Silvestre Revueltas

Silvestre Revueltas Sánchez (1899–1940) was a Mexican composer of classical music, a violinist and a conductor. Revueltas was born in Santiago Papasquiaro in Durango, and studied at the National Conservatory in Mexico City, St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas, and the Chicago College of Music. He gave violin recitals and in 1929 was invited by Carlos Chávez to become assistant conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, a post he held until 1935. He and Chávez did much to promote contemporary Mexican music. It was around this time that Revueltas began to compose in earnest. He began his first film score, Redes, in 1934, a commission which resulted in Revueltas and Chávez falling out. Chávez had originally expected to write the score, but political changes led to him losing his job in the Ministry of Education, which was behind the film project. Revueltas left Chávez's orchestra in 1935 to be the principal conductor of a newly created and short-lived rival orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional. In 1937 Revueltas went to Spain during the Spanish Civil War, as part of a tour organized by the leftist organization Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios (LEAR). Upon Francisco Franco's victory, he returned to Mexico, but earned little, and fell into poverty and alcoholism. He died in Mexico City of pneumonia, at the age of 40 on October 5, 1940, the day his ballet El renacuajo paseador, written four years earlier, was premiered. Revueltas wrote film music, chamber music, songs, and a number of other works. His best-known work is the 1960 arrangement by José Yves Limantour drawn from Revueltas' film score for the 1939 film La noche de los mayas, although some dissenting opinions hold that the orchestral work Sensemayá is better known. In any case, it is Sensemayá that is considered Revueltas's masterpiece.