Carrillo: Preludio a Cristobal Colón - 13th Sound Ensemble of Havana

Recorded February 7, 1930, on American Columbia matrices 98677 and 98678. First issued on Columbia 50216-D about 1930. By the time of the 1936 Gramophone Shop Encyclopedia the record was listed as 5115-M, and still later (about 1939) it was reissued as 7357-M, the form in which I have it. My pressing is from 1946-47. It was still listed in the 1949 Columbia Catalogue, so the record had quite a long catalogue life for music so frankly experimental. The piece is written in quarter, eighth and sixteenth-tones, that is, with smaller intervals than the usual half-tones of Western music. It is scored, according to the 1936 Gramophone Shop Encyclopedia, for wordless soprano voice, trumpet, horn, cello, harp-zither and octavina, which I think is a type of guitar. The "cello" sounds more like a violin to me, and Angel Reyes, the director of this ensemble, was a violinist; perhaps it is he who plays the violin on this recording. None of the other musicians is named. To download a higher-quality audio file of this recording, visit my blog - http://shellackophile.blogpost.com - where this and many other vintage classical music recordings can be found.