Arturo Márquez
Danzon No. 2
Born in 1950 in Alamos in the state of Sonora, Mexico, Arturo Márquez began his musical schooling in La Puente, California. He studied piano and music theory at the Conservatory of Music of Mexico, and composition at the Taller de Composición of the Institute of Fine Arts of Mexico. He has studied with Mexican composers Joaquín Gutiérrez Heras, Hector Quintanar, and Federico Ibarra, as well as French composer Jacques Castérède, and Americans Morton Subotnick and James Newton.
Márquez has received commissions from the Universidad Metropolitana de Mexico, Festival de la Ciudad de Mexico, and the Rockefeller Foundation, and was awarded a Fulbright Foundation grant. In 1994 he received the composition scholarship of Mexico's Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes. His works include
Octeto Malandro (Misbehaving Octet--1996), Zarabandeo for clarinet and piano (1995), and a flute concerto, commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Consejo Nacional para las Artes, that was premiered by James Newton.
Márquez received his first inspiration for Danzón No. 2 while traveling to Malinalco in 1993 with painter Andrés Fonseca and dancer Irene Martinez, who both loved to dance. The pair later brought Márquez to dance halls in Veracruz and the popular Salón Colonia in Mexico City. Like Aaron Copland, who traveled to the dance halls of Mexico City and produced
El Salón Mexico (1932), Márquez found himself entranced and inspired by the music. But unlike Copland, who was a visitor from the outside finding his way into the music, Márquez was a native who discovered the music from the inside out, connecting with the musical traditions of his parents and grandparents. Of this experience, Márquez writes:
"I was fascinated and I started to understand that the apparent lightness of the danzón is only like a visiting card for a type of music full of sensuality and qualitative seriousness, a genre which old Mexican people continue to dance with a touch of nostalgia and a jubilant escape towards their own emotional world; we can fortunately still see this in the embrace between music and dance that occurs in the State of Veracruz and in the dance parlors of Mexico City. The
Danzón No. 2 is a tribute to the environment that nourishes the genre. It endeavors to get as close as possible to the dance, to its nostalgic melodies, to its wild rhythms, and although it violates its intimacy, its form and its harmonic language, it is a very personal way of paying my respects and expressing my emotions towards truly popular music."
Danzón No. 2 was commissioned by the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico in 1994, and Márquez dedicated the piece to his daughter, Lily. The piece opens with a clarinet solo over rhythmic claves, piano, and pizzicato strings. The clarinet is soon answered by oboe, while brass pulse underneath, and the entire ensemble is pulled into the dance. The work becomes increasingly frenetic, and sections featuring solo or groups of instruments with the ever-present claves are contrasted with all-out dance mania. A lyric central section, introduced by piano, features beautifully lush strings and a duet for clarinet and flute. Then brass assert the main dance theme again and the work builds to a dramatic, foot-stomping close.
February 9, 2008
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