Cuauhnáhuac (Revueltas)

Cuauhnáhuac is an orchestral composition by the Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas. It exists in three versions, the first for string orchestra, the other two for full orchestra with winds and percussion. The first version takes nearly 15 minutes to perform, while the third lasts only about 11 minutes.

In March 1925, Revueltas left Chicago and his wife of five years, Jule Klarasy, who stayed behind with their then three-year-old daughter Carmen. They were divorced in June 1927, by which time Revueltas had accepted a teaching post at the College of Music in San Antonio, Texas. There he met Aurora Murguía, the widow of Mexican revolutionary General Francisco Murguía (), and they soon were living together. Late in1928, Revueltas received an invitation from Carlos Chávez offering him a position teaching violin and conducting the student Orchestra in the National Conservatory in Mexico City, as well as the post of Associate Conductor of Chávez's recently founded Orquesta Sinfónica Mexicana. Revueltas seized the opportunity and early in 1929 he and Aurora moved to Mexico City. It was at this time that Revueltas began composing in earnest, and the manuscript of one of his earliest large-scale compositions, the string-orchestra version of Cuauhnáhuac, is dedicated to Aurora (Parker 2002, 117, 119, 123–25, 129; Parker 2004, 182, 185, 190–91). He would also dedicate his Second String Quartet (Magueyes) (1931) to her (Baldassarre 2015, 464–65).

As in many other of his compositions, Revueltas composed several versions of Cuauhnáhuac. The first, for string orchestra, was written in June 1931 during a stay in Cuernavaca, the city from which it derives its name (Contreras Soto 2000, 35; Teibler-Vondrak 2011, 29n81). He then immediately set about rescoring it for full orchestra, in an unpublished version completed later in the same year. In the following year he created the third and final version, completing the new score in December 1932. This last version was premiered on 2 June 1933 by the Orquesta Sinfónica de México, conducted by the composer (Aktories and Kolb 1996, 2, 14; Estrada 2012, 54; Paraskevaídis 2011, 34; Slonimsky & 1945 249–50).

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