Salvador Contreras

Salvador Contreras Sánchez (10 November 1910 – 7 November 1982) was a Mexican composer and violinist, a member of the Grupo de los cuatro.

Contreras was born in Cuerámaro, Guanajuato, the son of José Contreras and Nemoria Sánchez. His musical education was at the Mexico City Conservatory, where he studied violin with Silvestre Revueltas, music theory with Candelario Huízar, and composition and conducting with Carlos Chávez. Together with Daniel Ayala Pérez, Blas Galindo, and José Pablo Moncayo, he formed the Grupo de jóvenes compositores in 1935, which later became the Grupo de los cuatro (Stevenson 2001).

Contreras's early works from the 1930s and early 1940s were predominantly contrapuntal and neoclassical, with folk-like tunes and brash rhythms. His Obertura en tiempo de danza (Overture in Dance Time, 1942), for example, prominently uses measures in 7/8 and 5/8, which alternate with the more common 2/4 and 3/4. In the mid 1960s he began using serial techniques, allying him with Manuel Enríquez and losing him his former broad public appeal (Slonimsky 1945, 236; Stevenson 2001).

Among his best-known works are:

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