“Wow, I have never heard anything like this.”
That’s the reaction renowned Cuban pianist and composer José María Vitier says he gets most often to his Misa Cubana, a work for chorus and orchestra steeped in Cuban lore and reflecting the rich diversity of styles and influences in Cuban music.
Vitier will perform as pianist in his Misa Cubana with the Westerville Symphony, the Otterbein University combined choirs and Capriccio Columbus in a performance conducted by Otterbein professor Gayle Walker, this Sunday, April 24 at 5 p.m. in Fritsche Theatre of Otterbein University’s Cowan Hall.
Sunday's performance is the culmination of Vitier’s nearly month-long residency as guest artist at Otterbein University. It also concludes the Cuban component of Otterbein’s three-year multicultural learning initiative, Otterbein and the Arts: Opening Doors to the World 2015-2018.
The performance of Vitier's Misa Cubana comes at a remarkably timely moment in U.S.- Cuba relations. It also promises to share a work of profound personal and artistic meaning for Vitier, and also some of what Vitier describes as “an unknown Cuba,” with the central Ohio community.
“What comes out of the heart gets to the heart”
Vitier’s Misa Cubana stemmed from the fortunate outcome of an unfortunate event. In 1990, Vitier’s only son was injured in a car accident, an event that prompted Vitier, who was raised Catholic, and his wife, Silvia Rodriguez, who was not, to seek divine help from Cuba’s patroness, Our Lady of Charity of Cobre.
“And we both had a very deep feeling of having been heard,” said Vitier, speaking through an interpreter.
When their son recovered from the accident, Vitier says he and his wife felt the need to give thanks. Together they created a song, Plegaria a la Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre (Prayer to the Virgin of Charity of Cobre), for which Silvia wrote the lyrics and Vitier composed the music.
After completing the Plegaria, Vitier says he began to think the song could be just the beginning of a much larger work. For a separate project, he was commissioned to compose some film music of a religious nature. To fulfill that commission, Vitier composed three movements of a Catholic Mass – a Kyrie, a Hosanna and an Agnus Dei – for chorus and orchestra.
“That was the first religious music I ever wrote,” Vitier said. “And then from there I felt very focused on acting on the promise we had made to create that music. You know, when a composer does music for a movie, unknowingly he is doing the music for the script of his own life, even though he doesn’t tell that to the director.”
By 1995, Vitier had committed himself to expanding his Plegaria and his three Mass movements into what eventually became his Misa Cubana, a complete Mass dedicated to Our Lady of Charity of Cobre. Vitier completed the Mass despite political concerns from some of his associates.
“In those times the relations between state and Church had not improved the way they are right now. And even some people, close friends of ours, told us that perhaps it was not the right time to do this. But we followed a principle that is with us all the time and that can be summarized like this: what comes out of the heart, gets to the heart. And that is what happened,” Vitier said.
Since its first performance in Havana in December 1996, the Misa Cubana has been given more than 120 performances, a fact that surprises even Vitier himself.
“When my wife and I decided to do this and we did it, we had no notion that this was going to be a well-known work, and that was not the intention,” Vitier said. “This exceeds all my expectations for this type of music."
“A symbol for our homeland”
The popular appeal of the Misa Cubana might have something to do with what Vitier himself describes as the work’s “inclusive” character, inspired in part by iconography of the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, which shows the Virgin Mary looking down over a small boat carrying three people of different races on a rough sea.
“The boat became a symbol of the island (of Cuba), of the mix that gave origin to our nation. That’s why it’s a symbol for our homeland,” Vitier said.
Vitier says he aimed for his Misa Cubana to honor musically Cuba’s mixture of cultural traditions. His music for the Mass mixes stylistic traits of European classical music with Cuban genres, which themselves blend styles and traditions. The son, a Cuban dance genre with Spanish and West African elements, appears in the Laudamus te section of the Misa Cubana. The traditional Cuban danzón, with a rhythmic feel Vitier describes as “like country Cuban music,” appears in the Sanctus of Vitier’s Mass. A criolla, a type of traditional Cuban song, appears in the Misa Cubana’s Agnus Dei. Three songs to Spanish texts complement the Latin-texted movements of the Mass.
“That mix or that fusion is a fundamental characteristic of Cuban music, and it was the line of work that I followed to create this (Mass),” Vitier said.
Vitier’s fusion of musical styles also embodies his respect for the spectrum of religious beliefs among not just Cubans, but people everywhere.
“What I wanted is that the work would not have an exclusive character. It should be inclusive and not exclusive, and that it would respect the many different ways that there exist to be a believer,” Vitier said. “I have my own, and I respect every other one.”
Not the type of music people expect to receive from Cuba
Vitier says the blend of styles in the Misa Cubana has been a surprise to many with certain stereotypical expectations for what Cuban music sounds like.
“(For) people outside of Cuba, this is not the type of music that they’re expecting to receive from Cuba," Vitier said. “I think that many people expected that the Misa Cubana would be something almost for dancing, or that it would have a stronger rhythmic character.”
Vitier makes no claim that the Misa Cubana is, in his words, “a splendid showing of Cuban music.” But he does say that, just as his residency at Otterbein has enriched his understanding of the U.S., Sunday’s performance of his Misa Cubana might just give those who experience it a richer understanding of Cuba.
“I have also seen an America that I didn’t know," Vitier said, “and I think it’s fair to say that I bring an unknown Cuba to an unknown America.”
Cuban composer and pianist José María Vitier performs his own Misa Cubana with the Westerville Symphony, the Otterbein University combined choirs and Capriccio Columbus, Sunday, 24 April at 5 p.m. in Fritsche Theatre of Otterbein University’s Cowan Hall.
