Revueltas, Silvestre

Preface

Silvestre Revueltas Sánchez – Alcancías

(b. Santiago Papasquiaro, Durango, December 31, 1899 – d. Mexico City, October 5, 1940)

for small orchestra

Born on December 31, 1899 in the town of Santiago Papasquiaro, in the state of Durango, Mexico, Silvestre Revueltas began studying violin at the age of eight. After one year at Saint Edward’s College in Austin, Texas, he went on to pursue his music studies at the Chicago Musical College (1918–1922) under Leon Sametini, Otakar Sevcík (violin), and Felix Borowski (composition). While conducting various theater orchestras in the southern U.S. during the 1920s, he often traveled to Mexico, where he toured and participated as a violinist in recitals of modern music. At the invitation of Carlos Chávez, he returned to Mexico to take up the post of assistant conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, filling the position from 1929 to 1935. During this time, Revueltas also taught violin and composition at the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico City, as well as conducting the Conservatory Orchestra. Over the following year, he led the newly formed National Symphony Orchestra during its brief existence. In 1940, barely forty years old, Revueltas succumbed to pneumonia aggravated by alcoholism.

Alcancías (Penny Banks) is a composition for small orchestra written and signed by Silvestre Revueltas on July 22, 1932 dedicated to Ricardo Ortega. Although the title of this piece could evoke “typical piggy banks of Mexican crafts”, the work does not stop at picturesque evocations and rather is composed of a rhythmic framework that brings into play various motifs related to popular music, for example, the turns of the stringed instruments so typical of Mariachi or the harmonic base of a brass band.

Without ever citing a particular melody, Revueltas generates themes and phrases, in a structure of direct exposition with constant instability in the rhythm. The organization of his material in this work adheres to a classic three-movement form: a first movement of expositional character, a second movement of melodic fluidity, and a festive and accelerated finale. …

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