Patricio Ballagas
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Patricio Ballagas Palacios. Cuban guitarist and composer with a wide repertoire of compositions.
He was born in Camagüey, Cuba on March 17, 1879. He studied music theory, music theory and guitar.
He began his artistic career with Armando Recio, who was his guitar student, and Regino Velasco. At the beginning of the century he moved to Havana, where he was associated with the most important troubadours of the time: Sindo Garay, Alberto Villalón, Manuel Corona, Rosendo Ruiz Suárez, Oscar Hernández, Floro Zorrilla, Miguel Zaballa, Vitalino Matas, Rafael Enrizo ( Nené), Juan de la Cruz and Welcome León.
He did duets with Pablo Vasconcelos, Román León (Nano) and Bienvenido León; but the most important was the one he joined with Alejandro Montalbán. He was also a member of the Nano trio, made up of: Nano León, lead singer; Welcome León, second voice, and Ballagas — replacing Tirso Díaz — on guitar, which later became a quartet with the addition of Domingo Capallejas.
Patricio Ballagas made a total change in the style of the trova; he abandoned the scratched or strummed bolero —he actually composed very few of them—, they were more like four-beat songs, with double text, counterpoint and melody juxtaposed to the leading song, he did the second, with another lyric, which was a creation of him.
This is of enormous importance; For this reason, instead of four great ones as has been said so far, Ballagas becomes, due to the aforementioned, the fifth. Each one differed in different aspects. Sindo Garay, for the melodic and harmonic depth, and for the originality of the second he did.
Rosendo Ruiz Suárez, for his beautiful melodies and the multiple styles that he cultivated; Rosendo's talent is demonstrated in his bolero "La reja", in which he uses a harmony based on progression (the progression is given, and many harmonists confuse a succession of chords: this links with the other and this with that , their reciprocal relationships; a true progression is given by the repetition of a model, a model is chosen that is repeated at different heights, either going up or down), and this was done by Rosendo in the aforementioned bolero.
Manuel Corona, for his very well put together and richly harmonized melodies, and for the second one he did; that occurs in those creators who are born with that harmonic vein, because the second is a way to master harmony, the chords of three and four sonorities, in which when singing first and second, you have to choose only two; then the good harmonist, when doing the second, looks for the most significant and important notes of the harmony, which can be of four sounds or chords, and he looks for, among the four, the best one to put it in the second voice that harmonizes the first ; this can be seen in one of his deepest songs, such as "Santa Cecilia".
Alberto Villalón, is more technical in his accompaniments, he not only put the appropriate chord, but also included a series of passing notes, which he knew perfectly