Juan Vicente Lecuna (1899-1954)

Venezuelan composer and pianist. He studied the piano with Salvador Llamozas at the Caracas National School of Music, where he graduated in 1917. Between 1918 and 1926 he lived in New York City as a freelance pianist, while studying with E. Kuypers and A. Savine. By 1926 he returned to Venezuela, where he initiated a financial career while still composing. By 1936 he had earned a diplomatic post at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington. This job afforded Lecuna a long period of foreign residencies which put him in contact with several important composers and performers in the Americas and Europe, including Nicanor Zabaleta and Claudio Arrau, to whom he dedicated his Sonata for harp and his Suburbio for piano respectively. In 1941 he worked with Straube at the Peabody Conservatory. He was commissioned by the Venezuelan Ministry of Education in 1942 to look into the state of public school music education in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Chile. During these visits he lectured extensively on Venezuelan music. He eventually established a close collaboration with the Chilean composer Domingo Santa Cruz, and was made an honorary member of the fine arts faculty at the University of Chile in 1944. He also received the artistic guidance of composer Jaime Pahissa in Buenos Aires, and of Manuel de Falla (exiled in the province of Córdoba, Argentina), with whom he cultivated a warm friendship. After a short return to Venezuela in 1946, he spent his last years as a member of the Venezuelan legation to the Vatican.

Lecuna is distinguished by the refinement and balance of his style, best characterized in his piano music. His works represents neo-classical tendencies and many nationalistic elements. Lecuna’s neo-classicism evokes Renaissance period and Baroque Spain. His best known composition, the set of Sonatas de Altagracia for piano, recalls the structure and texture of the sonatas of Scarlatti, and incorporates rhythmic motives characteristic of Venezuelan traditional dances.

Discography of works:

Title: Sonatas de Alta Gracia I, II, III, IV y V; y Sonata para Arpa.

Year/Date of Composition: 1937-47                                             

Title:  Quatre Pieces - Vals Caraqueño, II. Criolla, III. Joropo, IV. Danza

Year/Date of Composition: 1938

Bibliography: 

Juan Orrego-Salas and Carmen Helena Téllez. "Lecuna, Juan Vicente." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 20 Oct. 2011 <http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/16234>.