Cook Music Library Digital Exhibitions

Hilario González (Cuba, 1920-1999)

Photo: Hilario González

Hilario González.

BIOGRAPHY

Pianist, composer, and musicologist

Hilario González, a Cuban composer whose compositional style was heavily influenced by Cuban popular music as well as neoclassicism. He studied piano and composition at the Manene de Cienfuegos and the Havana Municipal Conservatory. He was a founding member of Grupo Renovación Musical at the conservatory and co-wrote the manifesto Presencia cubana en la música universal with Julian Orbón. From 1947 until 1960, he lived in Caracas, Venezuela where he continued his career as a pianist and served as the musical advisor for the Teatro Ateneo. Starting in 1971, he was a musicologist at the Museo de la Música in Havana, Cuba and researched the works of Salas y Castro and Caturla. His most well-known compositions include song cycles and piano music, with notable examples including Dos danzas afrocubanas (1938) and Tres preludios en conga (1938).


FEATURED WORK

As a musicologist, González wrote and published several works on several Latin American composers. This essay appears in the anthology El Arte Musical de Ernesto Lecuona


Photo: Hilario González with score

Photo: Hilario González

perusing his own score.

Score cover: Obras completas: Primera sonata, op. 8

Score cover for 

Primera sonata, op. 8.

MUSICAL WORKS

Ciclo de canciones (song cycle for voice and piano)

El jarrón Chino (song for voice and piano)

Miniaturas: 24 lecturas a 2 voces para solfeo o piano (for piano)

Primera sonata, opus 8 (for piano)

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Works List


Score: El jarrón chino, 1963

Score: First page of El jarrón Chino by Hilario González
(copyist's hand), 1963.

DISCOGRAPHY

Performances

As a musicologist, Hilario González frequently researched the works of Cuban Composer Alejandro García Caturla. This recording of Mulata performed by Hilario González is available on Media Collections Online to authorized users.

Mulata

Tres preludios en conga

These recordings of 3 Preludios en conga are available on Naxos Music Library to authorized users and on YouTube.

3 preludios en conga: Preludio no. 2

3 preludios en conga: Preludio no. 3


Photo: Héctor Tosar, Julián Orbón, Alejo Carpentier and Hilario González in Caracas, Venezuela

Héctor Tosar at the piano. From left to right:
Julián Orbón, Alejo Carpentier and Hilario González in Caracas, Venezuela.

(Indiana University owns The Julián Orbón Collection which is searchable through Archives Online and accessible through the Lilly Library).

Photo: Hilario González, Cuban composer

Photo of Cuban composer Hilario González.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Writings

  • González, Hilario (1976). "Algunas tesis sobre las raíces de nuestra música sinfónica." Revista de la Biblioteca Nacional José Martí, 18 (3), 151.

Articles

Dissertations

Encyclopedias

For additional works on Hilario González available at IU Bloomington Libraries, click here.