Über den Wellen - MVSR2413 | Musica

Most of his life, the Otomi Indian Juventino Rosas (1868-1894) was a victim of circumstances and lived in adverse conditions. When his familiy moved to the Mexican capital in 1875, its members played music to keep their heads above water after a fashion. In 1885 Rosas entered the conservatoire, but left his institution without an examination in the same year. He was probably forced to this step by the conditions he lived in. A second attempt to study at the conservatoire once again failed in 1888 for the same reasons.
Most of his published works were written around that year. This also holds true for his most famous piece, the waltz “Sobre las Olas” (“Over the Waves”), which he dedicated to his benefactor’s wife, Calixta Gutiérrez de Alfaro. In the early 1890s he is said to have been a member of several military bands. In fact, military bands did a lot to make his works become popular all over Mexico. Finally in 1893 he became a member of a so-called Orquesta Típica Mexicana and toured in the United Sates with it. The group then went to Cuba, on to Trinidad and then came back to Cuba. This tour had not always been very successful, but his waltz always attracted applause and was the group’s most performed piece. In Cuba Juventino Rosas contracted a virus infection, and as a consequence of this disease, he eventually died in Batabanó in July 1894. It is interesting to note that the waltz came to Mexico as a musical “heritage” of the short-lived Mexican empire.
Rosas became well known on account of his waltz, but he did not earn any substantial amount of money from it, as he had sold the piece to Wagner y Levien immediately after its completion.