Brouwer (Mezquida), Leo

Victoria Eli Rodríguez

https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.04092
Published in print: 20 January 2001
Published online: 2001
updated works list, 27 November 2002

(b Havana, March 1, 1939). Cuban composer, guitarist and conductor. In 1953 he

began his studies in the guitar with Isaac Nicola, founder of the Cuban guitar
school, and in 1955 he made his performance début. In the same year, and self-
taught, he started to compose (e.g. Música para guitarra, cuerdas y percusión and
Suite no.1 for guitar); his first works were published in 1956. He was awarded a
grant (1959) for advanced guitar studies at the music department of the
University of Hartford and for composition at the Juilliard School of Music in New
York, where he was taught by Isadora Freed, J. Diemente, Joseph Iadone,
Persichetti and Wolpe. In 1960 he started working in cinema, as head of the
department of music in the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos
(ICAIC); he has written scores for more than 60 films. He was involved in setting
up (1969) and running the Grupo de Experimentación Sonora at ICAIC, becoming
the teacher and mentor of its members, who included Silvio Rodríguez, Milanés
and other important figures of contemporary Cuban music. He worked as musical
adviser for Radio Habana Cuba (1960–68) and for other Cuban institutions, and
taught counterpoint, harmony and composition at the Conservatorio Municipal in
Havana (1960–67). His book Síntesis de la armonía contemporánea was a core text
in his classes.

Together with the composers Juan Blanco and Carlos Fariñas and the conductor
Manuel Duchesne Cuzán, Brouwer launched the avant-garde music movement in
Cuba in the 1960s. He has been the most significant promoter of the bi-annual
Havana Concurso y Festival de Guitarra, and in 1981 he was appointed principal
conductor of the Cuban National SO. He has also conducted many other foreign
orchestras including the Berlin PO and the Orquesta de Córdoba, Spain, which,
under his direction, was formed in 1992. He is a member of the Berlin Akademie
der Künste, of UNESCO, of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes Nuestra Señora de
la Angustias in Granada (1996) and Honoris Causa Professor of Art at the Instituto
Superior de Arte de Cuba (1996). For his contribution to the Cuban and
international music scenes he was awarded the Orden Félix Varela, the highest
honour granted by the Cuban state for culture.

Three phases can be identified in Brouwer’s work: the first, nationalistic (1955–
62); the second, avant-garde (1962–7); and a third in which avant garde elements
diminish and, particularly after 1980, a creative process described by the
composer as ‘new simplicity’ emerges. The first phase is characterized by the use
of traditional musical forms, including sonata and variation form, and by tonal
harmonic structures rooted in nationalism (e.g. in Homenaje a Manuel de Falla

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 (1957), Tres danzas concertantes (1958) and Elegía a Jesús Menéndes (1960),
among others). During this phase, despite the prevailing use of tonality, a
tendency to structural fragmentation may be discerned, as well as the
employment of several simultaneous tonal centres, a device that has remained
throughout his output.

Though never lacking formal rigour, Brouwer’s works have in general sprung
more from a sonic conception: ‘I use any form to help me find musical forms: that
of a leaf, of a tree or geometric symbolisms. All these are also musical forms;
despite the fact that my works appear very structured, what interests me is
sound’. This concentration on the sensory, and an accompanying use of extra-
musical formal sources, is most to the fore in Brouwer’s second phase, which was,
with the Cuban avant garde in general, heavily influenced by the Polish school; he
first heard this music at the Warsaw Autumn in 1961. Variantes for solo percussion
and in particular Sonograma I for prepared piano typify this phase, which also
included a brief turn towards serialism, in works such as Sonograma II and Arioso
(Homenaje a Charles Mingus). Basic materials frequently comprise intervals of the
2nd, 4th and 7th and chords of superimposed 6ths, 9ths, 11ths and 13ths.
Complex polyphonic textures dominate, with thematic independence retained
within the different planes of sound, and a resultant richness in rhythmic
conjunction. Other common devices include pedals, ostinatos, sequences and
melodic and rhythmic echoing. One of Brouwer’s most important avant-garde
works, which has become a major piece of the guitar literature, is the solo Elogio
de la danza (1964). In two movements – Lento and Ostenato – it was originally
composed for dance with choreography by Luis Trápaga; it makes reference to
primitive dances and to mysticism, and conveys an image of stamping feet and
gyrations together with other dance elements.

Between 1967 and 1969 such works as Rem tene verba sequentur, Cántigas del
tiempo nuevo and La tradición se rompe …, pero cuesta trabajo approach what
would now be the postmodern, characterized by sharply defined contrasts in
structure and texture and employing references to various historical periods. In La
tradición se rompe …, pero cuesta trabajo, for example, the interpolation and
superimposition of elements of such composers as Bach and Beethoven in a
suggestive heterophony borders on caricature; further, the participation of the
audience is invited with a persistent ‘sh’. All this is integrated into a process of
thematic and instrumental development that evolves through a powerful,
controlled aleatorism.

