The maestro is one of the main pillars of our music.
This January, José María Vitier turned 71 years old; but if we take into account the family environment and the particularity that surrounded him since his birth, we could say that we are also celebrating almost the same number of years of artistic life.
The talent and aptitude of the Vitier García-Marruz brothers was something that distinguished them from childhood. Each one communicated with the other in a very singular way. Both, by treading the dangerous paths of experimentation, were able to arrive at very defining concepts in music, although with stylistically different expressive edges: Sergio an extraordinary guitarist and composer, and José María the same, but with the piano.
If we turn to José María’s extensive career, we will find diverse events and sonic ruptures that invite us to continue studying his work.
He has not stuck to rigid formats but, like a goldsmith with infinite patience, he has been scrutinising an infinite number of them to achieve, in each one, a marvellous result. For many, there are still sonorous images of the years of the group he led, and from which instrumental themes were written for TV series such as En silencio ha tenido que ser; Julito el pescador; or Para empezar a vivir, with a marked conceptual differentiation in each one. The musical resources used by José María speak to us of a full morphological mastery, of a composer – very young at the time – with an evident skill and with the capacity not only to resort to forms of so-called traditional harmony, but also to shape his own alternative language. In this line we can not only group instruments and formats, but there are also two general lines: the inclusion of a contemporary musical language that blends with the academic, and the author’s ability to capture, musically, the essence of a dramatisation.
And there we come across another of José María’s great passions: bringing characters to life through their music. But his work not only dives into the waters of instrumental works, but also, since the 1980s, announces his grace for writing songs. Let’s remember that, unlike En silencio… and Julito…, the central theme of Para empezar a vivir is a beautiful one sung by Pablo, and then came La frontera del deber, sung by Pablo and Silvio, which can be heard in the final chapter of the series.
José María is also relevant as the author of soundtracks for Cuban cinema, in which his vocation for renewal has allowed him to tread very fertile paths. If we take into account El siglo de las luces, Fresa y chocolate and Un paraíso bajo las estrellas, we would notice the author’s palette of creative diversity, while still leaving his stamp.
We could add the Spanish film Cosas que dejé en La Habana to his extensive collaboration with cinema, as well as works of great technical and stylistic complexity such as El Salmo de las Américas and Misa Cubana, as well as more than 30 phonograms and dissimilar collaborations with Martirio, Liuba María Hevia, Pablo Milanés, Niurka González, Silvio Rodríguez, Bárbara Llanes, Amaury Pérez Vidal and many more. José María is, without a doubt, one of the main forks of our music and of its infinite sonorous mestizaje, congratulations, maestro!