Mexico City

January 1929

No dedication

There is no record of a performance of the work, though there are instrumental parts done by the composer. This work may have been included in the programming of the Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, 1937, as part of the “Poems of Nicolás Guillén” that appear in a rough draft of this programming.

5’

2fl (picc), 2ob (eh), 2cl[B♭], 2bn (cbn) / tpt, tbn / va, vc

The autograph has been preserved, divided into two sections, bound separately. The first three movements are in the first, and the final movement in the second. Several sketches pertaining to this piece have also been found (one of them also contains a sketch of an orchestration of “La Adelita”).

The manuscript is untitled and is catalogued in the SRDL with the purely descriptive title “piece for twelve instruments.”
This untitled score was completed in Mexico City in January 1929, the year of his definitive return to the country. Judging by the English-language indications in the sketches preceding the composition, one could infer that the work was begun in San Antonio, Texas, where the composer lived from 1926 to 1929.
No instrumental parts or other documents suggesting a possible performance have been found.

UNAM Critical Edition