In the 1970s Brouwer continued to work on post-serial and aleatory ideas, for
instance in La espiral eterna for guitar. But by the 1980s a ‘new simplicity’ had
begun to take hold, involving neo-Romantic, minimalist and newly tonal elements.
There is a marked lyricism in this third period, the use of varying nuclear cells to
generate development, and the return of traditional forms exemplified in works
like Canciones remotas, Manuscrito antiguo encontrado en una botella and La
región más trasparente.

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 Works

(selective list)

Orchestral

3 danzas concertantes, gui, str orch, 1958

Balada, fl, str, 1963

Sonograma, 1964

Arioso (Homenaje a Charles Mingus), jazz combo, orch, 1965

Tropos, 1967

La tradición se rompe …, pero cuesta trabajo, 1967–9

Exaedros III, solo perc, 2 orch groups, 1970

Gui Conc., 1971

Conc., fl, str, pf obbl, 1972

Controversia (Sonograma IV), orch, 1972

El gran zoo (Guillén), nar, hn, orch, 1972

Vn Conc., 1978

Canción de gesta, 1979

Concierto de Liège (Quasi una fantasia), gui, orch, 1980

Concierto de Toronto, gui, orch, 1986

Concierto Elegíaco, gui, orch, 1988

Concierto (Helsinki), gui, orch, 1992

Wagneriana, str, 1992

Doble concierto ‘Omaggio a Paganini’, vn, gui, orch, 1995

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 Lamento por Rafael Orozco, cl, str, 1996

Concierto ‘La Habana’, gui, orch, 1998

Concierto de Benicassim, gui, orch, 2002

Vocal

Elegía a Jesús Menéndez (cant., N. Guillén), chorus, orch, 1960

Cantigas del tiempo nuevo, children’s chorus, actors, 4 insts, 1969

Es el Amor quien ve … (J. Martí), high v, 6 insts, 1973

Cantata de Chile (Manns), male chorus, orch, 1975

Chamber and solo instrumental

Danza característica, gui, 1957

Homenaje a Manuel de Falla, fl, ob, cl, gui, 1957

Micropiezas (Homenaje a Milhaud), 2 gui, 1957

Piezas sin título nos.1 and 2, gui, 1957

3 apuntes, gui, 1959

2 bocetos, pf, 1959

Vc Sonata, 1960

Variantes, perc, 1962

Sonograma I, prep pf, 1963

Elogio de la danza, gui, 1964

Trio no.2, ob, cl, bn, 1964

2 conceptos del tiempo, 10 insts, 1965

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 Conmutaciones, prep pf, 2 perc, 1966

Canticum, gui, 1968

El reino de este mundo, wind qnt, 1968

Epigramas, vn/vc, pf, 1968

Rem tene verba sequentur, str qt, 1968

Exaedros I–II, 6 insts/any multiple of 6 insts, 1969

La espiral eterna, gui, 1970

Per suonare a 3, fl, va, gui, 1971

Ludus metalicus, sax qt, 1972

Tarantos, gui, 1974

Acerca del sol, el aire y la sonrisa, gui orch, 1978

El decameron negro, 3 ballads, gui, 1981

La región más transparente, fl, pf, 1982

Manuscrito antiguo encontrado en una botella, vn, vc, pf, 1983

Sonata, sones y danzones, vn, vc, pf, 1992

In memoriam ‘Toru Takemitsu’, gui, 1996

Como la vida misma

pf, vn, vc, perc, 1999

Tape

Sonata pian’e forte, pf, tape, 1970

Basso continuo I, (cl, tape)/(2 cl), 1972

Per suonare a 2, gui, tape, 1972

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 Principal publishers: Empresa de Grabaciones y Ediciones Musicales, Eschig,
Editora Musical de Cuba, Schott

Bibliography
L. Brouwer: La música lo cubano y la innovación (Havana, 1982)

D. Orozco: Rasgos de identidad, entonación y universalidad en la creación

musical cubana contemporánea: su singular proyección en 30 años de
realidad social revolucionaria, Conferencia ofrecida en al Simposio de
Música Contemporánea, UNEAC, 1989

Z. Gómez and V. Eli Rodríguez: Música latino americana y caribeña (Havana,

1995)

Diccionario de la música española e hispano-americana, ed. E. Casares

Rodicio, J. López-Calo, I. Fernandez de la Cuesta (Madrid, 1999)

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