Ebony Band Amsterdam & Werner Herbers - Revueltas: Homenaje a Revueltas (2004) [Hi-Res]

Silvestre Revueltas was born on New Years eve of 1899 in Santiago Papasquiaro in the Northern Mexican province of Durango. He began playing the violin at the age of eight and studied violin and composition between 1918 and 1922 at the Chicago Music College. In the 1920s he toured as a violin soloist and conductor through the southern United States and Mexico, until the composer Carlos Chavez, at that time Mexicos most important musical authority, asked him to come back to Mexico to be his assistant with the Orquesta Sinfnica de Mxico. This orchestras recent establishment was very much part of a movement which, following the revolution of the teens, was concerned with providing the fledgling Mexican state with a distinctive identity. Revueltas became aware that this endeavor would not be served by re-interpretations of European classics, and concluded that he himself could make an important contribution by devoting himself to composition. In the 10 following years he produced an oeuvre, composed at a feverish pace, in which he used his knowledge of European music to create an effective, sober musical style which strongly expressed his love for the Mexican cultural heritage…