Page "Music of Cuba" Paragraph 9

Among internationally heralded composers of the " serious " genre can be counted the Baroque composer Esteban Salas y Castro ( 1725 – 1803 ), who spent much of his life teaching and writing music for the Church.

He was followed in the Cathedral of Santiago de Cuba by the priest Juan París ( 1759 – 1845 ).

París was an exceptionally industrious man, and an important composer.

He encouraged continuous and diverse musical events .< sup > p181 </ sup > Aside from rural music and Afro-Cuban folk music, the most popular kind of urban creole dance music in the 19th century was the contradanza, which commenced as a local form of the English country dance and the derivative French contredanse and Spanish contradanza.

While many contradanzas were written for dance, from the mid-century several were written as light-classical parlor pieces for piano.

The first distinguished composer in this style was Manuel Saumell ( 1818 – 1870 ), who is sometimes accordingly hailed as the father of Cuban creole musical development.

In the hands of his successor, Ignacio Cervantes ( 1847 – 1905 ), the danza ( as it was more typically called in the latter 1800s ), achieved even greater sophistication as a piano idiom.