<i>Jesús María Sanromá: An American Twentieth-Century Pianist</i> (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Jesús María Sanromá: An American Twentieth-Century Pianist Donald Thompson Alberto Hernández. Jesús María Sanromá: An American Twentieth-Century Pianist. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. 2008. 338 pp. For well over a century the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico has been sending musicians out into the broader world to study, to make careers, or to return to the island as performers and teachers. The first was probably young pianist Manuel Gregorio Tavárez (1842–1883), who was sent to Paris at the age of 15, with some help from the Spanish government, to study at the Conservatoire. As the route to Europe opened for Puerto Rican students and the rigors of travel gradually eased, Tavárez was followed by an increasing flow of talented island youth throughout the rest of the 19th century. When Puerto Rico came under U.S. control in 1898 as a result of the Spanish-American War, direct channels of communication and discourse with Europe virtually dried up and new ones had to be developed—but now with the Colossus of the North and during a period of stressful cultural, economic, and political adjustment. As part of a new stream of traffic between San Juan and the U.S., Puerto Rican musicians began to appear as students and performers on the continent, mainly in New York City but in other centers as well. Many aspects of Puerto Rican life became completely integrated into U.S. life during the 20th century. As a result of this process, and as the United States (and Puerto Rico with it) became a factor in the international flow of musical forces, a flowering diaspora of successful island-born mu-sicians—singers, instrumentalists, conductors, and teachers—has taken place, with the musicians occupying posts from South Africa to Russia, with many settling in Europe or remaining in the United States following professional studies there. Occupying an honored place in these far-reaching 20th-century developments was pianist Jesús María Sanromá. Sanromá was born in the island town of Carolina in 1902, during the first years of the post-war political and economic trauma. His parents were immigrant Spaniards, but the boy became a U.S. citizen by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1917 (along with all other persons born in Puerto Rico). The lad showed signs of musical precocity, and his parents saw to it that he received piano instruction, with José Sanromá, his father, later managing the 12-year-old boy's debut and an island tour while seeking financial support for a move abroad. Sanromá's [End Page 256] acceptance to the New England Conservatory of Music at the age of 14 led to graduation with honors at 17, to advanced studies, to a very productive life and career anchored in Boston, to great contributions to the cause of contemporary music, and ultimately to equally great contributions to the cause of music in Puerto Rico. Sanromá was a packrat and proud of it. At the time of his death in 1984 he left some 150 boxes of richly annotated books and scores; recordings; correspondence; contracts; reviews; feature articles; interviews; dining and hotel receipts; train and bus schedules; photos; and his own detailed diaries, notebooks, itineraries, schedules, and notes. These last included hundreds of annotated index cards with names, addresses, dates, and personal information about the people the pianist met on the road. Alberto Hernández, who had been a student of Sanromá's at the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music in the 1970s, was granted access to this vast accumulation for purposes of research. Partly supported by grants and academic leave, Hernández was intermittently occupied in its exploration for some eight years. His acquaintance with the material and the collaboration of the pianist's family led to the conception of the present biography, one of very few book-length biographies of Puerto Rican musicians and by far the best documented. The work is divided into five sections, corresponding to five phases of the pianist's life: Part One: The Young Artist, 1902–1916; Part Two: An American Experience, 1917–1927; Part Three: European Sojourn, 1927–1929; Part Four...