Silvestre Revueltas
Sensemayá (1937)
New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein
Revueltas first set the poem to music in Mexico City in 1937, originally setting it for small orchestra. In 1938, he expanded it into a full-scale orchestral setting for 27 wind instruments, fourteen percussion instruments and strings.
"Sensemayá" is based on Afro-Cuban religious cults, preserved in the cabildos, self-organized social clubs for the African slaves. African religions were transmitted from generation to generation. These religions, which had a similar but not identical structure, were known as Lucumi or Regla de Ocha if they derived from the Yoruba, Palo from Central Africa, Vodú from Haiti, and so on. In this poem we meet an adept known as the mayombero. He is knowledgeable in the area of herbal medicine, as well as being the leader of rituals. In Sensemayá the mayombero leads a ritual which offers the sacrifice of a snake to a god, perhaps Babalu Aye. This god, popularized as Babalu in the United States by Desi Arnaz, is the Afro-Cuban spirit who has the power to heal, or spread pestilence. One of the main motives in Sensemayá is based on this word ¨mayombero¨. This chant "mayombe, bombe mayombé", is an example of Guillén's use of repetition, derived from an actual ceremony.
