El Cimarrón (The Runaway Slave) is a composition by the German composer Hans Werner Henze, written when the composer lived in Cuba in 1969-1970. It is subtitled Biographie des geflohenen Sklaven Esteban Montejo (Biography of the runaway slave Esteban Montejo), and is based on the autobiographical passages recounted by Montejo to Miguel Barnet in 1963. Montejo was also a veteran of the Cuban War of Independence (1895-98).
Henze described the score as a recital for four musicians. They consist of a baritone who portrays El Cimarron himself, a guitarist, a flautist and a percussionist, although all four musicians play percussion instruments during the work. The flautist also plays the Japanese ryuteki and the Italian scacciapensieri, as well as the four conventional orchestral flutes.
The work received its premiere at the 1970 Berlin Festival, with William Pearson as El Cimarron, and the soloists Karlheinz Zoeller (flute), Leo Brouwer (guitar) and Stomu Yamash'ta (percussion) under the direction of the composer. The UK premiere was in June 1970 at the Aldeburgh Festival with the same forces.
Tableaux
The work is divided into fifteen "tableaux" which are essentially songs, although these make several vocal demands on the baritone, including laughter, whistling, shouting, screaming and falsetto.
Esteban Montejo
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Esteban Mesa Montejo (1860-1965) had been a runaway Cuban slave. He told his story to the Cuban ethnologist Miguel Barnet in taped interviews carried out in 1963. Barnet edited the transcripts and published them in 1966, as Biografía de un cimarrón. An English translation has been published as Biography of a runaway slave and The autobiography of a runaway slave.
Montejo's and Barnet's book includes descriptions of African religious expression and of Montejo's life as a fugitive slave, along with recollections of the Cuban war for independence from Spain, which ultimately involved the United States. The book ends in 1905, following the US occupation of 1898-1902.
