Throughout the years, the Cuban nation has developed a wealth of musicological material created by numerous investigators and experts on this subject.
Early 20th century
Apart from the work of some authors who provided information about the music in Cuba during the 19th century, that was usually included in chronicles covering a more general subject, the first investigations and studies specifically dedicated to the musical art and practice did not appear in Cuba until the beginning of the 20th century.
At that time, musicological research and documentation in Cuba was not undertaken by professionals fully dedicated to that subject, but instead it was conducted by historians, ethnologists or composers such as polymath Fernando Ortiz (b. 1881) or composer Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes (b. 1874). The controversy sustained by these distinguished personalities in reference to the possible African (or indigenous) roots of Cuban music spanned several decades, from the 1930s to the 1950s.
Another important personality, María Muñoz (b. 1886), a Galician pianist, professor and choir conductor that graduated at the Madrid Conservatory under the guidance of Manuel de Falla, developed an outstanding musical activity in Cuba. Together with her husband Antonio Quevedo, she co-founded the Society of Contemporary Music in 1929, promoted the cultural journal “Musicalia” and founded the Havana Choral Society. Together with Fernando Ortiz, she gave summer courses on musicology at the Havana University from the 1930s. Those courses nurtured and stimulated the careers of some future outstanding musicologists such as María Teresa Linares Savio (b. 1920).
One of the earliest contribution to musicological studies in Cuba was provided by Emilio Grenet, brother of the famous Cuban composer Eliseo Grenet.
Emilio Grenet was born in Havana in 1901 and passed away in the same city, in 1941. He studied Sight-reading and Music theory with professor Armando Laguardia and worked as a pianist in New York City in 1923. After returning to Cuba he traveled to Spain where he met composer Joaquín Turina who introduced him to his professor of Harmony, Conrado del Campo.
Grenet returned again to Cuba where he worked in the Education Ministry Radio Station, started his investigations about the genres of Cuban popular music and travelled to New York City to record with the orchestra of his brother Eliseo Grenet. He taught Musical composition to the renowned Cuban conductor Enrique González Mántici and Harmony to the composer and guitarist Vicente González Rubiera (Guyún).
In 1939, Grenet published his important work "Cuban popular music", which represented a serious study of the Cuban popular music genres, and a thorough insight into the most important aspects of the musical creation in Cuba, from the 19th Century until that time. The book also included 80 scores of representative compositions.
1940s and 1950s
In 1946, the famous Cuban writer, art critic and musicologist Alejo Carpentier (b. 104) established a benchmark with his work “La música en Cuba” (1946), an attempt to put together a comprehensive history of Cuban music from the 16th century until his time. Although the work presented as facts some controversial historical issues, such as the origins of the well known “Son de la Mateodora” and the “Cuban Contradanza”, this important study (based on extensive investigations conducted by Carpentier) offered a deep insight into Cuban music history never witnessed before.
Coincidentally, young composers and musicologists such as Argeliers León (b. 1918) and Hilario González (b. 1920) were diligently working along with José Ardévol at “Grupo de Renovación Musical” to improve and renovate the Cuban musical panorama. In 1947, Argeliers León continued offering the musicology summer courses started by María Muñoz and Fernando Ortiz at the Havana University and served as a professor of such prominent students as pianist and professor Ana Margarita Aguilera Ripoll (b. 1903), author of the important compilation of children songs “Cancionero Infantil de Hispanoamérica.” Other contemporary Cuban musicologists were María Antonieta Henriquez, founder of the National Museum of Music, and Lydia Cabrera, an anthropologist renowned for her studies of Afro-Cuban music.
Post revolutionary period (1959)