Havaneres 1 and 3

The habaneras for piano I wrote at the beginning of the nineties are a felt and volitional homage to my hometown, Vilanova i la Geltrú. Popularly known as the “Havana Xica” [“Little Havana”], Vilanova was a place of “indianos”, families that came back from Cuba after having become rich and who invested their wealth in building hospitals, schools and railway connections to Barcelona. Everything in Vilanova oozes West Indian flair: the architecture, the carnival shawl dances, which were directly imported from the lounges of the Havana seigniorial houses, entities like the Foment and a particular way of understanding life: a mixture of irony, kindheartedness and nostalgia of a lost paradise. The music, and especially the habaneras, came with the troops which, as Xavier Garcia wrote, “at their return in 1898, defeated and cornered, not only brought misery and failure, but also a piece of Cuban soul, which was reflected in their song, to which that people had given life to as a very intimate expression of their cultural singularity”.

Almost one century later, I wanted to pay a homage to this Vilanova of Cuban influences, to the “indianos”, the soldiers that “defeated, brought home a piece of Cuban soul” and as well to my father, Josep Milà, who had the opportunity to get to know this social and musical reality on his trips to Cuba, during his youth as a musician on board of ocean liners, before becoming a cellist of the Pau Casals Orchestra and, subsequently, of the Gran Teatre del Liceu. Leonora Milà Pianist and composer