(b Santiago de Cuba, 3 July 1825; d Santiago de Cuba, 30 Sept 1898). Cuban composer. He probably began his musical studies with his sister, and then studied the violin with Carlos Miyares and harmony and composition with Juan Paris and Juan Casamitjana. He became leader of the Santiago de Cuba Cathedral orchestra at the age of 15, and also played for visiting opera companies. He began to compose sacred music at an early age, and in 1842 had a Salve regina performed. Around this time he also set up a small orchestra and established his first music school. In 1844 he became conductor and director of the Philharmonic Society orchestra in Santiago. A collection of his writings was printed as Las artes en Santiago de Cuba (Santiago de Cuba, 1893), and though this work contains some inaccuracies it is of considerable historic value.
Fuentes Matons’s La hija de Jefte, first performed in 1875, was the first opera by a Cuban composer to be staged in that country (he had already written a number of zarzuelas). He subsequently revised the work, extending it from two acts to three; it was fully completed by 1895, and in 1917 was staged under the title Seila. His works also include masses and other sacred works with orchestra, the symphonic poem América (1892), chamber music, songs, piano pieces and dances, and were influential at a national level.
GroveO (R. Stevenson)
J. Calero and L. Valdés Quesada: Cuba musical (Havana, 1929)
E.T. Tolón and J.A. González: Operas cubanas y sus autores (Havana, 1943), 67–119
A. Carpentier: La música en Cuba (Mexico City, 1946, 2/1979)
E. Martín: Panorama histórico de la música en Cuba (Havana, 1971)
A. Estrada, ed.: Las artes en Santiago de Cuba: Laureano Fuentes Matons (Havana, 1981)
P. Hernández Balaguer: ‘Notas críticas a Las artes en Santiago de Cuba’, El más antiguo documento de la música cubana y otros ensayos (Havana, 1986), 173–203
VICTORIA ELI RODRÍGUEZ
Fuga
(Lat.: ‘flight’, from fugare: ‘to flee’, ‘to chase’).
The Latin (and Italian) cognate of the English ‘fugue’. In its Latin form the word first came to be associated with music in the 14th century, when musicians used it, along with the French ‘chace’ and the Italian ‘caccia’, to designate canon (see Canon (i)). The earliest writers to discuss these pieces, beginning with Jacques de Liège in the first half of the 14th century, indicated that they were so designated because the words referred to fleeing or chasing and thus pointed up the way in which the various imitative voices in a canon ‘fled before’ or ‘chased after’ each other while performing the same notes. As non-canonic types of imitation began to appear in 15th-century composition, the words ‘chace’ and ‘caccia’ fell from use, but ‘fuga’ continued to be applied, along with another Latin word, ‘imitatio’. Zarlino may deserve the principal credit for cementing the relationship between imitative counterpoint and the words ‘fuga’ and ‘imitatio’, and from his time onwards ‘fuga’ (in Latin and Italian) and eventually its various cognates (‘fugue’ in French and English, ‘Fuge’ in German) have enjoyed an association with imitative counterpoint in its myriad guises. This complex development is outlined in detail in the article Fugue. At no point along the way do musicians seem to have recognized any particular distinction between these various cognates, which they used in whatever form suited their purposes. (German writers, for instance, long used the Latin form, even when writing primarily in German.) Present-day writers almost always use their own language’s spelling of the word. (J. Haar: ‘Zarlino’s Definition of Fugue and Imitation’, JAMS, xxiv, 1971, pp.226–54)
PAUL WALKER
Fuga, Sandro
(b Mogliano Veneto, 26 Nov 1906; d Turin, 1 March 1994). Italian composer and pianist. He studied at the Turin Conservatory with Matthey (organ, diploma 1924), Gallino (piano, diploma 1925) and Perrachio and Alfano (composition, diploma 1928). Until 1940 he was a concert pianist, making appearances in Italy and abroad; he subsequently devoted himself to composition and teaching. He taught principally at the Turin Conservatory from 1933 onwards (between 1951 and 1952 he was at the Milan Conservatory), and he was director of the institution between 1966 and 1977. He won the Premio Trieste (1953) and the Premio Marzotto (1958). He was a member of the Accademia di S Cecilia in Rome.
Fuga’s work is firmly anchored in the Classical-Romantic tradition, with a particular predilection for Brahms; he was fundamentally undisturbed by the 20th-century developments in musical language. His best works are those in which solid choral writing and a broad sense of structure serve in the expression of a fervent religiosity (e.g. the two Concerti sacri) and a strong sense of human involvement (e.g. Ultime lettere da Stalingrado).
WORKS
(selective list)
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Ops: La croce deserta (lauda drammatica, 1, T. Pinelli, after J.P. Jacobsen), Bergamo, Novità, 18 Oct 1950; Otto Schnaffs (op eroicomica, 1, I. Fuga, after G. de Maupassant), Turin, Alfieri, 28 Oct 1950; Confessione (4 scenes, Fuga, after I. Shaw), RAI, Sept 1962, stage version, Turin, Nuovo, 6 May 1971; L’imperatore Jones (mime-drama, 7 scenes, after E. O’Neill), Turin, Regio, 2 April 1976
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Vocal: Conc. sacro I, chorus, orch, 1938; Nove sacre canzoni e laudi spirituali, 1v, pf, 1947; Conc. sacro II, chorus, orch, 1951; Conc. sacro IV, chorus, 1956; Ultime lettere da Stalingrado, spkr, orch, 1958; songs
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Orch: Preghiere, 1941; Ode in memoria, 1946; Passacaglia, 1950; Toccata, pf, orch, 1952; Tpt Concertino, 1953; Conc. sacro III, 1954; Vc Conc., 1955; Vn Conc., 1959
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Chbr: Sonata, vc, pf, 1936; Sonata, vn, pf, 1938; Pf Trio, 1941; 4 str qts, 1943, 1945, 1948, 1965
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Pf: Toccata, 1935; Sonatina, 1936; Serenata, 1940; Divertimento, 1950; Canzoni per la gioventù, 1950–51; Sonata, 1957; Variazioni gioconde, 1957; Valzer amorosi, 1959; Preludi, 1959–60; Sonata, 1978
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Principal publishers: Carisch, Curci, Ricordi, Suvini Zerboni
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DEUMM (R. Cognazzo)
ES (G. Graziosi)
GroveO (R. Pozzi)
M.A. Darbesio: ‘Deux opéras de Sandro Fuga’, Il diapason, i (1950), 23–6
G. Gavazzeni: ‘Il senso di una tradizione in Sandro Fuga’, Musicisti d’Europa (Milan, 1954), 246–54
G. Pannain: ‘Sandro Fuga’, Santa Cecilia, ix (1960), 8–9
S. Fuga: Sandro Fuga visto da se stesso (Rome, 1990)
VIRGILIO BERNARDONI
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