as a singer in choral groups such as the Orfeón Santiago, Exaudi Chamber Choir, and as an attentive follower of the early music group Ars Longa of Havana, and much later as a conductor, I have had the opportunity to perform not only his villancicos, but also a good bit of his liturgical music. These performances were based on editions using the best understanding of the day, but lacking the serious study that began at the end of the 1990s to contextualize Salas’s music. This effort was led by the Cuban musicologist Miriam Escudero and Ars Longa Havana, directed by Teresa Paz and Aland López, who have done a wide variety of performances and recordings from across Salas’s catalogue.
WHO WAS ESTEBAN SALAS?
Born in 1725 in Havana, Esteban Salas y Castro was the first widely known Cuban professional musician whose work is well documented. He studied violin, organ, composition, counterpoint and plainchant, and completed his education inphilosophy, theology and canon law. In 1764 he moved to the city of Santiago de Cuba to fill the position of chapel master in the Cathedral, a position he held until his death in 1803.
THE MUSIC
According to the latest studies, Salasʻs compositions, which stem from his job as chapel master, include 103 pieces of sacred music that can be divided into liturgical and non-liturgical works. The first category includes masses, motets, hymns, salves and autos sacramentales in Latin, and the second includes cantatas, pastorelas and villancicos, his favoredgenre where he not only shines as a composer but also as an author of poetic text in Spanish.
SINGING SALAS
The interpretation of this music constitutes an artistic and pedagogical challenge for the choir director as it requires knowledge and mastery of all the aesthetic and musical style traits of the baroque. The conductor must seek out tools that allow the singer to approach the score in a practical and direct way within its musicological context.
THE CHORAL ENSEMBLE
The ban on female voices in Catholic churches that was still in force in Salasʻs time influences the various ensembles that he wrote for, and is reflected in the terms he used for each part to define characteristics such as tessitura and musical function. Tiple, the highest, was to be sung by children. The alto part would be sung by what we know today ascountertenors, and the tenor part would likely today classify as lyrical-dramatic tenor. The part of bass, sometimes written functionally within the basso continuo and other times independently, requires a flexible voice capable of expressive cantabile singing.
For a choral group unaccustomed to early music performance, approaching Salas's music almost necessarily includes revoicing the choir. The alto part could be sung by a mixed group of contraltos and countertenors, perhaps joined by a very high, light tenors, if the choir happens to include them. One or two baritones with clear timbre and agile voices could join the tenor line. The remaining parts, soprano and bass, can be maintained as normal, with string instruments covering any sections that are outside the voicesʻ typical tessitura. In that case, there would be two options depending on the type of music:
Liturgical Music: double the voice parts with instruments that share their register and color, and/or add a mezzo or alto 1 to the soprano line, and a baritone to the tenor line.
Non-liturgical music: mix sopranos and mezzos on the same line, and tenors and baritones on the tenor line as there is no independent bass voice in the cantatas, pastorelas and villancicos.
TUNING AND TEMPERAMENT
In liturgical music Gregorian chant plays a structural role, either explicitly in the incipit of each motet, mass or requiem movement, or as rhythmic or melodic source material that informs the polyphonic framework. This invites us to seek a balance between tradition and innovation resulting in a performance that is faithful to the composerʻs original intention.
Recreating this music centuries after its original compositon requires that the singers of the choir adjust their performance practice using the temperament and acoustic particularities of the wind instruments of the time as a model. This is especially true of the organ, which was essential in the execution and accompaniment of the liturgy. By aligning ourselves with these instruments we can better understand the nature of the score and faithfully recreate an acoustical concept in line with that era’s musical aesthetic.
In the non-liturgical compositions, the influence of Neapolitan secular music which included violins and continuo suggests more flexibility. Where the text is in Spanish and the musical discourse is more casual, virtuosity in the violins and solo voices comes to the fore. At certain moments the choir illustrates the text with expressly rhetorical figures, and contrasts of character, tempo and the alternation of choruses, couplets, da capo arias and recitatives defines the style.
Salas’s personal manner is most obvious in the villancicos, which are often written in triple meter. Always inspired by the liturgical moment for which they were written, he also composed them as a “chronicle and musical exorcism” of happy or unfortunate events, such as the natural disasters that devastated the city and affected the daily lives of its inhabitants as well as the Cathedral itself where, due to more than one fire and frequent collapses, part of Salas’s work may have been lost.
THE INSTRUMENTAL ENSEMBLE
According to contemporary accounts, upon Salas’s arrival at the Cathedral he had a very modest staff of musicians that included three sopranos, two altos, two tenors, two violins, a contrabass, two bassoons, harp and organ. This gives us an idea of what the basic ensemble suitable to accompany his music may be, always leaving the possibility to include other instruments from the same family to enhance, give color, vigor and brightness to some of the vocal parts, or even double or replace some of them depending on the type of music and genre.
Within the work of Esteban Salas we find a full compendium of styles, which speaks to the composer’s desire to master the techniques of those that preceded him. Some of his compositions strike out in new directions, furthering the development of what his European contemporaries were doing. Understanding and interpreting his music involves seeking as references his predecessors, contemporaries and descendants, taking into account the lag time in musical development between Europe and the Americas.
Salas’s work as chapel master, priest and teacher of philosophy, ethics and music at the Seminary of San Basilio Magno in the city of Santiago de Cuba made him a beloved figure who was respected by his parishioners and community. The path towards total knowledge, understanding and interpretation of his music has just begun, and we will surely hear new interpretive approaches that will make us rethink every aspect of performance practice. The best of these will ensure that what is essential in his music is neither lost nor obscured. It falls to the conductor, always with training and study, to take greatest advantage of both the explicit and hidden information found in each score, bringing to light music that is fresh and new.
Finally, an anecdote where the questioning of an inexperienced student becomes, over time, a professional obsession seeking answers, solutions and stylistic parallels:
While rehearsing with the Chamber Choir of the National School of Music, Toquen presto a fuego, a villancico of a festive, energetic and brilliant nature, after listening to a section of the violins where our director demanded a specific touch and dynamics, one of the cellists looks at me and says, “Esteban Salas Amadeus Mozart…”
Born in Santiago de Cuba, Enrique Filiu O'Relly began his musical studies at the Esteban Salas Conservatory and continued at the National School of Music, specializing in choir conducting with teacher Alina Orraca. His higher education took place at the Pancho Vladigerov National Music Academy in Sofia Bulgaria, and the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana. Director of the Chamber Choir of the Music School of Santiago de Cuba and the female choir of the National School of Music of Havana during the years 1991–1994, he also served as assistant director of the Orfeón Santiago, directed by maestro Electo Silva. Enrique Filiu O’Relly is a member of the Schola Cantorum Coralina and Exaudi Chamber Choir of Havana and founding director of the Camerata Vocale Sine Nomine. He is also Musical Director of the choral groups Torrecanto (2006–2019) and Magerit (2007 to the present), and he has been studio director for the startup Singerhood, dedicated to the recording of choral tracks with real voices. O’Relly has been an invited guest conductor of the Cristóbal de Morales choir, Aldebarán, Vox Absona (Denmark), Coro Polifónico de Getafe, and Virgen de la Paloma, and has given Cuban choral music workshops in Madrid, Zaragoza and Copenhagen. enriquefiliu@gmail.com
Translated from Spanish by Joshua Habermann, USA
Comments